First World War commemorations

Sir, – As the date of the 100th anniversary of the opening shots of the first World War draws closer, the barrage of books, articles, etc, will no doubt increase, while numerous exhibitions will be mounted. Does it ever occur to the people involved that all this “derring-do” resulted in the deaths of countless Germans, Bulgarians, Turks, Austrians and Hungarians, not to mention the lesser-known nationalities that comprised the Austro-Hungarian empire? All of those were people, whom to paraphrase Churchill slightly, “never laid a violent hand upon us”, which is more than can be said for the army for which these Irishmen fought. – Yours, etc,

TOM McCLELLAND,

Elton Court,

Leixlip,

Co Kildare.