No glory in the appalling waste of war

HEROISM has come back to the earth,” Pádraic Pearse wrote in December 1915.

“The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields. Such August homage was never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives gladly given for love of country.”

James Connolly wrote in response: “We do not think that the old heart of the earth needs to be warmed with the red wine of millions of lives. We think anyone who does is a blithering idiot.”