Allies After All: Guest Post by Dianne Ascroft

MIW are pleased to welcome a guest to our blog today. Dianne Ascroft is a member of Fermanagh Writers in Northern Ireland and writes WWII historical fiction. Her latest publication is as part of a short story collection, Pearl Harbor and More, which has been released by an international group of writers to mark the 75th anniversary of the battle of Pearl Harbour. Dianne’s story, Allies After All, is set in County Fermanagh during December 1941. In this post, she gives us an insight into the history of NI during the war and shares an excerpt from her story. 

ALLIES AFTER ALL

By Dianne Ascroft

Fermanagah Fields

As part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland had already been at war for more than two years when my story opens. But, it was the same, yet a different, war than the rest of the United Kingdom was waging. Due to the political and religious tensions in the province, some aspects of the province’s experience of the war differed greatly from the rest of the United Kingdom. They faced rationing, the fear of invasion by Axis troops and many saw their loved ones go off to fight.

But conscription was never introduced so those who joined the armed forces did so voluntarily. This meant that more men of military service age remained at home than in other parts of the UK. But what the province didn’t supply in manpower, they made up for with industrial output. Northern Ireland’s industries supplied ships, aircraft, munitions and cloth for the armed forces.

Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh.
Flying-boat bases were located near here.

County Fermanagh, in the west of the province, did its part for the war effort with increased crop yields and milk production for consumption locally and across the Irish Sea in England. Bordering neutral Ireland, the county was in a unique position. The hardships of rationing were offset by a thriving cross border smuggling trade between the two countries. Yet, at the same time, the Unionists in Fermanagh constantly worried about the proximity of the border, fearing that the IRA would sneak across it to attack the local targets, sabotage military operations in the county and aide Axis forces to infiltrate the province.

Local defence throughout Northern Ireland was overseen by the police rather than the military, in order to employ their local knowledge to prevent anyone with suspected terrorist connections from being accepted into the organisation. Thus, the Local Defence Force, which later became the Ulster Home Guard, was a branch of the police force.

Fermanagh Farmland

Northern Ireland was also a staging platform for the Allied troops that arrived in the United Kingdom to prepare for the invasion of occupied Europe. This included the Americans. Although America was neutral until the attack on Pearl Harbor pushed them into the war, they had already been in Northern Ireland for months, secretly preparing for their entry into the war. The construction of military installations by American civilian contractors, in various places in the United Kingdom, including
County Fermanagh, was already well underway by December 1941.

* * *

When my story opens, an American mechanic, Art Miller, working for a civilian company on the construction of ammunition storage dump facilities, meets Robbie Hetherington, a member of the Local Defence Force in County Fermanagh with interesting results. Here’s the excerpt from my story:

     Art yanked the van’s door open. Despite the crazy angle the vehicle was sitting at, in one quick movement he swung himself out of the driver’s seat onto the bumpy, badly surfaced road. Huh, you’d hardly call it a road; it wasn’t much wider than a sidewalk back home. Nothing like the smooth, straight Route 62 that passed through his hometown in New York State. The highway’s surface might crack in the summer heat, but there sure weren’t any craters in it. This was only fit for donkeys and carts. Guess that was about right around here.

     Art ran his hand across the back of his neck and up into his sandy crew cut as he stared at the vehicle. His old man had never let them grow their hair when they were kids, and he still had the same haircut he’d had in grade school. Not that he had a beef with that. He had the hair; now he just needed the uniform. He was ready to answer Uncle Sam’s call. 

     Well, if he ever got this truck outta the hole he would be. What he could sure use right now would be Popeye to come along and lift that tin can outta there. He wasn’t far outside Ardess village but he hadn’t seen anyone around when he drove through it. The place looked like a ghost town. It was more than a mile back to Kiltierney camp. If he started walking, with any luck, a truck headed for the camp would pass him and he could hitch a ride. He’d get someone to come back and tow him out.

     As he turned and started walking away from the vehicle, a young man around his own age wearing a heavy khaki overcoat and field service cap cycled toward him on a sturdy black bicycle.

