It has to say something with regard to the contrary extremes of Ireland's histiory that She played an enormous part in the First World War, and had little or no role to speak of in the Second. Indeed it has been claimed that after the English, none of the inhabitants of the home nations gave more in dead bodies during the first conflict than did the Irish. A claim much disputed by the Welsh and Scots; but which may have some semblence of truth to it, if only by virtue of the nature of Ireland's abject poverty acting as the most persuasive of recruiting sergeants.

No matter. By the time the second came around there was no such ambiguity. Ireland remained embarrassingly but steadfastly neutral. A position which, despite the posturing and bluster of both De Valera and Churchill, suited both very well. Dev, since Ireland was totally unready for a part in the world conflict -- dubbed  'The Emergency ' in the Republic -- and almost totally unwilling to side with the British. Churchill, since Ireland's neutrality virtually guaranteed it would not be invaded by the Germans and thus provide a hostile base from which to threaten the British mainland.
Of course in public both huffed and puffed. Yet as extant Cabinet Papers show, Irish neutrality was a Godsend to the Churchill Government; especially as it was nothing if not benign, allowing access to safe ports and a route for escapees from Nazi occupied Europe.

That is not to say that there were not those, thousands as it happens, of Irish who opted to serve in the British Army during the Second World War. Special regiments were created and preserved for them. The most famous of which was The Royal Irish Hussars [ the orginal 'Desert Rats' ] who served with such distinction and bravery under Montgomery, himself considered Irish, in the Eighth Army, as to be singled out for particular and heartfelt mention by their General. And of whom, sadly it has to be said, barely half returned home to their native towns and villages to be at peace; or whatever.

So then what epitaph for those who risked and sacrificed all, not to save the British Empire; but to defeat Fascism? Candidly none, I fear. For there are no Cenotaphs in the Irish Republic. Nor are ther any official celebrations to comemorate the passing of fallen heroes who happen to boot to have fallen foul of the fury of nations.

Which is why in the late Eighties, in one of its last acts of civic usefulness, the failing Fitzgerald Administration, shamed out of inertia and looking to divert the attention of a public less then enamoured of its seismic incompetence, instituted ' A Great Debate' in relation to those who had given their lives fighting for the British Crown. This included, incidentally, all those who had joined up desperate for food and welfare, as well as those who had made a choice based upon principle. Regrettably, as with all discussions of momentous issues of conscience and constitution in Ireland, it commenced with high mindedness and closed with high farce.

Opening the debate the Taoiseach declared :

' I am very much taken with the view that the Irish people wish to be able to celebrate a contribution to these awesome and decisive combats beyond the person of William Joyce [ Lord Haw Haw ]. '

Er.... Yes. Well, Amen to that. Nonetheless though well intentioned, as could have been predicted, as soon as the question was thrown open to the floor, came there the blistering wind of divisiveness as though once again unleashed across Ireland by the monstrous, unquiet bellows of the Civil War. There were those who wished to build memorials at once in defiance of the law against the erection of foreign monuments on Irish soil and began taking public subscriptions. There were also -- wouldn't you just know it --the prehistoric dinosaurs of the GAA and Clanna na Gael swearing to dismantle every such monument brick by brick with their own bare hands and enforce the Constitution of 1937. And there were the more pragamatic old Republicans of the Official IRA who, reverting to type, simply promised to blow the bloody lot up alongside Nelson's Column and Post Boxes bearing the insignia ' GR '. This last, you understand, despite the Ministry of Public Works having spent shedloads of taxpayer's money on painting them all green.

The Great Debate, such as it was, reached its culmination -- nadir would have been a more accurate description --in the Dail. When for four frantic days while Hospital Workers' Pay went unsettled; and a resolution to Round up Roaming Dogs failed for want of time, Teacha Dala and Senators railed against each other, hurling abuse, scuffling and very generally vowing to nail each other's tits to the gates of Armagh in pursuance of an amicable settlement of this most delicate of matters. 

In the end a compromise was reached. And it was broadly agreed that the Republic should offer to be represented at the Armistice Ceremony at the Cenotaph in London. There to lay a wreath, not of Poppies........but, wait for it......wait for it.........OF SHAMROCKS!!!! I will repeat this last just in case anyone cannot believe their eyes; or simply thinks that it is a misprint : A wreath not of Poppies; but of Shamrocks!!! 

It is the poor, bewildered British you have to feel sorry for here. Watching events unfold in the Republic with an admixture of amazement and consternation, not for the first time they came to the rescue of their Gaelic cousins. Mercifully they spared their neighbours' blushes with a polite but firm decline of the offer on the grounds that as both sides were assiduoulsy to book in the business of blasting each others' brains out in the North of Ireland, now was probably not an appropriate time to bury the hatchet on previous disputes. Mind, you have to wonder whether or not the very thought of C.J. ' Charlie Boy ' Haughey of the emerging Celtic Tiger, bouncing up to the Cenotaph in front of the Queen with a garland of green to the tune of ' Mother O'Grady's Chickens ' might not, in reality, have been too much for the British Establishment to stomach? We shall never know. For there it remains. Those who tasted the bitter cull of war have none to mourn or celebrate their selflessness publicly. 

Well. Not quite. This summer past with the Good Friday Agreement in place there came the chance to capture at last the hand of friendship as between these warring peoples of these our islands. ' God Save the Queen ' was sung at Croke Park and listened to in respectful silence; and then applauded. O tempora! O mores! What better epitaph could there be than this. Not of words; nor of stone. None better to remember them by. None better.