By Andy Spearman
The 2024 memorial ceremony for all the Drogheda men and women who perished in wars around the world was memorable for those not in attendance rather than those who were. The whole event needs a total rethink.
Sadly, with each passing year the colour party of veterans gets smaller as, one by one, the old soldiers go to their eternal rest.
Clergy from the various churches, the Roman Catholic Parish Priest, the Church of Ireland Rector and other religious figures from the area, usually attend to lead the congregation in prayers, not this year though.
They featured in the order of service pamphlet but not one of them turned up – perhaps they weren’t told about it?
This left Mayor Paddy McQuillan and Councillors Declan Power and Pio Smith with the responsibility of reading the prayers.
“No bother to them,” said one man who shall remain nameless, “sure they’d all say Mass!”
Also missing from this year’s ceremony was Bridie Maxwell, the poet of Weir Hope, who sadly passed away last month. For many years Bridie wrote a poem specially for the ceremony and it was always a moving and significant part of the proceedings.
Sadly, Bridie wasn’t mentioned, not in the printed programme or in any of the speeches or prayers. She will be forever in the hearts of regular attendees though.
Nor was there any mention of the millions of people around the world, most of them women and children, currently suffering at the hands of power hungry so-called political leaders.
It would have been nice to have heard a few words of remembrance for the innocent victims of Gaza and Ukraine, South Sudan and the many other conflict zones in which unarmed citizens are currently being butchered.
This annual ceremony is badly in need of a rethink, there must be some more meaningful way to remember our war dead. Certainly, the monument needs to be taken out of the Mary Street car park and moved to a more prominent site – in the forecourt of the new Council offices in Fair Street perhaps?
I will finish this report with a few lines from the poem that Bridie Maxwell read to a last year’s ceremony called “The Evils of War”:
Promising to remember our heroes of war
North and South
And all those other countries
Who fell foul to evil strains of war
As here we promise to remember them
For ever and ever.
Rest in Peace Bridie you beautiful person, you are sadly missed by all who knew you.