     “Hiya, buddy,” Art said to the cyclist when he stopped beside him. 

     “Are you abandoning that vehicle in the middle of the road?” the khaki-uniformed man sputtered.

     “Well, it ain’t goin’ nowhere. It’s stuck in a hole.”

     “You can’t leave it there. It might fall into the wrong hands.”

      “Is that so? I don’t see anyone around here. Do you?” Art ran his hand through his hair as he stared at the man. Who is this smart aleck? he thought. 

     “See here, you certainly can’t leave it there. Spies or terrorists could sneak across the border from Ireland and have it quicker than a fox slips into a henhouse.”

     Art raised one eyebrow and snorted. “Yeah? And how do I know you ain’t a Jerry soldier? Who are you, anyway, pal?”

     “I’m a Local Defence Volunteer. Let’s see your ID.”  

     

     Could this day get any worse? Art really didn’t feel like dealing with this smart aleck right now. He had had it with being pushed around. “Is that a wing of the Boy Scouts?”

     Art thought his interrogator looked sore about the wisecrack, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to get that truck out of the hole and get back to camp to finish the repair he’d been working on. If he couldn’t convince the boss to send him home, then he would do his darndest to get this construction project finished lickity-split so he could get outta here.   

     The uniformed man regarded him stiffly. “It’s the Ulster Special Constabulary.” 

     “You’re a copper, then?” 

     “No, Local Defence. Like the Home Guard in England.”

     “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them – aren’t they old guys, soldiers that are over the hill? Marching around with broomsticks.”

     “Not in Northern Ireland. We’re part of the police force. And we’re issued Lee–Enfield rifles.”

     Art shook his head. The guy looked pretty young to be in some broomstick brigade instead of the army, but what did he care? It was none of his beeswax. Getting this truck out of the hole was. Say, maybe this smart aleck could help him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All Text and Images © Dianne Ascroft 

Dianne Ascroft is a Canadian writer living in Northern Ireland. She writes historical and contemporary fiction, often with an Irish connection. Her series The Yankee Years is a collection of Short Reads and novels set in World War II–era Northern Ireland. Her other writing includes a ghost tale inspired by the famous Coonian ghost, An Unbidden Visitor; a short story collection, Dancing Shadows, Tramping Hooves, and an historical novel, Hitler and Mars Bars. She is lives on a farm near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh and is a member of Fermanagh Writers, Writers Abroad, the Historical Novel Society and the Alliance of Independent Authors. 

To purchase Pearl Harbor and More, click here.  

Online Dianne lurks at: www.dianneascroft.com

Follow her on: Facebook: www.facebook.com/DianneAscroftwriter

Twitter: www.twitter.com/DianneAscroft  

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1357575.Dianne_Ascroft

Independence Indifference: Thoughts on the Easter Rising

By Des Farry

© Des Farry

On looking back at my school days, if I was asked the question ‘What did the Easter Rising mean to you?' the answer has to be not a lot or complete indifference as something which happened in Dublin and had nothing to do with us.

Outside of school the only influences and tenuous links with the Rising were an old man who tried unsuccessfully to sell copies of The United Irishman or Inniu (‘Today’, an Irish language paper) outside Church after Sunday Mass, a background low level IRA Border campaign conducted  by outsiders  with little local input which had largely petered out and occasional home visits from people selling leather goods and Celtic Crosses made by internees at Crumlin Road Prison to raise funds.

Our only contact with the actual events of the Easter Rising was when the film Mise Eire with music composed by Seán Ó Riada was released. We were all marched down to the County Cinema en masse to see it. It was followed by a couple of Gael Linn shorts.

The first was called Peil starring Christy Ring the Cork hurler demonstrating Hurling skills with commentary in Irish and greeted in silence. Nobody had any interest at all in Hurling and not a great deal in Irish either.

The second was Gaelic Greats which finally produced emotion, when Sean Purcell, the Galway footballer appeared on screen to be greeted with a loud chorus of boos. He was infamous in Tyrone for a very heavy unpunished tackle on County goalkeeper and local man Thaddy Turbitt. Gaelic Greats??? With no mention of Tyrone maestro Iggy Jones?? Ridiculous!!

