Somme anniversary - Time to face up to Great War legacy

HISTORY, so it is said, is defined by the songs of the victors. And that is one reason why, as we approach the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme next Saturday, more attention is given to a republican hymn in the shape of a film produced by an Englishman about the War of Independence than to a conflict in which immeasurably more Irishmen fought and died.

That we commemorate the Irish dead of the Great War — men who were for the most part brave nationalists who believed they were helping their country — in a lukewarm fashion is not something which does Ireland great credit.

That their memory is less celebrated and marked than the Easter Rising and the conflict of 1919-1922 is understandable. But not commendable. It is helpful that the Government is to mark the occasion for the first time this week with a commemoration ceremony in the National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge. And it is long overdue.

Given the profound interest in local and family history which now exists everywhere, it should be accompanied by an appropriate elevation of its status in school and further education studies.

Ireland is, thankfully, no longer a martial nation. Gone are the days when The Wild Geese would hire themselves out as shock troops to European emperors; when such as the Dublin-born Duke of Wellington could say: “It is mainly to the Irish Catholics that we all owe our proud pre-eminence in the military career.”

We are a mature nation now, and one that believes in peace. Mature nations face up to, and understand, their past and forgive the misjudgements of that age.

No doubt The Wind That Shakes The Barley is a good film. But it is a partial one. The lost souls of Ireland, 1915-1918, deserve their story to be told.

Perhaps someone in Hollywood, or even Ireland, would like to fund the film version of Sebastian Barry’s moving novel A Long, Long Way to act as a counterbalance to contemporary myth-making?

It is time to make peace with, and honour, the past.