An Cosantóir

www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE | 13 "One hundred years ago the guns finally fell silent on the Western Front, signalling the conclusion of one thousand five hundred and sixty-four days of continuous warfare… We assemble, on this most solemn day, to remember the fourteen million souls who lost their lives in that terrible conflagration. Ours is not a celebration of militarism, nor a valorisation of martial spirit, but a simple recognition of our common humanity, as we recall the destruction of the promise and potential of a generation in the First World War… We remember, in particular, the two hundred thousand men from across the island of Ireland, North and South, East and West, who served in that war, and we call to mind in a special way the tens of thousands who never returned home who remain forever in the soil of Belgium, France, Greece and Turkey. Even as we, in these first decades of the twenty-first century, have the material capacity to abolish all forms of human poverty, to alleviate all unnecessary suffering, we are still devoting so much of our creativity, not to the preservation or achievement of peace, but to the prosecution of and preparation for war. On this Armistice Day we are called to remember. We must remember how easily the powers of Europe, with all their centuries of scholarship, philosophy and learning, cast it all aside and fell into enduring and terrible enmity… Let us then, on this day, re-dedicate ourselves to cause of peace, and the support of those institutions which promote and preserve the peace. Let us recall the great spirit that animated Europe in the days and months and years after Armistice Day, the spirit that gave birth to the League of Nations. Síochán síoraí d'anamacha na marbh. Guímis beannachtaí ar a gclanna (Eternal peace of the souls of the dead I wish greetings to their families)." Full speech available on president.ie or using this link: https://bit.ly/2DKpwWz I will leave the final words to another Irish poet and scholar, Lieutenant Tom Kettle who wrote to his daughter Betty 5-days before he was killed on the Somme on 9th September 1916: In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown To beauty proud as was your mother's prime, In that desired, delayed, incredible time You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own, And the dear heart that was you baby's one To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme And reason: some will call the thing sublime, And some decry it in a knowing tone. So here, while the man guns curse overhead, And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor, Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor. T.M. Kettle In the field before Guillemont, Somme Sept. 4, 1916 Veterans and foreign service members. Members of the French Foreign Legion Association of Ireland. OTHER REMEMBRANCE SERVICE FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Cork: A Defence Forces Honour Guard and UN veterans pic- tured at Cork's Remembrance Day 2018. Photos by Jennifer Sheehan Photography Listowel, Co Kerry: Pictured at the Memorial Stone at the rear of St. John's Arts Centre in the square of Listowel is the Mayor of Listowel, Aoife Thornton who also laid the 2008 wreath. Also pictured is Listowel Councillor Jimmy Moloney and members from the American Legion, ONE Thomas Ash Branch (Kerry), IUNVA Post 2 (Kerry), the Killorglin Pipe Band and Trish Mulvihill and Damien Stack committee members of the WW1 Remembrance Asso- ciation. Photo: Jim Halpin

• Cover