The official state centenary commemoration of the outbreak of the First World War was marked with a memorial Mass on Sunday, 3rd August in St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Marlborough Street, Dublin, celebrated by the Most Rev Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland .
The government was represented by Mr. Charles Flanagan TD, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Defence Forces by Brigadier-General Colm Campbell. Major-General David O’Morchoe (Retd) President of the Royal British Legion and Director of the Military Heritage of Ireland Trust (CLG) also attended. Representatives of the Organisation of National Ex-Servicemen, the Royal British Legion Ireland, and others were in attendance.
In his homily, Archibishop Martin, stated, inter alia:
“We gather to recall the centenary of the opening of World War One. We remember the millions of young lives lost over those four long years of conflict right across Europe. We remember the idealism and the valour and the courage of those who served in that war. We remember in a particular way the thousands of young Irish men who fought and we remember especially those who fell in the pursuit of an ideal”.
“Like many families in Ireland, I had relatives who were involved very much in 1914 in the nationalist struggle in Ireland and I had relatives fighting in the British Army at the front. I remember one uncle, a bright and very sensitive man, who for various reasons had gone away from home a mere teenager and joined the army in London. He served in World War One and lost the sight in one eye. He rarely if ever spoke about the war. The horror he witnessed was obviously something which deeply affected him as a person for the rest of his life.”
“Our remembering the First World War and those who gave their lives in it, must challenge all of us to do all in our power to work for peace. The horror of war, gave rise to momentary idealism at the end of World War One with the idea of a League of Nations which would reduce the possibility of recourse to war. Such a hope was revived at the end of the Second World War with the establishment of the United Nations and the publication of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The horror of prolonged war recalls human hearts to the need to prevent war and eliminate its causes”.
