Upon this subject, Sir Thomas Drew wrote on August 20th, 1907: “The real Memorial work was the collection of the previous Memorials of the Regiment, which were casual and scattered, and rearranging them with some general regard into a trophy in which the older Burmah and China monuments of the Pagan and Early Victorian Era were grouped with the dominant South African Votive Cross. They lent themselves, I thought, very happily to component parts of one Regimental Memorial of historic interest, to which the North Transept of the Cathedral is dedicated now. As a whole, and properly photographed, I could conceive no more effective frontispiece to a book on the Royal Irish Regiment.”
The Very Reverend The Dean of St Patrick’s, in the course of his speech at the ceremony of the unveiling of the South African Memorial, said: “It is the privilege of the Chapter of the National Cathedral to be the guardians of many memorials of distinguished Irish regiments. But with no regiment are our ties so manifold and so intimate as with the famous regiment which offers us to-day the custody of its Memorial of the comrades who fell in South Africa. We are surrounded at this end of the North Transept by your insignia and the memorials of your past. In this place, hallowed by so many memories of gallant men, it is fitting that you should offer, and that we should welcome, a monument which will recall to future generations the services which the 1st Battalion of the 18th Royal Irish—the Royal Regiment of Ireland—rendered with faithfulness and devotion for two years and a half during the last great trial of our arms, the long death-roll—too long to inscribe on our walls here—shows at how great a cost your duty was fulfilled.”
MEMORIALS OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT AT CLONMEL.
These consist of—
I. A Memorial Cross commemorative of the Campaigns in Afghanistan, 1879-80; Egypt, 1882; and the Nile Expedition, 1884-85.
II. A Monument commemorative of the South African War, 1899-1902.
THE AFGHANISTAN AND EGYPT CROSS.
This Memorial is placed in the Barrack Square at Clonmel, where the Depôt of the Regiment is stationed. The design is that of an old Celtic Cross adapted from one in Co. Sligo. It is executed in red Aberdeen granite, the height is 7 feet 6 inches, width 2 feet 9 inches, and mounted on a base 2 feet 6 inches high. The designers and executants of the work are Messrs H. Sibthorpe & Son, of 33 Molesworth Street, Dublin.
The inscription on the North face of the Cross is—