Sir, – Remembrance Day was inaugurated as a result of a suggestion to the British king, George V by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, the South African son of Irish parents.
The poppy is sold in South Africa in support of the South African Legion, which supports former South African soldiers of all races. As a former South African soldier I would buy one, but as an Irishman could not bring myself to wear one. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Tom Cooper’s challenge to Frank Feighan TD (November 10th) to wear an Easter lily in the Dáil, just as he has worn the poppy, reminds me that when I was growing up in Mohill, Co Leitrim in the 1950s, it was a feature of life there that one local man sold poppies in November while another sold Easter lilies on Easter Sunday morning. It was my late mother’s practice, as indeed I suspect it was for many in the town, to buy one of each.
No great political statement was made by this gesture, just a simple act of neighbourliness. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Fergal Tobin (November 13th) gratuitously insults many including myself with his remark “In Ireland, the lily is only worn by supporters of the IRA”. Every Eastertime I proudly wear a lily in honour and remembrance of the men and women of 1916, our struggle for independence, and all who have given their lives for this nation in our defence and peacekeeping forces and civic authorities. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Anyone who thinks that what the poppy symbolises is abhorrent should visit the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland.
At this site, located on the outskirts of a small town, a factory designed for the systematic annihilation of human beings was constructed. One and a half million children, parents, shopkeepers and farmers were converted into lampshades and garden fertiliser. New born babies had their heads smashed off walls while others were thrown alive into furnaces. People were fed to dogs.
There are hundreds of these sites scattered across central and eastern Europe. You can walk for miles by gravestones and memorials and view wreaths left by surviving family members. You can see elderly men and women weep as they recall the horror of their childhood.
Brave Irish men who volunteered with the British army during the second World War helped to end this genocide and spare our island from an evil that didn’t care for law, democracy, human rights or morality. An evil whose sole ambition was absolute conquest and the enslavement and annihilation of millions. These Irish soldiers helped to destroy Nazism and fascism, helped lay the foundations of the European Union and helped bring about a forum for the development of international law and co-operation. Thousands of them gave their lives.
How can we fail to remember them? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Fergal Tobin (November 13th) appears to believe that state armies are, by definition, morally superior to guerrilla forces. Is he aware that the German army which transformed Europe into a charnel-house between 1939 and 1945 was “properly constituted as the arm of a state internationally recognised in law”? The same could be said of the French soldiers responsible for terrible atrocities in Algeria, of the US military whose generals inflicted carpet-bombing and free-fire zones on the people of Vietnam, or of the Iraqi army which used poison gas against Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians. The list is by no means exhaustive. The main difference between state and guerrilla armies is that the latter tend to have less blood on their hands. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I hope I am not alone in being amazed at the laying of plain laurel wreaths by President Higgins and Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore on Remembrance Sunday (Breaking News, November 11th). Why, when many thousands of Irishmen of all classes and religions gave their lives in the two world wars of the last century, did our leaders not feel it possible to use even one poppy, which is the worldwide symbol of those terrible conflicts? I am prepared to accept our President was doing what he was told, but can only despair of the other two.
Callow and immature is the only explanation of such behaviour. And some of us thought there was a peace process.
Perhaps it demonstrates precisely why so few people voted in the referendum. Few could have faith in a bunch of politicians carrying out the wishes of the populace when they see such crass behaviour on their television screens. Ireland and democracy deserve better. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – The problem with the red poppy is not that it is used to remember the dead of the world wars and other wars. All the dead deserve to be remembered, along with the indiscriminate slaughter involved, and the fact that the second World War was a direct outcome of the first, a product of clashing nationalisms and imperialisms, along with greed, callousness and machismo.
Many wear the poppy to remember the struggle against fascism.
The problem with the red poppy is that it is used by the British military and establishment to justify current, recent and future wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Just look at any of the UK-based ceremonies including, regretfully, many Christian services and events.
We do need symbols to remember the dead and commit to peace. Declan Deasy’s suggestion (November 13th) of a laurel wreath is one. INNATE is involved in the distribution of white poppies, which is another. There are bound to be other possibilities. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – For approximately 25 years prior to her death in 1980, my aunt, Miss Bracken, was the secretary and head and tail of the British Legion in Cork. She always described her work as an extension of the department of social welfare as she processed applications for payments as diverse as fuel allowances to funeral grants. On the Saturday before Remembrance Sunday my siblings and I were recruited as helpers for the annual poppy appeal at a pitch outside the Victoria Hotel on Patrick Street. On that day the people of Cork, in their abundance, bought and wore the poppy.
That was until 1970, when two brave IRA men threatened and frightened Aunty Jo into ceasing the public collection. – Yours, etc,