Omagh was football country, soccer on Saturday night at The Showgrounds, Gaelic on Sunday at St. Enda’s.

So what did I take from the film session? It has to be the magnificent music from Mise Eire which has never been bettered.

Sculpture of the composer Seán Ó Riada in Cúil Aodha
Photo: Dlindod (Own work); licensed under CCA.

And about the content of the film?  Nothing at all, it was never mentioned again.

So why the indifference?  Looking back it was partly down to the History syllabus of the time. Although we followed both British and Irish history as separate subjects which frequently came together albeit from different viewpoints, the time period only extended from about 1485 to the early 19th century.

Also, the local economy in early 1960s Northern Ireland was booming with the production of man made fibres and goods being major new employers alongside existing large scale traditional shirt and clothing factories. Similarly, in services new opportunities were coming through its  own TV networks and music prowess.

High levels of emigration from the Republic underlined its failure and lack of attractiveness as a dull, backward place. The aspirations expressed in the Proclamation and the film Mise Eire did not match up with the reality on the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Text © Des Farry

Des Farry comes originally from near Omagh in Northern Ireland and has lived in Greater Manchester for over 40 years. He has been writing since about age 15 (local notes for Ulster Herald). He has written or contributed to various published and internal non-fiction organisational professional guides and books on corporate finance plus a number of short stories for various competitions and the former Dublin Writers Site (Electric Acorn).

First Television: A Poem to Remember Aberfan

By Kevin McMahon

50 years ago today, on 21 October 1966, a mountain of coal waste collapsed in a lethal avalanche into a school and houses in the village of Aberfan in Wales. 144 people, including 116 children, were killed. I wrote this poem in remembrance of those who died, and those who bore and still bear the grief of the Aberfan disaster.  

FIRST TELEVISION

A poem

Photo: Danielclauzier (licensed under CCA). 

21 October 1966

Excitement welled like an unseen spring,

That last day before the half-term break.

With skies dark and thick as coal sludge, 

The rain – for the second day that week – 

Had left us trapped in classrooms

Behind high, steamed and streaming windows.

I ached for the release of the evening bell.

Lessons ambled past my reverie,

Anticipating Bilko’s antics,

Concocting Oxo-family tableaux, 

A cocoon of laughter, where Michael Miles 

Presided over “Yes-No interludes”.

Unleashed by school’s end we ran,

A yelping avalanche splitting the gloom.

A knot of women huddled sombre at the gate,

Heads scarfed against the rain, in quiet talk.

Blushing at my mother’s long embrace,

And pulling at the hand that gripped my own –

With more than usual tightness – 

I rattled out my plans, my hopes,

As she palmed the raindrops from her face.

It sat, intruding on the normal,

On splayed and spindly legs,

Chairs, newly shifted to strange places,

Shrank the little parlour.

Its unfamiliar light transformed

Our faces, pallid as we watched 

A silent throng of mothers 

Where the gates had been,

Heads scarfed against the rain. 

They stood and stared at rooftops

Protruding from the spoil,

And waited for their children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo 'Condensation on a Window in Wexford, Ireland', by Danielclauzier (licensed under CCA). 

Text: © Kevin McMahon

Kevin has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers since 1998 – with a few years’ absence due to work commitments prior to his retirement!  He has contributed to the group’s publications “The Retting Dam”, “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”, and regularly performs at the group’s events.  He is a former winner of the “New Writing” award at Listowel Writers’ Week in Country Kerry, and has been shortlisted for a number of other awards for memoirs and short stories.  With Alrene Hughes, Kevin co-edited the publication of monologues arising from the “Changing Skies” project.  His scripts have been professionally performed in various venues, and he has had poetry broadcast on the BBC.

Proclamation for All: A Poem

By Bridie Breen

PROCLAMATION FOR ALL

The scroll of proclamation

rolls words off my tongue.

One hundred years on

Easter 1916 bleats from within

the Risen lamb that bled into veins

of the men and women who testified

to the call to rise, to stand united.

