| Ireland Expects a Memorial Comment
In all the celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of Admiral Horatio
Nelson’s historic victory at the Battle of Trafalgar last week one fact
was missing.
The salute to the more than 4,000 Irishmen who fought alongside the great
naval hero and helped secure victory over the enemy France was simply air-brushed
out of the pomp and pageantry.
They came from all over Ireland — around 3,600 from the Republic and
the remainder from the North. Official records show that Irish sailors served
with distinction far from their homes in Donegal, Enniskillen, Castlebar,
Belfast, Derry and Tyrone.
In his famous message to the English fleet before the battle commenced
Nelson expected that every man would do his duty. But you can expect England
today to forget that almost a quarter of the sailors who fought on the English
side were Irish.
Many were press-ganged into service, no doubt. But others were volunteers
including the three seamen who played such prominent roles in Nelson’s final
hours — Charles Adair, from Antrim, Henry Blackwood, from Down, and William
Beatty from Derry.
England likes its heroes and it likes too to honour them with pageants
like last week’s on important anniversaries. It is good to have heroes.
Nelson was perhaps the first national hero of the newly established United
Kingdom. He was a media darling, a cross between David Beckham and Nelson
Mandela, with a private life that received similar attention to his acts
of valour.
His death at the Battle of Trafalgar raised the victory there above that
of other naval victories. But we should not forget the Irishmen who served
with him through the triumph and death.
So it is right and proper then that the Easter Rising in Dublin that
led to the foundation of the Republic of Ireland is to be celebrated once
again by a military parade.
On the 90th anniversary next year of the 1916 rising, the Irish Army
will march along O’Connell Street in Dublin and past the General Post Office,
the focal point for the rebellion. The parade used to be held annually but
was discontinued in 1970 after the Troubles began in the North.
Critics have said that the reinstatement of the parade is a ploy by Taoiseach
Bertie Ahern and his Fianna Fail party to portray themselves as the true
inheritors of Irish Republicanism.
But if Britain can remember Trafalgar 200 years on, it is only right
that the heroic struggle of the men and women of Dublin in 1916 should be
commemorated.
And it should not just be a one-day wonder. Preparation should be made
for a major celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising in
2016.
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