Great War centenary at Woodenbridge memorial
THE Great War Centenary Commemoration will take place at the County Wicklow Great War Memorial in Woodenbridge on Sunday, November 18, at 3 p.m.
Guest speaker on the day will be former Taoiseach John Bruton.
This centenary event to mark the end of the Great War will also see the inauguration of the County Wicklow Great War memorial ‘Reflection of the Great War Exhibition’. It will be dedicated to the social, military and personal heritage of the conflict.
The exhibition will be officially opened by Cllr Pat Vance, cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council.
The war memorial is located by the right bank of the Aughrim River by the bridge at Woodenbridge and was inaugurated in September 2014 on the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War.
The memorial consists of 15 Wicklow polished granite slabs containing the names of the 2,015 men and nine women who died from direct action during the course of the war on land, sea, and in the air. The names are recorded by town and village.
Persons of Wicklow birth, or who were residents of the county during the war years of 1914 to 1918, served in 104 different units of the British and other armies, and in the Royal Navy, Mercantile Navy, as munitions workers and in front line medical services in all fields of combat and war theatres.
Woodenbridge was chosen as the location for the County World War One memorial site because of its historic association with John Redmond, Ireland’s Home Rule MP, who gave an iconic speech at Woodenbridge in September 1914.
The County Wicklow Great War Memorial Committee is a fully voluntary organisation under the auspices of the Woodenbridge Village Development Association.