At the start of July I posted on Slugger O’Toole to introduce Somme Voices, a month-long series of daily tweets in remembrance of that dreadful World War One battle. I’m returning to Slugger to bring the Somme Voices project to a close with a final poem. The reason is that I’d like to quote this one in its entirety and Twitter is a less-than-perfect medium for something of considerable length. It does, however, give me the chance to make a …
BECAUSE WE’RE HERE – The juxtaposition of khaki onto the modern colour palette was striking. The sound of boots marching in formation down the footpath. Across the UK – including Belfast, Derry and Ballymena – men in replica WW1 uniforms paid tribute to lives lost at the Somme on 1 July 1916.
As a child I was forever fascinated by a random collection of oul ‘things’ in a rarely-approached cupboard at home. It was the sort of place where unflattering school reports and old medical cards lay alongside broken spectacles and stringless yoyos, the theory being that they might some day be read, repaired or resurrected. There were a few medals – the full relevance of which I never discovered – but what especially caught my imagination was a bloodstained Nazi armband, …
Tonight is the one hundreth anniversary of the death of my great great uncle during a German bombardment of the trenches after a succesful trench raid by the Ulstermen – a talk was recently held in the Masonic Hall (the old Tamlaght / St Lukes Church of Ireland Church Hall), Coagh on Private Robert Sands and other men from Coagh who died in the Great War. In this centenary year of the Battle of the Somme the tragic and brutal slaughter of the Great …
HALFWAY HOUSE – Half way home for two women disrupted by a blizzard on the Glenshane Pass the pub doubles as a half way point between 1916 and today to look back at the Easter Rising and the Somme in Philip Orr’s new play.
