#tom kettle

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

This dreadful battle claimed more Irish lives in combat than any other battle in history. On the first day of battle, 1 July 1916, the 36th Ulster Division suffered an estimated 5,500 casualties almost all of whom were drawn from the north of Ireland. Nearly 2,000 Irish soldiers were killed in the first few hours of fighting following a morning mist that poet Siegfried Sassoon referenced as “of…

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[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

This dreadful battle claimed more Irish lives in combat than any other battle in history. On the first day of battle, 1 July 1916, the 36th Ulster Division suffered an estimated 5,500 casualties almost all of whom were drawn from the north of Ireland. Nearly 2,000 Irish soldiers were killed in the first few hours of fighting following a morning mist that poet Siegfried Sassoon referenced as “of…

View On WordPress

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

This dreadful battle claimed more Irish lives in combat than any other battle in history. On the first day of battle, 1 July 1916, the 36th Ulster Division suffered an estimated 5,500 casualties almost all of whom were drawn from what is now Northern Ireland. Nearly 2,000 Irish soldiers were killed in the first few hours of fighting following a morning mist that poet Siegfried Sassoon referenced…

View On WordPress

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

#OTD in 1916 – Battle of the Somme Ends.

This dreadful battle claimed more Irish lives in combat than any other battle in history. On the first day of battle, 1 July 1916, the 36th Ulster Division suffered an estimated 5,500 casualties almost all of whom were drawn from what is now Northern Ireland. Nearly 2,000 Irish soldiers were killed in the first few hours of fighting following a morning mist that poet Siegfried Sassoon referenced…

View On WordPress

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1918 – Hanna Sheehy Skeffington is recovering, at the Gower Hotel in London, from the effects of her recent hunger strike.

#OTD in 1918 – Hanna Sheehy Skeffington is recovering, at the Gower Hotel in London, from the effects of her recent hunger strike.

In a letter to her sister, Mary Kettle, Mrs Sheehy Skeffington stated that while she was still weak, this hunger strike was not as traumatic as those that she had undertaken on behalf of the women’s suffrage movement.

Sheehy Skeffington went on hunger strike last week after being arrested on Dublin’s Westmoreland Street. She was taken to the Bridewell and, later, to Holloway Jail in England. No…

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[party-its-rumspringa]

Died not for flag, nor king, nor emperor. But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, And for the secret scripture of the poor

Tom Kettle

[brianjohnspencer]

Used with the wisdom that is sown in tears and blood, this tragedy of Europe may be and must be the prologue to the two reconciliations of which all statesmen have dreamed; the reconciliation of Protestant Ulster with Ireland and the reconciliation of Ireland with Great Britain.

Tom Kettle (Here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/queen-marks-centenary-of-battle-of-the-somme-as-overnight-vigil/)

[hallsp]

To My Daughter Betty

Tom Kettle, 1916

In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown To beauty proud as was your Mother’s prime. In that desired, delayed, incredible time, You’ll ask why I abandoned you, my own, And the dear heart that was your baby throne, To die with death. And oh! they’ll give you rhyme And reason: some will call the thing sublime, And some decry it in a knowing tone. So here, while the mad guns curse overhead, And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor, Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsmen shed, And for the secret Scripture of the poor.