A furnace to fire eternal endurance

through the lilt of a freedom song

Each Irish man and woman

Every daughter and son felt the fist of change

It pounded across the land.

Demanding choices to be made 

lines to be drawn, sides to divide

and new history to form.

A mere century on from Grattan’s demise

the tears of many were shed

Emancipation the sought after prize

Innocents died in the fury

while the raw truth of the cause

forced the iron claw to unfurl

Dominance no longer appeased the masses.

The pulse of men whose hearts

 raced as their pens scribed

In a time when signatures sealed their fate

Markers of rebellion, so distinct

they were sought out

to be executed.

History coddled the deep 

mourning of generations

The road ahead transformed

 beyond belief.

Regimes of colonial past 

illuminated   by the rising dawn. 

Home ruled hands may not have grasped

the essence of Irish hearts

Their entrenched will to change

The question remains, as to where we’d be

if the blood of those in 1916 

Became names on a chalked board

Erased  out of our imaginings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Text © Bridie Breen.

Images are in the Public Doman via Wikimedia Commons.

Bridie has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers for quite a few years. Although her first love is poetry, she writes on all topics. She has contributed to the group’s publications “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”. Her Changing Skies piece is available to download as a voice over. She regularly performs at the group’s events. She has had successful collaborations with New Attitude theatre and Emerge theatre in the past and more recently performed with Athlone Poetry in the Park group. She has taken her love of poetry to local cafe settings. She enjoys writing short scripts too. Her wish is to have a poetry anthology published. In the meantime, she’ll be trying out at performance style poetry venues to showcase new work in the coming months.

Bridie wrote 'Proclamation for All' for MIW's commemorative event, '1916: The Risen Word', which was performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester on March 10 2016. MIW received the generous support of the Embassy of Ireland for this event.

Primroses for Aisling: Poem

By Mary Walsh

PRIMROSES FOR AISLING

A poem

It’s rising dawn.

From high on a hill

He looks down over Carlingford Lough

Shining in the low distance.

He turns to see his sheep and lambs

Grazing his land

The land his father worked. 

He loves this place, this springtime of the year,

Has learned the intricacies of birth and death in fold and field

He has tended this night’s births well.

Dawn is well lit

The light below in the kitchen a field away is bright.

A last look about him then he moves towards the house.

But do not imagine his mind, busy with his lambs and sheep

Does not imbibe the beauty of the hills and hedges.

Returning to the house he gathers the spring’s loveliness

A bunch of primroses, moist with dew

Bears them in his working hands

And offers them to his young wife

As she waits at the open door.

The gift, the beauty of their yellow paleness

Fills her with love

She holds them to her face, looks up to him and takes his hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Text  © Mary Walsh.

Images in this post are in the Public Domain via www.visualhunt.com and Wikimedia Commons. 

Image of grazing sheep is © E.M. Powell. 

Mary Walsh was born in County Armagh. She came to Manchester and trained as a nurse in Ancoats hospital. Some years later she went into teaching and taught English in Thornleigh College, Bolton until she retired. She has been a member of the Irish Writers since 2007.

Lest We Forget: Poem for Somme 100

By Bridie Breen

Our final post in Manchester Irish Writers' commemoration of the Battle of the Somme.

LEST WE FORGET

Lest we forget

a watery grave 

or grovelling in muck

in rat filled ditches

by brave young men.

Hell bent on justice

and survival.

There for duty

loyalty to brother 

allies and crown

Full of desire

for a better world

with freedom from tyranny.

No time to admire

amber sunsets

at Arromanche

Each new day dawn

scattered the dead

in grit and gloom.

Ashes to ashes

away from home

Au Revoir letters

written before bullet

shot and shell.

Resilient mothers

suffocated by grief

as paper telegrams 

choked breath and dreams.

The unborn unknowing

of the reason

for bravery.

Three score and ten

the allotted span 

where peace reigns.

Lest we forget 

the sacrifice

of a ghosted generation

that gifted our sleep

by their bloodied youth.

Beaches of golden silt

buried deep the past

Inscriptions as markers

of heroes not forgotten.

