In a word . . . Belgium

So Ireland play Belgium today. They should remember us.

All those of our fine strong sons who went out, broke their strength, and died for Belgium 100 years ago.

And before they grace the pitch at the Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux this afternoon, the Belgian team might pause in their dressing room to consider what they owe those selfless Irishry of a century ago.

Then, pondering on such young men’s lithe descendants awaiting on the pitch outside, they might reflect on whether they ought inflict defeat on such lineage in bloody competition for a lesser thing. They owe us, Lord, and our fine strong forefathers, whose blood nurtured their soil.

It has become de rigueur for some to blame John Redmond for the fact that an estimated 200,000 young Irishmen voluntarily enlisted to fight during the second World War, at least 35,000 and possibly upwards of 49,000 plus, of whom lost their lives.

But another more powerful institution in Irish life at the time also urged young men to fight for the freedom of Little Belgium. The Catholic Church then had far more moral authority than any politician in Ireland. Nor did it send any of those young men to die, but to defend.

In August, 1914, the destruction of one Belgian city, Leuven, had particular resonance in Catholic Ireland.

The Irish College in Leuven was founded in 1607 by Irish Franciscans as a seminary for Irish Catholic priests, then executed on sight in Ireland.

On August 25th, 1914, the Germans ravaged Leuven. They killed 248, expelled the population of 10,000, and burned the city’s university library, destroying 300,000 medieval books and manuscripts.

Elsewhere in Belgium, people were summarily executed and several towns deliberately destroyed in a series of actions in what collectively became known as “The Rape of Belgium”. As many as 6,500 people were killed between August and November 1914.

News of the atrocities spurred the Catholic bishops in Ireland to persuade young nationalist Irishmen to join the fight for “Little Catholic Belgium” and the “Freedom of Small Nations”. And they did.

Remember that, o ye Belgians, in Bordeaux today.

Belgium, from the Latin Belgae, the name of a territory occupied by a Celtic tribe, possibly our cousins. It was adopted in 1830 as the name of the current state which was the southern part of the Netherlands.

[ inaword@irishtimes.com ]