"The need to preserve and enhance our county distinctions grows by the day. Our counties hold the keys to our culture, our history, our very existence as a nation. Each county has played a part, however small, in the pageant of our nation. Each deserves recognition for that role."
So writes Richard Roche, the editor of Wexford: Association Yearbook 2000. That particular county has contributed so much and the Dublin Wexford Association in this elegant, informative magazine gives much that can be enjoyed and assimilated by those beyond its borders. For example, there are several pages of pictures and text honouring Myles Byrne of Monaseed, in whose honour a party of Wexford people last year travelled to Paris to lay on his grave in Montmarte a wreath of laurels grown on the battlefield of Ballygullen where Wexford's last battle was fought.
Myles was a remarkable figure. At the age of 18 he took part in all the major battles of the 1798 Insurrection, eventually making his way to Dublin where he met Robert Emmet and took part in the failed Rising of 1803. Emmet sent him to Paris to explain the position to the United Irishmen in exile. Byrne served in the French Army in Greece and had the Legion of Honour conferred on him. He retired from the army in 1835 and died in January 1862.
At the graveside in Paris last year, after a decade of the Rosary, all present sang Boolavogue and Brid Lyons sang the French national anthem. There is a full-page picture of Myles Byrne - "arguably the only photograph in existence of a Wexford insurgent leader of 1798."
Much else in the magazine, including an article with good pictures of Tintern Abbey, a Cistercian Abbey on Bannow Bay, now being restored by Duchas. And, a touching note: the Abbey is special "not only for its history and architecture, but as the roosting site for a colony of whiskered bats, while the adjacent estuary contains a number of priority habitats, and supports large numbers of wintering wildfowl." (Hope the Duchas people look after the bats in particular). Article by Aighleann O'Shaughnessy and Dr Ann Lynch.
Eoin Mac Kiernan on A Nation Once Again, closing with: "A smaller nation sharing a language with a much larger nation will dance to the tune of the larger one. A truly bilingual Ireland will have the best of both worlds."
On the last page a sombre piece signed Senex. "We are flinging money around as if there were no tomorrow . . . throwing away our heritage, ancient artworks are being destroyed or ruthlessly exploited . . . There is still time to shout `Stop'."