TIME TO HONOUR THEM
MOMENTUM IS BUILDING TO FUND A NEW WAR MEMORIAL IN A DIFFERENT LOCATION NAMING THE HUNDREDS OF SLIGO MEN WHO DIED IN WORLD WAR 1
BALLYMOTE - 54. Tubbercurry-24. Gur teen -23. Grange -6. Sli go Town - 96. These are the numbers of young men f rom towns and villages across County Sligo who died in the Great War of 1914-1918. Their remains lie in war cemeteries in Europe, the only physical trace of their existence. Yet they were fathers, sons, workers and friends who were much-loved in their daily lives in whatever Sligo village they grew up in.
Today, they are forgotten. Many of their descendants living in Sligo don’t even know they have a relative who fought and died in the war.
Local historian Simone Hickey, Brian Scanlon and others are on a mission to change that.
They realise the opportunity to build a new war memorial to Sligo’s forgotten war dead is now, before the end of the centenary commemorations end next year.
They’ve organised a special ‘Lest We Forget’ Remembrance concert in the Gilhooly Hall on Armistice Day, 11 th November this year.
It’s in a bid to raise funds for a new Roll of Honour to ensure each Sligo man’s name is engraved on a permanent memorial in a place where people can walk around, contemplate and remember.
The current location of a Cross on a corner of Pearse Road was donated by Eden Hill proprietors in the 1920’s but is now, ironically, in ‘no man’s land’ - nobody owns it.
“There’s traffic rushing past, people are beeping, it’s just not suitable anymore,” said Simone.
No names are engraved on it.
“It was supposed to be where the WB Yeats statue is now in front of Ulster Bank. But in 1928 when it was erected, there were elections and in the promises and bartering after De Valera got in, the memorial got moved out of the city centre. All British iconography was banned in 1932-’33 so the men were pushed into the background,” she said.
“They didn’t want to know about it, it was a Free State so the men were swept under the carpet,” she said.
Through a labour of love, Simone has painstakingly researched and documented the number of Sligo men who actually died in the war over the past few years.
Brian Scanlon had started a database of about 335 Sligo men killed in the War which Simone used as a starting point to build on. There were 549 names on www.newsfromthepast.com set up by Sligo County Council.
By June Simone had found 580, today she has 591 names.
It has taken her four years to compile her database of names, cause of death, whether by a mine at the Front or in a submarine and burial plot location.
She has found information on their occupations and whether or not they left a will.
“I know them all, they’re like family to me now,” she said.
On the 100 th anniversary of each man Simone posts a little piece about who he was, where he was from and where he died and either a photograph or the soldiers will.
Her work has been going on since the Centenary of the start of war and will continue until the 100 th Anniversary of the end in 2018.
The music and poetry concert will include songs from the era such as It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and Band of Brothers, interspersed with actual letters from the Front, read by Michael Leyden.
Local singer/songwriter Georgie Gorman has composed a song especially for the occasion and choirs from IT Sligo and the Sligo Concert Band will also perform on the night.
“It’s so appropriate to have it in the Gilhooly Hall because at the outbreak of the War, it was a central location for functions and events in Sligo,” says Simone.
“Many of the man who died would have actually stood in the Gilhooly Hall,” she added.
They’re hoping to raise 60 per cent of the cost of the new memorial themselves, with the Royal British Legion funding the remaining 40 per cent.
It launched a fund this summer of ¤550,000 to be divided up between the 26 counties, one grant per county.
Simone is currently in the process of applying to Sligo County Council for a site for the proposed new war memorial.
She believes Cleveragh Park might be a good location to place a memorial.
“We have to find an area of public access that will be suitable for disabled so I’m putting in a proposal to the County Council,” she said.
“I would love it where people would gather. It’d be lovely. In years to come if there was a heritage walk you could go from the Green Fort down to the 1916-’22 memorial in town, then the United Nations memorial in Doorly Park and on to a World War 1 memorial in Cleveragh Park, the three could be linked,” she said.
“You also have the Noble Six in the graveyard and at the town hall, a plaque on the ground. It’d be nice to get the names of the Sligo men who died in the War somewhere as well,” she said.
Simone did an MA thesis in Historical Studies on what motivated the local men to join the British army. Contrary to the popular belief that the primary reason was economic, she discovered that peer pressure coupled with the support of the Catholic Church were what led to huge numbers volunteering from Sligo.
“My conclusion was that it was peer pressure, mainly from pals brigades, platoons, and the Church in Sligo,” she said.
“My own great-grandfather died in the German Spring offensive of 1918. He was in the Connacht Rangers,” she said.
Terence Rooney from Barrack Street was a compositor with The Sligo Champion and Sligo Independent at the outbreak of World War 1.
He was one of seven compositors from both Sligo papers killed in the war.
“I wanted to know why he joined the war. He was 37 years old, father of five, soon to be six children and had a good job when he signed up in 1915,” said Simone.
Mary Jane was pregnant with their eighth child when Terence went overseas in July 1916.
He was killed in action during the German Spring Offensive 21 March 1918 in Ronnsoy Wood. His body was never found and he is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.
Three of his children, including Simone’s grandfather, Mickey Rooney, followed in their father’s footsteps and became compositors. Three sons fought in World War 2.
Mickey Rooney worked for this newspaper for 65 years, along with his brother Jack.
Ever since she was small Simone and her family would go up to the monument on Pearse Road with poppies on Armistice Day, November 11 th.
“We would put the poppy wreaths there, my Mum and us. You would leave them there. But there is no place for commemoration. The traffic is passing. The Bishop will be there, Church of Ireland, Methodist, Presbyterian, all religious will be there, standing behind the cross and they read out ‘Flander’s Field’ or ‘We will Remember Them’,. It’s not a religious ceremony, just remembrance,” she said.
She gave a talk at a NUI Galway conference recently and will give a lecture on the Calry men who lost their lives on 8th November in the Clayton Hotel. She also lectures in Folklore and Heritage in St Angela’s College.
Simone is now hopeful the Council will grant them a place to build the new memorial, where people can gather and lay a wreath before a monument, with all 591 names on it.
Tickets for the ‘Lest We Forget’ Remembrance concert are being sold through the Hawk’s Well Theatre. simonehickey@gmail.com.
THE TIME TO DO THIS IS NOW. IF WE LET IT PASS 2018 IT WILL BE TOO LATE. IT WILL NEVER GET DONE.