NI remembers the fallen... 100 years after the guns of the Great War fell silent
Centenary of day the Great War ended is marked by moving Cathedral service, images on our shores, beacons and illuminations
Day of poignant reflection for Armistice centenary
Catholic Primate and royal visitor at Belfast service
THE shared sacrifice of Catholic and Protestant soldiers who died during the First World War should inspire a shared responsibility to build peace and trust today, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has told a memorial service.
Archbishop Eamon Martin joined Dean of Belfast the Very Reverend Stephen Forde as he made calls for peace at the cross-community service in St Anne’s Cathedral to mark the centenary of the 1918 Armistice.
Simultaneous services were held in Dublin, Glasgow and Cardiff, ahead of the national service at Westminster Abbey, which was attended by the Queen.
Among the congregation in St Anne’s representing the Queen was The Duke of York, accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant of Belfast, Fionnuala JayO’Boyle.
Secretary of State Karen Bradley, PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton and members of the British and Irish armed forces were among hundreds of invited guests.
Sinn Fein was the only political party not to send a representative, although the party’s vice president Michelle O’Neill attended a service in Dublin.
In his address, the Catholic Primate said the shared suffering of nationalist and unionist soldiers from all over Ireland left a responsibility to heal the past and build peace, sentiments which were echoed by Dean Forde.
Archbishop Martin said: “The brave people we are remembering are calling us to recognise their shared suffering by building a better future where difference is accepted and respected.
“Can we learn from their shared sacrifice, a full century after the so-called ‘war to end all wars’?
“They have bequeathed us a shared responsibility for healing the past and building lasting trust and peace.
“Peace is not merely ‘ceasefire’, or the absence of violence and war.
“Peace is an ongoing work of reconciliation, justice and hope: it means coming out of our own trenches; building bridges, not parapets.
“Peace is the fruit of that love which urges us to uphold the value and dignity of every human life and to be passionate about respecting others, especially those who are poor or marginalised.
“Our hope remains for a lasting peace on the island of Ireland.”
The Primate recalled finding his own personal connection with those who fell in the 1914-18 conflict and spoke of how his eyes were opened to the vast loss of life during his visit to Messines with other clergy.
He said: “My visits in recent years to the Somme and to Flanders with Archbishop Richard (Clarke, the Church of Ireland Primate) and the other Church leaders, have really opened my eyes to the grief and suffering that was shared by families of all traditions and from every part of Ireland.
“I found the spot about five miles outside the town where my great uncle Edward is buried in Canada Farm cemetery.
“Today he lies, in Flanders fields, another young man among the half-a-million who perished in the infamous battle of Passchendaele, in the ‘flower of youth’.
“Sadly, because of the cruel twists and tensions of our histo- ry of conflict, the fact that Irish Catholics and Protestants fought and died, side by side, was neglected for too long — and perhaps conveniently — by all sides, both north and south of the border.
“People preferred to cling on to a history of difference and separation, rather than recognise and embrace our shared story of common suffering.”
In his welcome, Dean Forde also called for reconciliation, saying: “Across this island there was the silence of partition of soldiers who for different causes had died, sometimes in the same trenches, but who then found themselves divided by the different histories that would shape this island for a further century.
“Today, 100 years after the silence of the Armistice, in commemorations and symbolic actions, may we dare to break the silence with words of remembrance and words of reconciliation.
“May the promise that theirs was ‘the war to end all wars’
find its fulfilment in our century with the reconciling of those enemies.”
The poignant ceremony, which was organised by the Northern Ireland First World War Committee, was marked by a number of changes to the traditional commemoration service.
It included a moment of reflection rather than an act of remembrance, and instead of laying wreaths, four volumes of Ireland’s Memorial Records were laid at a field altar.
The shift towards reconciliation as well as remembrance was marked by renowned Belfast poet Michael Longley’s reading of his acclaimed work Ceasefire.
A new collection of 37 poems written for the Armistice by local man Paul Gilmore was published to coincide with the service, which saw the first ever performance of a new choral anthem, composed by Eoghan Desmond with words drawn from a poem written in 1915 by Irish poet Katharine Tynan, Flower Of Youth.