We the keepers 

the watchers

of our world.

Lest we forget.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Poppy images courtesy of & © Alison Morton.

Text © Bridie Breen

Bridie has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers for quite a few years. Although her first love is poetry, she writes on all topics. She has contributed to the group’s publications “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”. Her Changing Skies piece is available to download as a voice over. She regularly performs at the group’s events. She has had successful collaborations with New Attitude theatre and Emerge theatre in the past and more recently performed with Athlone Poetry in the Park group. She has taken her love of poetry to local cafe settings. She enjoys writing short scripts too. Her wish is to have a poetry anthology published. In the meantime, she’ll be trying out at performance style poetry venues to showcase new work in the coming months.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

More like Rugby than Football

By Des Farry

This is a different perspective on the Somme which looks at brief moments of normality occurring in a terrible conflict which is set against a sports background and draws some comparisons between both.

MORE LIKE RUGBY THAN FOOTBALL

They were sent on the attack on the first day, their objective was the German Schwaben Redoubt.

The Ulsters reached their target but couldn’t hold it. In the horror and confusion of the battle the reinforcements sent to support them never made it through no man’s land and they were forced to retreat. The soil of Thiepval Wood and the trenches previously dug there by the French and Scottish Regiments, named after local landmarks or place names of Scotland, hold the bodies and names of those who never made it and were never found, a cemetery of trees not headstones.

It wasn’t just them that day, it was the same all over.  It was the way that it was all through the following weeks and months, a never ending repetitive story that never reached a conclusion.
They weren’t alone. There were so many other different races of people that he had never met before.
The Ulsters were fighting alongside Irish troops from the Connaught Rangers. The English, Welsh, Scottish, Australian, South Africans were their colleagues with whom they could communicate. It was more difficult to do so with the French and French-African troops.

It was during the rare breaks in this horror that they sometimes were able to talk about the life that they had lived before they all had come together in this hell hole.

Football was a favoured topic. Competitive football had stopped in England. No one knew when it would restart. He’d been talking about it with the Manchesters. There was a bribery scandal involving one of their clubs which remained unresolved.

The break along the line on Christmas Day to play football on No Man’s Land was a far too brief escape to normality  from  a pointless shifting war, where you moved forward, then backward to where you were a few months ago. A time to exchange gifts and souvenirs, try each other’s helmets and swap cigarettes.

