Let’s honour Irish war dead in our own way
There was hardly a family in Ireland left untouched by the enormous tragedy of young lives lost during the Great War, so it is entirely proper, and perhaps overdue, that public ceremonies be held to commemorate those who never returned.
What is not acceptable, however, is the effort at conferring a new respectability upon the British army under the guise of honouring the war dead.
During the course of the Great War, the British army ruthlessly suppressed the Easter Rebellion, and during the War of Independence vile atrocities were perpetrated against those who dared to assert their national identity.
Young Irishmen fought and died, including John Condon, the youngest British soldier to die in the war, for freedoms that were being denied to their own land. The Irish who died in the war should be honoured in an appropriate manner, without the pomp and pageant of the British imperial military ethos.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is the amount of debate centring on the extent of our participation in remembering those killed instead of debating just who was responsible for the slaughter of millions.
Tom Cooper,
23, Delaford Lawn,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.
