Nothing great about Great War
Saturday November 08 2008
Time and time and (for good measure) time again, Mr Myers, through your publication, presents articles that fail to register little more than a whim of sympathy on my part.
And, occasionally, I momentarily take an introspective gaze trying to identify some empathy for Mr Myers's case. And I will admit that I am at one with his assertion that a great many Irish people lost their lives during WWI and WWII, and have never been recognised properly. But such flushes of neo-colonial do pass, for Mr Myers's argument, usually lucid and well-formed, is in this instance fatally flawed.
He wants greater recognition for soldiers fought during WWI and WWII, but not for the tens of thousands of Irishmen who fought and died fighting in the American Civil War in the 1860s, the America-Mexico War of 1846 or the Boar War of the late 1800's.
Nor does he mention the Irishmen who served throughout Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries fighting with distinction for armies in France, Spain and Austria.
Nor is there mention of the role the Irish played in the liberation of Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, or of the key role Irish soldiers played in the Argentina-Brazil War of 1825, which resulted in the formation of Uruguay.
He may argue that such events happened many generations ago, and have passed from our conscious memory.
Well, perhaps then he should recall the role played by Irish in the Vietnam War and the Korean War, where an unknown number of Irishmen served and died as a result of a conscription draft in the USA.
There was nothing great about the Great War, a war that was fought by colonial European heavyweights, hell bent on the domination of smaller nations for their own financial gain.
There was nothing great about Irishmen dying on European fields for falsely held ideals. That said, most, I believe, died in pursuit of the coin of the realm, as their firsthand experiences of the brutal British regime would have led them to question all British propaganda at the time espousing that WWI was fought for the ideals of freedom.
Intentionally overlooked are the heroic sacrifices made by our grandparents and great-grandparents, and of the giants of men and women who strode though the early 20th century. The misplaced belief by Mr Myers, and he is not alone is this belief, is that Irishmen who fought to unburden the yoke of colonial oppression in their own land are somehow not as virtuous as those Irish soldiers who fought for colonial powers (usually British) on foreign pastures.
The single greatest lesson we can learn from the death of the thousands of Irish soldiers during WWI is to recognise the sheer folly of it all. The lives were lost without need and without purpose. The Treaty of Versailles ensured this, and within a generation the world was revisited with an even more vicious and callous war.
Lest we forget. Indeed, lest we EVER forget, Kevin.
ALAN Ó MAONAIGH
TÍR CHROGHAN, MEATH