It stuck in his mind. It was only much later when he read about the Connaught Rangers involvement that he thought that the whole war was more like rugby than football. It was the pack moving forward and backwards, it was about maintaining possession and territory.

~~~~~~~~
Text © Des Farry

Des Farry comes originally from near Omagh in Northern Ireland and has lived in Greater Manchester for over 40 years. He has been writing since about age 15 (local notes for Ulster Herald). He has written or contributed to various published and internal non-fiction organisational professional guides and books on corporate finance plus a number of short stories for various competitions and the former Dublin Writers Site (Electric Acorn).

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

The Widow Quinn: Poem for Somme 100

By Kevin McMahon

Just about every village in Ireland had them: old women in black shawls who lived totally secluded lives, often scorned or feared by their neighbours. Few took the trouble to understand such women, or what had made them the way they were. 

At a time of great political upheaval in Ireland, the tens of thousands of men who enlisted to fight in the First World War were derided for turning their backs on the fight for freedom at home  The sacrifice that so many made was disregarded.  This poem focuses on one such case.

THE WIDOW QUINN

Birdsong shrank the road outside her house, 

To a dappled tunnel, thrilled with noise,

Draped with cloak of honeysuckle scent.

Our step quickened when we passed her gate,

Not taking chances, hushed and fearful 

Of the older, bolder ones who risked

A bating shout or threw fir cones at the door.  

We deciphered parents’ warnings,

“Poor woman” comments, shorn of sympathy;

Their surreptitious nods, and knowing looks

Belied begrudged respect for a soldier’s wife.

Her wits had been astray since his early death,

At a place called Somme in France, they said.

A wasted life in England’s war, they said.

One winter day I met her face to face,

Black-shawled as ever, bent with strain

As she hefted water from the roadside spring.

She stopped and gaped a toothless smile at me

But contagious dread tore my gaze aside,

And breathless with panic I bolted home.

That March she died – as she had lived so long – 

Alone, her last instructions written for the priest.

Beneath the widow’s shawl, her waist length hair 

Had been plaited in a coil of startling white.

As she had willed the hair was then cut short,

Its strands hung in the branches of her trees.

When, later, neighbours gathered at the church –

Each drawn by duty rather than respect –  

They shook their heads and shrugged, and all agreed

The “poor old thing was soft this many year”,

While in the budding bushes round her house

The birds wove nests with glinting flecks of white.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Text © Kevin McMahon

Kevin has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers since 1998 – with a few years’ absence due to work commitments prior to his retirement!  He has contributed to the group’s publications “The Retting Dam”, “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”, and regularly performs at the group’s events.  He is a former winner of the “New Writing” award at Listowel Writers’ Week in Country Kerry, and has been shortlisted for a number of other awards for memoirs and short stories.

With Alrene Hughes, Kevin co-edited the publication of monologues arising from the Changing Skies project.  His scripts have been professionally performed in various venues, and he has had poetry broadcast on the BBC.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

Testimonies of Trauma: The Somme and other Battles in World War 1

By Rose Morris

Military History has described much of the four months of Somme battles in detail. The records of the regiments attacked and the weaponry used, the comprehensive casualty lists are always used to describe the horrors of the First World War. They explain to us what happened in facts and figures but do not tell the real human story and the conditions in which these men fought. They fail to describe the daily life of the soldier, or of the landscape in which he lived, fought and got injured or died. They do not tell of his family, the loved ones he left behind. It is only from the letters that were sent while alive that we get an insight into their human state, their thoughts and fears, their plight or their reasons for being there.

To learn more about this we are fortunate that the interpretation by poets and writers who enlisted, soldiers letters to their loved ones, artists such as Paul Nash, photographers like Fr. Frank Browne, of Titanic fame, and the diaries of survivors to enlighten us on this aspect of war as they present their observations and feelings in a more emotional and human way.

Over the past one hundred years, so much great writing has been sourced from World War 1 testimonies. Donegal writer Patrick McGill’s novel, The Great Push. Sean O’Casey’s play, The Silver Tassie. How Many Miles to Babylon, Jennifer Johnston’s novel.  Frank McGuiness’s play, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.  A Long Long Way, Sebastian Barry’s novel.

The Silver Tassie by Sean O'Casey

They tell this story against a background of destruction, pungent smells and of mud and slime all of which appears to be ingrained in the mind of survivors, never to forgotten. Personal reports and stories of World War 1 describes men living like animals beneath the ground in trenches and dug-outs in a ‘world of mud’ and often makes use of words such as burrow and crawl, a language more associated with wildlife than human beings. Patrick McGill served as a stretcher-bearer on the Western Front, remarked “a soldier came crawling towards us on his belly, looking for all the world like a gigantic lobster that had escaped from its basket."

