A memorial ceremony for Irish soldiers who died fighting in World War I was held in Kilkenny at St Canice’s Cathedral on Armistice Day, last Friday, November 11.
The ceremony was attended by some 20 people, including a number of past and present members of the Defence Forces. Members of the public, clergy, and a small group of students from Kilkenny College were also present.
The candle-lit service was marked by prayers and a poem recital. Wreaths of poppies were placed below a monument to the soldiers, beside the Cathedral’s books of the Great War dead – eight volumes of which contain the names of the Irishmen who died in World War I.
The Cathedral has a number of windows and monuments dedicated to and in memory of Irish soldiers, and is the only location in Kilkenny with a Royal Irish Regiment plaque.
Lt Larry Scallon, a member of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment Association and the curator of the museum at James Stephens Barracks, said that many Kilkenny men were part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF ) or the ANZACs.
“Around 500 Kilkenny-born men were killed in the Great War,” said Lt Scallon.
“A lot of Irishmen would have joined to make sure that Home Rule became a reality – to answer Redmond’s call, for the freedom of small nations.”
Due to the changed political circumstances following the 1916 Rising and the signing of the 1921 Treaty, Irishmen who fought in World War I were in many cases poorly received upon their return from the battlefields of France, Suvla, and elsewhere. Those who died were not repatriated, and memorial services have very seldom been held during the past century.
Lt Scallon said that such memorial ceremonies were becoming more common now, and Ireland had progressed in its attitude towards the nation’s World War I dead.
More information and pictures of the graves of Kilkenny’s fallen soldiers can be found on www.kilkennywargraves.com
