11.11.2014
Wreaths Laid at National Service of Remembrance in St Patrick’s Cathedral
Hundreds of people filled St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, this afternoon (Sunday November 9) for the annual National Service of Remembrance. The service was televised live on RTE for the first time and the President was represented by his Aide de Camp, Col Brendan McAndrew.
Also present was the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Christy Burke, the Tánaiste, Minister Joan Burton, members of the Diplomatic Corps, representatives of the Defence Forces and many veterans and their families. The Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Dr Michael Jackson and Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Raymond Field were in attendance.
The congregation was welcomed by the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, the Very Revd Victor Stacey and the service was introduced by the Dean’s Vicar, the Revd Charles Mullen. Precentor, Canon Robert Reed, led the occasional prayers. Lessons were read by Tom Burke, MBE, Chairman of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers’ Association and Peter Murtagh, journalist with the Irish Times.
Wreaths were laid at the Tree of Remembrance in the cathedral’s north transept by Col Brendan McAndrew, the Tánaiste and Geoffrey Medcalf, national Vice Chairman of the Royal British Legion.
The address was given by the Revd Peter Rutherford, Rector of Julianstown and South Drogheda, a former Assistant Chaplain General of HM Forces. He spoke of the people from every parish, county and city in Ireland of different social and political backgrounds who fought in the First World War in which 200,000 Irishmen served and at least 35,000 lost their lives.
This was war as never experienced before, he said, describing it as a “totally mechanised conflict that shattered the illusion and optimism of western civilisation”.
However, he continued: “Thankfully, 100 years on from the start of that conflict, it is now possible for people throughout our island, of whatever political or religious tradition, to acknowledge the courage, bravery and sacrifice that so many made as part of that terrible, and primarily European, conflict: not to glorify war, but to recognise its cost”.
[A transcript of Mr Rutherford’s address is reproduced in full below.]
The service is also available to view on the RTE Player at: http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10342738/
Photo caption: An Tánaiste, Minister Joan Burton, lays a wreath at the Tree of Remembrance in St Patrick’s Cathedral. (Photo: Patrick Hugh Lynch)
ADDRESS FOR NATIONAL SERVICE OF REMEMBRANCE
ST PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN
1515HRS 9TH NOVEMBER 2014
THE REVEREND PETER RUTHERFORD M.THEOL. M.A
RECTOR OF JULIANSTOWN AND SOUTH DROGHEDA
FORMERLY ASSISTANT CHAPLAIN GENERAL HM FORCES
Micah 4:1–5 Psalm 82 Ephesians 6:10–18
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (in Irish)
“… God shall judge between many peoples … nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more …”
Rifleman Billy McFadzean, aged 20 from East Belfast, serving in the Royal Irish Rifles, was killed on the 1st July 1916, and posthumously awarded the VC. Lt Col John McDonnell, aged 39, from my own parish in East Meath, from the Leinster Regiment, was killed in September 1918, weeks before the end of the war. Pte Patrick Sweeney, aged 27, from Tuam, Co Galway, serving in the Connaught Rangers, was a prisoner of war and was killed in the murky in–fighting in Germany in 1919. Michael John O’Leary, born in 1890, from West Cork, served as a soldier in the Irish Guards, was awarded the VC in 1915, was subsequently commissioned, struggled with war wounds for the rest of his life, and retired from service as a Major. Billy was a Presbyterian from Ulster; John a member of the Church of Ireland from Leinster; Patrick a Roman Catholic from Connaught; and Michael a Roman Catholic from Munster. From every parish, county and city in Ireland men, of different social and political backgrounds, voluntarily (for here there was no conscription) found themselves caught up in the massive conflict that we now refer to as the First World War. Well over 200,000 Irishmen served as part of the British army, and at least 35,000 lost their lives. Thousands more, of course, like Michael, survived, but carried the physical, mental and spiritual scars of war for the rest of their lives; and thousands of families were left to deal with loss and disabled relatives.
This was war as never experienced before – a totally mechanized conflict that shattered the illusion and optimism of western civilization. Even if we have dug a trench and lived in one, I suspect that few here to–day have themselves experienced anything like the horror of what the London “Times” correspondent of the time referred to as “The butchery of the unknown by the unseen.” Earlier in this service […] the choir sang as a motet, lines written by Laurence Binyon, “They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old …”. Few, I suspect, are aware that these lines were written as part of a longer poem, not in 1918 or 1919, but in late September 1914, only weeks into the conflict – by then so many of the British Expeditionary Force had been killed.
Thankfully, 100 years on from the start of that conflict, it is now possible for people throughout our island, of whatever political or religious tradition, to acknowledge the courage, bravery and sacrifice that so many made as part of that terrible, and primarily European, conflict: not to glorify war, but to recognize its cost. Commemorations and acts of remembrance have taken place, and continue across Ireland. It was not always so, and earlier this year at one of those local commemorations, in Durrow, Co Laois, I was shown the diaries of Fr Ned Dowling, a RC priest from Ossory, who had served with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, came back home, and sat lonely and isolated in his rural parish, hearing the Service of Remembrance on the radio from London in Nov. 1934, 80 years ago: “It was very lonely – sitting here thinking of the dead, and of the living, spending my Armistice Day as I always spend it, thinking of them and praying for them – alone with my ghosts.” It’s not healthy for an individual to have to repress memory; so also for a society. Here in this place (THE NORTH TRANSEPT – MEMORIALS AND STANDARDS – THE WINDOW WITH THE TREE OF LIFE AND THE WAR–TORN TREE AND EXHIBITION) set aside as a focus for God’s presence within the Christian tradition, it is good to see the “Lives Remembered” project in the north transept. It combines the traditional memorials and standards, below the great window depicting the Tree of Life, with a contemporary exhibition centred around the shattered war–torn tree where prayers may be left as leaves, echoing the vision of the prophet Micah for peace.
As you and I leave the sanctity of this place and this national Service of Remembrance,
where and with what do we go? Have we just revisited the past, or are we able to “Lift up our hearts and sing a new song”? I have with me today my 2 passports: at the top of my Irish one is An tAontas Eorpach; at the top of the British one is The European Union. To those who fought in the war that began 100 years ago the concept of a European Union would have been unimaginable: Europe was tearing itself apart. If we are Christians of whatever tradition we pray the Lord’s Prayer in which we pray “Thy Kingdom come …” I’m not suggesting that the European Union is the Kingdom of God, far from it, but you and I have a responsibility to allow ourselves to be channels of God’s will and not our own self–centred wills, and we need to go from here with a vision rooted in God’s will. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was a Church of England priest with a strong Irish background, a graduate of TCD, he became one of WW1’s most famous chaplains as “Woodbine Willie”. Seeing the Crucified Christ as the epitome of God’s total love for humanity, he also saw the need to remember. In the poem If Ye Forget he wrote: Let me forget –
Let me forget, I am weary of remembrance, And my brow is ever wet, With tears of my remembrance, With tears and bloody sweat – Let me forget. If ye forget –
If ye forget, Then your children must remember, And their brow be ever wet,
With the tears of their remembrance, With the tears and bloody sweat –If ye forget.
Amen.