Cork concert is seen as part of larger Remembrance Day ceremonies

I FIND it hard to fathom why the Lord Mayor of Cork, Brian Bermingham, should wish to organise a concert in the City Hall in honour of Corkmen who died in British uniform in the First World War. Moreover, the timing (November 8) makes the concert part of a bigger Remembrance Day/Poppy Day ceremony — a blanket commemoration of all British regiments and campaigns.

These include without question the Black-and-Tan campaign and the Anglo-Irish war during which Cork’s City Hall, along with a sizeable chunk of the city, was burned down — by British forces. I can’t help wondering if the irony is lost on Mr Bermingham, one of whose predecessors, Terence McSwiney, died in Brixton prison on hunger strike in 1920 while another, Tomás McCurtain, was shot dead by British forces. Indeed both men are commemorated with busts outside the very same concert venue.

We have witnessed a rash of such commemorative events in recent times, such as the opening of a so-called Peace Memorial Park in Co Mayo by President McAleese. This park aims to commemorate Irish servicemen — “whatever their uniform” — yet notably absent are the names of Irishmen — especially Mayo men — in the old IRA who died trying to obtain self-determination for this country: self-determination that was one of the catch-calls Britain used when recruiting cannon-fodder here but dropped as soon as the First World War was over.