Please be seated: how we can thank French villages for honouring Irish war dead

LAST September the villages of Ginchy and Guillemont in the Somme region of France joined to commemorate the courageous efforts and grievous losses suffered by the 16th Irish Division to liberate both villages from German occupation in September 1916.

Following the fighting, which raged from September 3 to 9, more than 1,000 Irish dead lay strewn in the fields around these villages. On the morning of September 9, 2006 the names of all of the Irish dead were read by the mayor of Guillemont, Didier Samain, and by his council members.

Later that day, commemoration services were held at Guillemont and Ginchy churches and at the site known as Ginchy Telegraph where the battle was finally won.

In preparation for the commemoration, the mayor of Guillemont and his villagers had worked tirelessly to renovate Guillemont church. During the ceremony, a statue of St Patrick was presented to the mayor by the Combined Irish Regiments Association (a second statue was presented to Ginchy church). This statue now has pride of place in Guillemont church.

Outside the church stands one of the most significant memorials to Irish participation in the Great War. It’s the Ginchy Cross — a Celtic cross in stone dedicated to the 16th Irish Division and carrying the division’s emblem, the shamrock.

The original wooden Ginchy Cross, erected in 1917 in the fields between the two villages, can be seen in the Irish War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge, Dublin.

During the course of the commemoration, Mayor Samain expressed his desire to fill his refurbished church at Guillemont with benches from Ireland.

The commemoration organisers would now like to appeal for such benches. They will enhance the status of Guillemont church as a significant site of Ireland’s Great War memory. It is intended that each bench donated would bear a plaque dedicated to the individual regiments of the 16th Irish Division. Later this year, fundraising concerts will be held for the transportation of the benches which will be presented as a gift to the Guillemont and Ginchy villages in gratitude for their ongoing efforts to honour the memory of Ireland’s Great War dead.

Any person or group in a position to donate benches should contact me at the address below. A similar appeal is being launched in the North by my colleagues, Harry Beattie of the Royal Naval Association and historian Yvonne McEwen of Edinburgh University.

Dr Tom Quinn

200 Lr Kimmage Road

Dublin 6W

Phone: [phone]