Once upon a time “poppy day” was an annual event most of us slept through, marked by an irrelevant old woman putting down a wreath at a pointless monument to violence in London. A box of cheap red paper poppies would appear in our classrooms at the start of the month and the teacher would tell us some patriotic lies about brave soldiers and we could “remember them” at the cost of just 5p a poppy. It’s all different now.
Long Way to Tipperary
Nine decades of silence, indifference and frequent contempt have been heaped upon the memory of the part Ireland played in the British war effort during the great conflagration of the First World War – not by its disgruntled old colonial overlord, but by the Irish state itself. Boys and men from every corner of this … Continue reading Long Way to Tipperary