Often highlighted in these expressions is the soldier’s struggle with his conscience on his true reason for being there and his thoughts on the futility of war.

This can be more evident in the work of two Irish writers, Thomas Kettle and Francis Ledwidge for  they have also had to come to terms with fighting on behalf of a country which has historically been perceived as the enemy and both of them had been Irish Volunteers actively seeking independence alongside the poets and writers of the Celtic Revival who were among these executed in the 1916 Rising.

Thomas Kettle

In his poem, To my Daughter Betty, A Gift From God,  Kettle leaves very little doubt as to his feelings and his fear that he would not survive the war. It is dated ‘In the field, before Guillemont, Somme, Sept. 4, 1916’. He was killed in the battlefield in Ginchy four days later.

So here, while the mad 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.

In a letter to his brother Kettle wrote,
“I hope to come back. If not, I believe that to sleep here in the France I have loved is no harsh fate, and that so passing out into silence, I shall help towards the Irish settlement." 

Francis Ledwidge

It is a striking contrast that Ledwidge’s war poetry, inspired by his memories of the natural habitat of his native County Meath, still retains a pastoral flavour while all around him was 'the muddy ranks of war’.

The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
 

And bobbing poppies flare like Elmo's light,
 

While siren-like the pollen-stained bees
 

Drone in the clover depths. And up the height
 

The cuckoo's voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
 

And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,.

 Before his death, Ledwidge wrote to the poet, Katherine Tynan:
"If I survive the war I have great hopes of writing something that will live. If not, I trust to be remembered in my own land for one or two things which its long sorrow inspired." 

He is, in fact, well remembered for his poem written after the execution of his friend Thomas McDonagh;

He shall not hear the bittern cry


In the wild sky, where he is lain,

Ledwidge was killed by an artillery shell at Ypres in 1917 and is buried in the cemetery at Artillery Wood at Boesinghe.

Kettle and Ledwidge have left behind a powerful testimony of their wartime experience as Irish nationalists in the British army. They speak to us on behalf of the many for whom we have no written record. They saw themselves engaged in a fight in Ireland's name and for Ireland's cause.

It is perhaps not wholly surprising that the writings of Kettle and Ledwidge have been overlooked. In Ireland. Their sacrifice was long overshadowed in modern Irish history which mainly dwelt on the General Post Office in 1916 rather than the Western Front.

Another interesting contrast is to be found in the literary responses from W.B. Yeats, who was not involved in military action yet he defines this particular period in Irish history and reflects on the dilemma of Irish men fighting in the British Army.

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© Rose Morris

Rose Morris was born near Dungannon, in Co. Tyrone. Having retired from a career in Art and Design Education in Greater Manchester she now spends more time pursuing her creative interests and involvement in community projects in Manchester and County Tyrone.
She co-founded the Manchester Irish Writers group with Alrene Hughes in 1994.
Her continued involvement and sharing within that group has greatly enhanced the development of her own writing.
Her short stories, monologues and poetry have been included in the Manchester Irish Writers’ published collections; The End of the Rodden, The Retting Dam, Stone of the Heart, Drawing Breath and Changing Skies.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

July 1st 1916: Poem for Somme 100

By Bridie Breen

A poem to mark the centenary of the battle of the Somme, 100 years ago today.

JULY 1ST 1916

The lads practised the names 

of French townlands,

while holding fort in trenches

in Thiepval Wood.

Laughed in camaraderie, 

as they accented Chantilly.

Dreamt of Parisienne ladies

bedecked in fancy hats and lacy attire.

Imagined steamy fetlocks,

cigar smoke and winning bets.

But no horses ran on the racecourse,

in the Battle of the Somme.

Commanders commanded

and the war raged on.

Kitchener’s finger had pointed to all.

The young hearts of a nation swelled

as Volunteer armies forged.

Neighbours steeled by patriotic fervour,

Wished to serve alongside each other.

Childhood friends bonded forever 

as brothers in arms. 

Lord Derby called them a Battalion of Pals.

Regiments gathered in one week flat

from farmland and village,

they went together en masse

to stand tall or fall down,

in the name of their God, 

King and country.

Town and City names 

were bore with pride.

Enlisted not conscripted,

heading for the Western Front.

A cloudless sky, as dawn broke into July.

Mist laden Rivers Ancre and Somme

spoke of sunny possibilities to 

Generals in Chateau’s

While helmeted young men

Signed themselves with a cross

Kissed items of sentiment

Wrote hurried letters to mothers 

and sweethearts.

Looked to each other, 

nodded to bugle horn, then went over the top.

If war had not been the reason

a race perhaps or a restful relax.

No such luck as they waded

 in mucky rat filled pits.

Cannon fodder, 

so far away from home.

In that French valley of death 

