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The Somme

92 years ago the men of Europe were thrown into the fire by their societies. The breaking of Empires and the burning up of the whole awful, tragic Imperial game began in World War One, the central disaster of the twentieth century. Without it, nothing else in the catalogue of twentieth century heights and horrors would have happened.

I thought it appropriate, 92 years after the Somme, in these July days, to post an Irish video, dedicated to all those who fell from the whole island, the continent and the world. 57,470 men fell on the British and Irish side in the first day of that battle, on July 1 1916, 19,240 of them forever. The battle raged for months, and by the end had claimed over a million casualties on both sides.

People have fought over this heartbreaking song, and claimed it for Ulster loyalists, nationalists, and pacifists. The Green Fields of France, which I grew up knowing as the song of Willy McBride, sung to a gravestone on a hot summer day, is rather a song about the incredible and enduring human folly of war. Let this be a monument to any fools who talk about good wars.

The painting at the top of this post is "Trenches on the Somme" by Mary Riter Hamilton. More information about her can be found here.

Comments

Ken said…
British and Irish side???

The Ulster Division was crucified on the Somme and their divisional emblem was the Red Hand of Ulster. I doubt if they or their descendants would appreciate being called Irish.
1:36 am
Martin Meenagh said…
They were Irish, exile. Many fought who later lived in the Republic--and their sacrifice was a rather shamefully unacknowledged point until Mary Robinson was President.

Equally, there are in Northern Ireland large numbers of Irish people, mostly of Scots-Irish descent, who, as the Unionist Ken Maginnis used to say, were Irish people who upheld the traditions and alleginances of British citizens.

My family are very nationalist; my father was from Tyrone, and my mother is from Donegal; but Catholics in Donegal, a very republican county, are still ulster people.

I don't mean this as a snide comment--maybe things are different in Manchester. They almost certainly would be in Liverpool and Glasgow, and your comment would be apposite there--people would hold to quite bitter and rigid identities. They'd still be wrong to do so.
1:47 am
Martin Meenagh said…
Have a look at this link--it points out that 3 of 12 divisions were Irish, including the Tyneside Irish and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/eng/index.asp?docID=2528
1:51 am
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