Last spring, my family and I arrived at the end of a journey which began more than 80 years ago. Our journey ended in a cemetery in western Flanders. There, under a chestnut tree in a corner of a graveyard, lay the remains of 18163 Pte Pat Kane of the 2nd Leinster Regiment.
Neither I nor any of his surviving family ever met Pat, but in many ways we felt we knew him. As my mother's uncle, he lived in the memory of our household and as children we were often shown the faded brown photograph of him in uniform. We had his swagger stick with his carved initials and, most poignantly, his notebook, part of which was destroyed by the bullet which that took his life.
Growing up as a child in the 1960s, we used to view Pat as something of a hero, as a soldier who, almost romantically, lost his life in a gallant action fighting an evil enemy. To a child reared on the Victor and Valiant that's how it seemed. But I remember, too, that it brought immense sadness to the Kane home. Pat had survived three years of carnage only to die on November 9th 1918, two days before the end of the great slaughter.
Then came the 1970s, and soldiers in British uniform were no longer faded photographs or images in movies. As nationalists, we talked less about Pat, and if he was not quite forgotten, his photo and notebook were left in the drawer.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records: "Plot 7A V11a Row F Grave 2. The grave of Private Pat Kane lies a little way beyond the stream called Hunnebeek".
Where Pat lies, outside a town called Langemark, a few miles from Ypres, he shares a plot with about 4,000 others. That makes it a small graveyard, barely a bad day at the front in the first World War. Similar graveyards are found every few miles in the area, and to find where Pat lay we had to seek the assistance of a local Flemish farmer. He was initially unhelpful, thinking we were Germans whose graves also dot the area - even after so many years, old prejudices remain.
We had never heard of Langemark before, but the area was one of the major killing fields of the war, with many of the early battles fought there. It is said that much of the old professional British army perished in this area of Flanders to be replaced by eager volunteers unaware of what lay ahead of them. Langemark is also where the Germans delivered their first gas attack, to devastating effect, in 1915.
Today, the area around Langemark has the appearance of a prosperous agricultural region with miles of neat fields and well-tended ditches and drains. Visitors to the cemetery are barely given a second glance by locals, yet these people's relations were at the centre of mankind's worst military carnage. The ground they till still regularly throws up the debris of war.
A Capt Hitchcock of Pat's regiment kept a diary relating to the conditions in the Ypres salient, and it gives us some insight into what he endured.
"The place reeked with the smell of decomposed bodies. They lay about in hundreds, on top of the parapets, in our trenches, in no-man's-land, and behind the parades. The ridge in our rear was covered with dead men who had been wiped out in the final assault of the German position: their faces blackened and swollen from three days' exposure to the August sun and quite unrecognisable. Our casualties increased at such a rapid rate that we were all greatly alarmed, our trench had ceased to exist as such and the enemy shrapnel caused dreadful havoc amongst the practically exposed company. L/Corpl. Leanard, Privates Keenan, McKenna, Digan and Shea of the platoon, had been hit and Algeo got a direct hit on his platoon, killing 6032 Pte Fay and 3642 Pte Lysaght, and wounding Privates Healy and Rattigan badly, and four of his NCOs." This was Pat's war.
His notebook is now a surviving family heirloom, and first glance tells us little of his thoughts and hopes. But the messages are there. At various points he tots up his pay (1 shilling 8d per day), estimating how much he will have when the war is over. He practises his French with one sentence of particular importance recorded: "end de les guerre". He writes down favourite prayers and songs and records on August 15th 1918: "Let me not forget Thursday 15th August 1918 at the little chapel in Calais, feast of BVM."
At Pat's grave, we perhaps felt a degree of shame that we were the first people who knew him to view his resting place. And it took over 80 years.
What brought my father and mother, my brother, my uncle and me there now is not totally clear. There certainly was no conscious decision because of the peace process. But in my own mind I would not have felt inclined to go 10 or 20 years ago. While our family still wanted to remember Pat, as nationalists we are and may always be uncomfortable with poppies, military bands and official commemorations. It is other people's way - their right - but not ours.
Perhaps our journey has not ended.
