Ireland's view of the Armistice

Times they are a changing. When I moved here three years ago the Armisitce was almost never talked about, and I didn't see anyone wearing a poppy, as it was seen as an symbol of British oppression. Now this year wearing a poppy is less controversial than it used to be following the discussion by one of the candidates in the recent Presidential campaign that she would wear one. The re-elected President Michael D. Higgins has moved the time of his inauguration so that he can attend a ceremony to mark the Armisitce at Glasnevin Military Cemetery on Sunday. The Shamrock Poppy is actually proving to be a very healing sysmbol, healing by acknowledging the part that the First World War played in this country's history. This can be seeen by the fact that the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is wearing one.

The reason for this change in attitude is due to more that just the centenary, People here are realising that it is right to honour the memory of those young Irishmen who fell. Despite the fact that they were fighting for the British Army who were doing terrible things to the people of Ireland at the time. The village of Rathnew sent more men to the war by capita than any other in the British Empire at the time. They were taking part in what a lot of them will have seen at first have seen as a big adventure and one that might possibly improve their family situations, or that by taking part proving the Irish were worthy of home rule. Some of the young Irish soliders who went probably viewed it in the same way as the thousands of Scots who went off to fight.

Now 102 years after the Easter Rising, Ireland is understanding all aspects of its past and proving that it is a young but mature democracy. One whose birth following the first world war was violent due to the Civil War at home over the treaty with Britain. So with the fact that the youngest solider killed in the Great War was fourteen year old, Waterford-born John Condon, more people are considering it right to honour the deaths of all young Irishmen who fell, rather than viewing them as traitors to the republican cause. Indeed John Condons' grave at Poelkapelle near Ypres is one of the most visited war graves.