There is no need for expensive commemorations of our volunteers

I read in the local newspapers that the Lyre Volunteer Company (between Clonakilty and Ballineen) is to be commemorated with a monument costing €8,000 though it took no active part in the 1916 Rising.

These brave men would be embarrassed to know that their assembly and march from Lyre to Inchigeela to collect the anticipated guns from the ill-fated Aud is to be remembered by a local group at the expense of the public and private purse.

The group planning this commemoration say they have only received €500 of a grant from Cork County Council.

Why a seven-foot high granite monument? Surely, a marble plaque inscribed with the names of the volunteers, no need to include the names of their townlands, and mounted at a suitable public place in the vicinity of Lyre should be sufficient?

In that case, a grant would then go a long way in covering the cost of such a plaque.

Such commemorations need not be grandiose.

God only knows what the next five to six years of commemoration will bring?

James O’Donovan

Main Street

Ballineen

Co Cork