Sunday, January 17, 2016

Men Shall Not Wholly Die - Messines Ridge 1917

Battle of Messines, Battle of the Somme, Great War, World War One

Last week I read an interesting opinion piece from Alex Kane in a Belfast newspaper that reflected upon one of the most choreographically inopportune aspects of modern Irish political history - the clear reticence of the Northern Protestant to morally equate the Irish Republican dynamics of the modern conflict since 1970 with historic fissures of yore between Unionism and Nationalism on the island.

This issue of course lies at the heart of political stasis in a Northern Ireland at peace yet is barely discussed in mainstream media alike two of the other unmentionables in the afterglow of war - the ongoing and indeed healthy existence of paramafia in Ireland and the clear historical revisionism being practiced by one particular political party with nauseating connivance of a certain state broadcaster.

The latter came to a ludicrous and indeed quite appropriately post-modern head last week with one very popular radio programme in Ulster garnering feedback on the creative legacy of David Bowie from a local politician whose party originated in a body who blew up my local Esso garage, Spar supermarket and newsagents in North Belfast during the early Seventies. Sometime between The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory to be exact.

A timely airing indeed of an immovable historical quandary as the recent spate of Irish political anniversaries now reaches its apogee with the forthcoming 100th anniversaries of both the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme - the foundation stones and indeed foundation myths of both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland states.

Back on the 50th anniversary in 1966 - a year which commenced when I was not even one-month old - the tensions engendered in Northern Ireland by Unionist political mischief-making about potential Republican military offensives lead to three Loyalist paramilitary assassinations of innocent Catholic and Protestant civilians and the path was thus paved to a quarter-century long conflict three years later.

This year is full of desperately sobering memories for the people of Ireland in regard to the political battles undertaken and the physical sacrifices made in 1916 by Ulster Unionists, Irish Nationalists and Irish Republicans at home and abroad. Yet beyond this milestone - and individual reflection upon the horror, waste and destruction of the subsequent military and civil conflicts in both parts of the island - lies another sobering anniversary which conversely embodies so much human potential for a genuine shared future.

Much has been written in recent years about the military heritage of the Southern Irish army regiments of a then British Ireland - Neil Richardson and Kevin Myers' studies are both extraordinary overviews of this hidden history and are highly recommended. The volunteers of nationalist Ireland who served in the British Army may have been transfigured into dupes or traitors by the dictates of a certain foregone or random pathway of history but they were clearly as proudly nationalist as Carson's volunteer army were King's Men and they loved their country as much as any Irish Republican.

As discussed in other posts it was at the Battle of Messines in June 1917 - the military engagement preceding the Third Battle of Ypres (or Passchendaele) which in turn followed upon stalemate at the Somme - that Nationalist and Unionist soldiers of the 16th Irish Division and the 36th Ulster Division fought side by side. The initial bombardment of German lines and the detonation of mine-laid explosives created the loudest man-made noise in history at that point  - it felt like an earthquake in London and was even registered in Dublin. The battle itself to seize Messines Ridge was bloodthirstily engaged on both sides - British military objectives were however secured.

The Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond's brother Willie was Westminster MP for Wexford and joined the Royal Irish Regiment which recruited in Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Kilkenny.  Redmond had been withdrawn from combat duties on promotion to the rank of Major but actively requested permission to engage in the frontline. The night before this battle - in which he would be fatally wounded - he spoke to every man in the 6th Regiment. The following day he was recovered from the battlefield by Ulster stretcher-bearers from the 36th of whom at least one was a member of the Orange Order. Richardson's history also notes that the Ulster soldiers contributed 100 pounds to Redmond's memorial fund and formed a guard of honour at his funeral. Both Irish Divisions also fought alongside each other later in the year at the Battle of Langemarck.

The 25-year long civil war in Northern Ireland brought nothing to that country beyond shame, hatred, psychotic violence, fear, infusions of bad blood and the destruction of one of Europe's great port cities. Sadly one hundred years of Irish history in general since Flanders Fields and Sackville Street can be read in a not dissimilarly deflated, sterile and retrograde fashion. Yet for all the struggles and strains of modern day Ireland - from permanent austerity to high levels of immigration - Messines yet stands for something unique and clearly untested. There are of course a myriad of qualifications surrounding the subject but a core dynamic remains of released scope for both a new transcript of history and a literal transfiguration of Irish identity.

The Island of Ireland Peace Park stands today at the site of the Messines Ridge battlefield near Ypres in the West Flanders province of Belgium. The round tower in the park houses bronze cubicles containing record books listing the known dead and the unique design allows the sun to light the interior only on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The inscription on the peace pledge plaque in the park's centre circle notes:

As Protestants and Catholics, we apologise for the terrible deeds we have done to each other and ask forgiveness. From this sacred shrine of remembrance, where soldiers of all nationalities, creeds and political allegiances were united in death, we appeal to all people in Ireland to help build a peaceful and tolerant society. Let us remember the solidarity and trust that developed between Protestant and Catholic soldiers when they served together in these trenches.

The park also incorporates three pillars classifying the killed, wounded and missing of the three voluntary Irish Divisions - the 36th Ulster (32,186), the 10th Irish (9,363) and the 16th Irish (28,398) - and an upright tablet listing the 32 counties of Ireland with the names flowing together to suggest the unity of death. Nine stone tablets in turn include prose, poems and letters from these soldiers of a British Ireland whose battle survivors would return to a deeply unsympathetic political and economic
future on these islands.

Six hundred miles to the west of Messines meanwhile - where the mighty Atlantic first engages rock and shore - may yet lie a font of reflection, decency and forgiveness in this now economically broken and politically lost continent.