In a garden near a place called Windy Corner, Colonel Rickard is buried at the head of a line of graves. As Father Gleeson wrote: “The Munsters who gave their lives so heroically and cheerfully, have, even in death, at their head, their kindly and loving leader, who so much inspired them and cheered us all.”
Honest and brave soldiers, the world must go on without you, and those who are left to mourn you must face what remains in life with a little of your own fine spirit. But your lives and your great deaths have enriched the story of the world, the story of Ireland and the story of the Battalion, even though, through all the voices and all the sounds of life, we listen for your voices, and will listen still in vain.
The Munsters at Hulloch
September 25th, 1915
Drawn by F Matania.
September 25th, 1915.
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“In a trench upon a battlefield of France himself is lying, And shall never set potatoes any more. Just himself and me together, in the spring and autumn weather, Will not set or dig potatoes any more.” Oona Ball. |