McAleese attends war dead service

PRESIDENT MARY McAleese yesterday attended an ecumenical service at St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin for Remembrance Sunday to commemorate the war dead.

Ex-servicemen and women wearing campaign medals and poppies and relatives of those who served in the wars were among the congregation at the service organised by the Royal British Legion.

Mrs McAleese was accompanied by her husband Dr Martin McAleese and the Government was represented by Minister for Health Mary Harney.

The Very Rev Dr Robert McCarthy, dean of St Patrick’s, took the service, with lessons read by journalist Kevin Myers and UTV presenter Paul Clark.

The most solemn part of the service came as buglers played The Last Post, which was followed by a minute's silence. Wreaths were laid at the cathedral's war memorial by Mrs McAleese and legion president Maj Gen David The O'Morchoe.

During his sermon, the abbot of Glenstal Dom Patrick Hederman said the last century was probably the “bloodiest on record”.

People remembered with “awe and gratitude” those who “laid down their lives” so “we might live in comparative freedom and wellbeing,” he said.

The sacrifice implied the possibility of victory of one side over another but the nuclear age revoked that possibility, he said. The preservation of the species could now only be accomplished through peace, he added.

Relatives of Irishmen who died serving with the British armed forces in recent years were also present. Among those were Mary Malone, mother of Lance Cpl Ian Malone from Dublin who was killed in Basra, Iraq, in 2003. Relatives of British royal marine Robert McKibben from Co Mayo, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2008, were also in attendance.

Among the groups represented were St John’s Ambulance Brigade, Royal Irish Fusiliers, Combined Irish Regiments, Royal Air Force, Irish Guards, Royal Artillery, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Naval Air Service.

Former senator Jack Harte (89), one of the oldest surviving Irish second World War veterans, said afterwards: “I don’t think people get the significance of it. It’s something you never forget”. He said an increased recognition in Ireland over recent years of ex-servicemen and women was “phenomenal”.