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<< -- 6 -- Roderic Dunnett BEHIND THE LINES
Another striking voice, with shades of Yeats :
- Kiss the maid and pass her round,
Lips like hers were made for many ...
is Francis Ledwidge, the eighth son of an evicted tenant farmer in Slane,
County Meath, and 'a fitting example', Jon Stallworthy points
out, 'of the 200,000 enlisted Irish soldiers, of whom over ten percent
-- some 27,000 -- perished.'
Francis Ledwidge. Photo: The Imperial War Museum, London
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Ledwidge, who worked as a farm hand, roadbuilding foreman and copper
miner -- he was sacked for fomenting a strike -- was a passionate Nationalist,
and secretary of his local Irish Volunteers, though consciously steered
away from the activities of Sinn Fein (the more extreme nationalists). In
the end he joined the Royal Enniskillen Fusiliers because, as he put it,
'England stands between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilisation'.
Ledwidge embarked on the SS Novien and served in Gallipoli, Salonika
and Serbia before meeting his death at the Third Battle of Ypres ('Passchendaele')
on 31 July 1917.
Francis Ledwidge's gravestone at Ypres. Photo: The Imperial War Museum, London
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Copyright © 26 December 2002
Roderic Dunnett, Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
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