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Hundreds attend Dunree
remembrance
02.07.08
Story: Inishowen Independent
SOME 250 people braved the elements on Sunday
afternoon last to attend the fourth annual
Remembrance Ceremony at Fort Dunree for the men and
women of Inishowen killed in World War 1. With the
wind searing in from the Swilly, making conditions
anything but ideal, the large crowd present was
testament to the fact that after just four years
this remembrance ceremony has already captured the
Inishowen public’s attention and is here to stay.
The ceremony was opened by Master of Cermonies PJ
Hallinan, who is also Chairman of the Inishowen
Friends of Messines organisation. Hallinan has been
instrumental in local attempts to ensure that the
Inishowen dead from the First World War – and indeed
those from further afield – are not written out of
history. John McCarter, Chairman of Fort Dunree
Military Museum, then welcomed the crowd with a
short address that outlined Fort Dunree’s place in
Irish history down the years and he reminded
listeners of its ideal qualifications to host such a
ceremony. |
Several musical
interludes took place, including a number by
all-Ireland champion fiddler Tracey McRory. The
Parade of Standards was led in by the Tullintrain
Pipe Band from Derry, with Sean Doherty cutting an
imposing figure on the bass drum. Carndonagh man
Gabriel Duffy, a former officer in the Irish Army,
was present in his UN attire to lead the salute.
A short service was conducted in windy but
thankfully dry conditions by members of the local
clergy - |
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Rev Gilbert Young, Fr
George Doherty and Canon Sam Barton - followed by a
reading of the Inishowen Roll of Honour. The list
was read by sixteen locals from various parts of
Inishowen, reciting the names of the known dead from
every parish in the peninsula, some 250 men and
women in all.
The words of young Sean McLaughlin, who was himself
killed in the Omagh bombing in August 1998, were
read: “Orange and Green, it does not matter, United
now . . . don’t shatter our dream, Scatter the seeds
of peace across the land, So we can travel hand in
hand, Across the Bridge of Hope.”
Recently elected Mayor of Buncrana, Dermott
McLaughlin, who only last month visited the killing
fields of Somme and Flanders with the International
School for Peace Studies in Belgium, later laid a
wreath in tribute to the dead.
The ceremony came to an end with a haunting
rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ by Tracey McGrory and
‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ by the Buncrana Youth Accordion
Band before the hardy crowd made their way into the
fort for a much needed and very welcome cup of tea.
Those snaking their way home along the narrow roads
out of Dunree will have been mindful of the simple
message from the Kohima Prayer, which was read aloud
in the closing stages of the ceremony…“When you go
home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrow, We
gave our today.” |
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