machine gun fire showered 

from the sky

Wires had been cut in time,

a vain hope held for deadly attack.

Efforts failed to prise Beaucourt 

from German grasp

Haig and Joffre’s great plans met mishap

Concrete dugouts, withstood well

bombarding shells.

German trenches, stayed intact.

Bodies lay where they fell.

A mound for comrades to climb across,

caused much delay and further loss.

A hill too high to make advance

Boys were forced to become men

on that Gommecourt spot.

Lieutenant Cather’s gallantry

saved some wounded men 

Little chance himself of surviving

such a carnival of hell.

Nine Victoria crosses

awarded on that first Somme day

Six died in selfless sacrifice

Three lived to wear the medal

and relive the deed to their end

A cemetery now stands where once 

many thousands plodded

then dropped as stones

in the Big Push, onto No Man’s land.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Text © Bridie Breen

Bridie Breen has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers for quite a few years. Although her first love is poetry, she writes on all topics. She has contributed to the group’s publications “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”. Her Changing Skies piece is available to download as a voice over. She regularly performs at the group’s events. She has had successful collaborations with New Attitude theatre and Emerge theatre in the past and more recently performed with Athlone Poetry in the Park group. She has taken her love of poetry to local cafe settings. She enjoys writing short scripts too. Her wish is to have a poetry anthology published. In the meantime, she’ll be trying out at performance style poetry venues to showcase new work in the coming months.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

Who were the Irish at the Somme?

By E.M. Powell

2016 marks the centenary of Ireland’s Easter Rising. The events of Easter 1916 marked a crucial turning point in Irish history and ultimately led to Irish independence. But while the Rising was indeed pivotal in Irish history, it was taking place against a background of one of history’s bloodiest and most horrific conflicts: the First World War, in which around 17 million soldiers and civilians were killed. That Ireland supplied 200,000 men to fight Britain's cause against Germany is often overlooked. Many lost their lives or were terribly wounded.

Much of that grievous loss and harm took place at the Battle of the Somme, in Northern France, in which Irishmen from both sides of the political divide fought.

The first day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1 1916, was the worst in British military history. Some 19,240 men were killed. By the time the battle ended in November of 1916, over 3,500 Irish soldiers had died, with thousands more wounded.

It was Ulstermen who suffered the worst casualties on that first day. The 36th Ulster Division lost 5,500 officers and men—killed, wounded or missing. The men of that division behaved with the utmost bravery. Four Victoria Crosses were awarded to officers and men of the Division for their gallantry, two of them posthumously. But their sacrifices counted for little. They were the only British division to reach the German second lines, yet made little ground overall.

But Ulster was not the only Irish province to suffer losses. The 16th Irish Division, consisting mainly of men from Munster, Leinster and Connacht had 4,330 casualties in September at the Somme, of whom 1,200 were killed. There were also Irish soldiers who fought in other divisions as part of the regular army or in the newly raised battalions. The total number of Irish casualties will never be known.

Neither was it just Irish men who were at the Somme. Irish women were there, too. Professional nurses and volunteers in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and the Red Cross tended to the dying and wounded, and drove ambulances. One estimate puts the number of Irishwomen who served as VADs at 4,500. Some lost their lives or were wounded.

The dead and wounded Irish may have come from both sides of the political divide in an Ireland that was in political turmoil in 1916. For those who did return, that turmoil would continue. Home did not bring peace.

It is easy to claim or blame the dead for one’s own political ends. Yet on this, the evening before the centenary of that appalling battle, perhaps we should pause to consider these words from those who were there: one statement from one side of the Irish struggle, one from the other:

'There is nothing but the mud and the gaping shell-holes - a chaotic wilderness of shell-holes, rim overlapping rim - and, in the bottom of many, the bodies of the dead.'

‘Not a few of the men cried and I cried.’

These words have no politics. They are what we should commemorate. And strive to never have to utter them again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Images courtesy of & © Alison Morton.

MIW member E.M. Powell was born in Cork City into the family of Michael Collins.
She now lives in Manchester with her husband, daughter and a Facebook-friendly dog. Her medieval thriller Fifth Knight series has reached bestseller lists in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany.
Book #3, THE LORD OF IRELAND, was published by Thomas & Mercer on April 5 2016. She is also a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers The Big Thrill magazine, blogs for English Historical Fiction Authors, and reviews fiction & non-fiction for the Historical Novel Society and is part of the HNS social media team. Her website can be found at www.empowell.com.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.