Irish tributes to troops who took part in landings

Mere words "are totally inadequate to describe the great events of D-Day", the chaplain of Ireland's Naval Service told a ceremony in Dublin to mark yesterday's 60th anniversary.

Father Des Campion said the Normandy landings began the liberation of Europe from "tyranny, mass death, and destruction". He paid tribute to the participants in "the longest day", especially "those who gave their lives, or were wounded, and those who were traumatised by war".

Quoting Laurence Binyon's For the Fallen, he added: "They were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted. They fell with their faces to the foe."

In a service that followed closely the pattern of the simultaneous commemoration in Bayeux, Normandy, former British army Padre Canon Bob Jennings also paid tribute to the dead and wounded of June 1944: "We pray that we may walk worthy of their sacrifice."

Around 200 people attended the ceremony, held in the National War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge. The Government was not represented, but the organisers - the Royal British Legion's Republic of Ireland branch - said there had been no formal invitation, only a "general one, to anyone who wanted to come".

A Government spokesman said the State had a national day of remembrance for the dead of all wars, and the Taoiseach always attended this.

Speaking after yesterday's event, the British Legion's Irish president Maj Gen The O'Morchoe said that the subject of Irish soldiers serving in British regiments had been "swept under the carpet in the past, and it's only now the carpet is being lifted".

There was a growing realisation that "there are very few families in Ireland who didn't have a relative in the British services at some time" and this was no longer something to be ashamed about.

Irish people "joined for all sorts of reasons," he added, "and their relatives want to know what they did, and want to be proud of them".

The Islandbridge ceremony also included the laying of poppy wreaths on the gardens' great cross by diplomats and ex-service organisations. The British Ambassador, Mr Stewart Eldon, and the Chargé d'Affaires at the US Embassy, Ms Jane Forte, were among those presenting tributes.

Wreaths were also laid by representatives of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Slovak Republic, Norway, Poland and Greece.

The Polish tribute was presented by an Irish veteran of the Normandy campaign, Jack Johnstone (81) from Finglas, who landed in France three days after D-Day.

Mr Johnstone was applauded by the crowd, as was Oxford-born Mr John Wetherall (79), who took part in the ill-fated attempt to secure a bridgehead at Arnhem - later immortalised as A Bridge Too Far - in September 1944. "A right cock-up" was how he recalled the operation yesterday. Captured by the Germans, he escaped during the final months of the war and moved to Ireland, where he has lived since.

Other groups participating included the Irish UN Ex-Servicemen's Association. The Army was also represented by a piper, Sgt Christy Dwyer.