A simple cardboard box brought to last night's meeting of the Kilcullen Great War Commemoration Group proved to be a veritable treasure trove of memories and memorabilia from the turn of the 19th-20th century and later,
writes Brian Byrne.
The box was brought to the group by Liam Walker, whose maternal grandfather Michael O'Connor served as a British soldier in the early 1900s, and the material included his army paybook, pictures, his promotion certificate to corporal, war medals, and a magnificent collection of contemporary postcards. Michael O'Connor served with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, which had their depot at Naas.
Meanwhile the meeting heard that the number of men from the Kilcullen area who died in WW1 is growing and is now up to 34, following investigations of memorial scrolls in local churches.
A provisional date of August 23, the Saturday evening before the 2014 Kilcullen River Festival, was set for the official Commemoration Concert and Exhibition to be held in the Town Hall. The event will include music and songs from the WW1 period, a rehearsal reading of John Martin's one-act play about the War, and contributions from individuals and the Kilcullen Writing Group. It is hoped that memorabilia from the period, including material owned by local families, will be on display for the occasion.
Julie O'Donoghue said that will be the first day of National Heritage Week, and the Group has been awarded a Heritage Grant of €800 towards the costs. In the matter of a memorial to those local men who died, she said it wouldn't be possible to have one done by August, and suggested that a temporary printed Roll of Honour be prepared for the Commemoration event.
A public subscription could be opened to fund a permanent memorial to be put in place next year, she said. Also, the events of this year might well bring forward more names, which would allow the memorial to be more accurate.
A Facebook page, the
Kilcullen Great War Commemoration, has been established. And a 'Memories Evening' is being planned for a date in July where local people can come and talk about their family involvement in the War. The recent 'Life in the Trenches' presentation and field trip by Col Des Travers was a tremendous success, and brought the Kilcullen activities to the attention of an audience from much further than the local area.
Last night's meeting also recalled a number of Kilcullen men who came back from the conflict with varying degrees of psychological damage, generally labelled as 'shell shock'.
