November 11, 2003
The Eleventh Hour
I came across the Clare Library website today - it is really excellent, both well-designed and loads of local information and history. Every county should have a similarly constructed page. One of the pages contains a list of every north Clare man who fought and perished in World War 1.
Today is Remembrance Day, or Poppy Day (or Veterans Day), which was originally instituted to mark the end of World War 1 (the war to end all wars) but now also commemorates the dead of many other wars since. In Ireland, commemorating the dead is proved somewhat problematic - given the historical grudge with our nearest neighbour, honouring Irishmen who fell wearing a British uniform had become something of a rarity (though not always, as this history of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers records). In recent years, there has been a rapprochement - the Peace Process and Ireland's increasing self-confidence as a nation has enabled people to commemorate the sacrifice and honour of the fallen soldiers, irrespective of the flag or cause for which they fell.
It could not be any other way. The Irish are a wandering race, and have fought and died all over the world; from Patrick Sarsfield, the Little Big Horn, the Two World Wars to even the latest conflict in the Gulf, when Dubliner Ian Malone was killed while serving in the Irish Guards.
The historical ambiguity, and the lingering wound of The Troubles has meant that the state does not celebrate in a meaningful way those who died in an Irish uniform - for all the holy days and bank holidays in this country, there is not one that honours those who fought and died for Independence or as part of a United Nations action. Perhaps we will know that this nation is truly at peace with itself when those Clare men who died in French and Belgian fields are honoured alongside those who died under an Irish flag, and those who would pay their respects did so not as a political gesture but as a simple act of veneration.
The photo of the poppy was taken in 1995 at the site of the Bergen Belsen deathcamp, in northern Germany. Yet another example of the madness that beset a nation, it was the logical conclusion of a political philosophy that demonised the 'other', the 'different', the 'abnormal', the 'foreign', the 'impure'. There was no scientific approach to killing in this camp. Jews, homosexuals, left-wing activists and other 'undesirables' were interned in one side of the camp - Russian POWs were kept in the other half. Both sides were simply neglected, so that the inmates starved to death. When the camp was liberated, the soldiers burned it to the ground, and quickly buried the mounds of the dead to prevent the spread of typhus which was rapidly killing the survivors. Only a few small hills, a meadow and a few plaques remain.
Posted by Monasette at November 11, 2003 09:13 PM