Emotional return to the killing fields

THE letter from Dr Tom Quinn (Irish Examiner, February 12) recalled the ceremonies last year in France commemorating the Irishmen who died in World War I.

At Ginchy, on September 9 last, I had the honour of laying a wreath on behalf of the 16th (Irish) Division as a member of the family of Major-Gen Sir William Bernard Hickie, its commander (1915-1918).

The issues surrounding the involvement of so many men (and the impact on their families) from the nationalist tradition are extremely complex. Despite the progress in the very necessary and often agonised debate last year, these issues still have to be worked through fully by all of us.

They were defined by Tom Kettle who was killed at Ginchy Telegraph where we laid our wreaths 60 years later. He wrote, prophetically, about the bust of the writer Anatole France: “It is the face of a soldier ready to die for a flag in which he does not entirely believe.”

So far as the current inhabitants of Ginchy and Guillemont are concerned, those Irish soldiers whose names they recited (sometimes with difficulty) last September liberated their homes and land 60 years ago.

For all of us who participated, it was an occasion of quite extraordinary poignancy and emotion. Anybody familiar with the concepts of homestead and land in our history would have realised how much we have in common with these rural French people.

I urge your readers to support the call by Dr Quinn for us to reciprocate the generosity of the people of Ginchy and Guillemont where Irish church benches are being sought as a donation. Those two villages have not forgotten those members of our families who put their lives on the line for their families.

Maurice O’Connell

19 Forge Park

Oakpark

Tralee

Co Kerry