War and peace: Glenn Barr's thoughts on a shared history

However, what Remembrance Day does is allow the relatives of those who fought and died in war to recall the memories of those slaughtered.

Its poignancy also serves as a reminder of ensuing conflicts and the fault of humanity in resorting to war as a resolution to international differences.

In Ireland, as with most of its history, the slaughter of WWI was characterised by religious and political difference. As war clouds gathered over Europe, Ireland north and south was already on a collision course. In the south the Irish Volunteer Force (IVF) had mobilised in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

The anticipated civil warfare over the third Home Rule Bill was, however averted by the advent of an overarching conflict, The Great War. Two years into WWI, the Irish Republican Brotherhood in tandem with the James Connolly led Irish Citizen Army, organisations that had infiltrated the IVF, led a rebellion in Dublin in attempt to break the connection with Britain.

The Easter Rising of 1916 would eventually lead to the partition of Ireland. But, whilst Irish republicans sought to break the connection with Britain in the midst of WWI, in northern Europe the 16th Irish Division, led by Major Willie Redmond, the brother of Irish Parliamentary Party leader, John Redmond, stepped onto the battlefield.

Irish nationalists had responded to Britain’s call to fight in the hope that once the rage of war had subsided the demand for Home Rule would be satisfied. In the north of Ireland, the 36th Ulster Division, mainly comprised of Edward Carson’s UVF, also entered the fray in the hope that their display of loyalty to the Crown would secure safeguards against a British withdrawal from Ireland.

Militarily, the 1916 Rising was a failure and was ruthlessly crushed within five days by British forces. Although initially hostile to the rebellion, the population of southern Ireland reacted angrily to the execution of the rebel leaders leading to a widely spread desire to seek Irish independence. The ensuing War of Independence would lead to the Government of Ireland Act (1920) that created two parliaments on the island, one in Dublin and one in Belfast.

The upsurge in nationalist sentiment south of the new border had a knockon effect. The memories of Irishmen who had died or survivors who found themselves returning from a war fought on behalf of Britain encountered an abject hostility in the nascent Irish Free State.

Effectively, they were shoehorned out of history. Medals and mementos were placed in attic boxes and monuments to their memories allowed to go untended. This trend was compounded in Northern Ireland over half a century later when the ‘ Troubles’ reignited. In effect Catholics from Londonderry who had served in the British Forces felt unable to declare that they had done so. Famously, in the wake of Bloody Sunday in 1972, members of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association marched to the city’s Cenotaph and burned their medals and papers.

This seemingly intractable difficulty was tackled head on however, when in 1996 a group of people from across the island, incorporating political and religious creeds of all hues decided to visit the scene of one of WWI’s most infamous scenes, The Somme.

Amongst them was Londonderry man Glenn Barr OBE, well known throughout the city as a trade unionist and community activist who had set up many highly successful youth training programmes.

He had enlisted the help of Irish politician, Paddy Harte, then a Fine Gael TD. By this point in our history, it was largely unrecognised in southern Ireland, that many thousands of Catholics and nationalists had fought on the battlefields of WWI, and in Northern Ireland, many unionists did not realise the 16th Irish Division had shed their blood side by side with the 36th Ulster Division.

Both Glenn Barr and Paddy Harte saw that the commonality between both Divisions was not only an episode airbrushed out of history, but also saw that the horror of that experience in 1917 was a lesson that could be applied to the reconciliation of more modern Ireland’s political difficulties. So, in 1996 an exploratory delegation visited the memorial to the 36th Ulster Division at the Somme.

Former paramilitaries and exIrish Prime Minister Garrett Fitzgerald were amongst the delegation. Glenn Barr said: “We put our heads above the parapet, knowing that we would encounter stick from sections on both sides here.

“After we had visited the monument I was heavily emotionally struck by the disparity between the quality and upkeep of the monument to the 36th Ulster Division and the small Celtic cross in honour of the 16th Irish Division at Guillemont. We then formulated a committee called the Journey of Reconciliation and Trust and decided to erect a monument in honour of both Divisions.”

After a visit to the Somme Centre at Conlig in Northern Ireland, the decision was taken that if a monument to all the soldiers was to be erected, it would have to be at Messines in Belgium, where these men had fought side by side. The dream was realised on November 11, 1998 when on a two and half acre site at Messines, the monument was unveiled in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, Irish President Mary McAleese, and King Albert of Belgium. Money was then provided by both the British and Irish governments to landscape the entire area. While this project had reached completion Glenn Barr felt that the work had to continue. And, in 2000 the International School for Peace was established with a view to educating youths about the shared experiences of Catholics and Protestants during WWI. Initially two run down classrooms at an old school at Messines were provided to educate visitors from the City.

The obvious and immediate success of the trips in that first year then led to the restoration of the classrooms, that now house murals of the conflict, including a portrayal of the young John Meeke of the 36th Ulster Division tending to the dying figure of Major Willie Redmond. The practical application of the lesson of WWI and its effect on Irishmen north and south was obviously not going to be the easiest model of reconciliation to employ in this City, even at the outset of a fledgling Peace Process.

However, it quickly became clear that former combatants and political protagonists on both sides of the divide here were willing to embrace the story of Messines as a model of conflict resolution.