WITH THE IRISH AT THE FRONT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1541, 20 April 1916, Page 4

WITH THE IRISH AT THE FRONT.

MESSAGE OF THE FIFES TO THE MEN AT HOME. (By the Daily Chronicle Special ( *orrospoiiilont. Philip Gibbs). The spirit of old Ireland was about me yesterday, and I heard the plaint of her pipes, with the tears and the passion of her history in them.

It is one of the Queerest things in those battlefields of Flanders, where there is something to startle one at every cross-road, to find oneself in the midst of so many nationalities and races and breeds of men belonging to that British family of ours which, is sending its sons to the sacrifice. In these trenches there are all the ways of speech, all the sentiment of place and history, all the creeds anil local customs, and song’s of* old tradition which belong to the mixture of our blood wherever it is found about tho world. The skirl of the Scottish bagpipe* is heard over the Flemish marshlands, and there are Highlanders ami Lowlanders with, every dialect over the Border. In one line of trendies the German soldiers listen to part-songs in such trained harmony that they sound as if a battalion of opera-singers had come into the firing line. The Welsh speak their own language. For a time no officer received his command unless ho spoke it as fluently as running water by Aberystwyth, anil even orders wero given in' this tongue until, a. few Saxons. discovered in the ranks, failed to form fours and know their lelt hand from their right in Welsh. ODD FIGHTING SPIRIT.

I heard an Australian ulie day imitate the laughing jackass in the darkness of a Flemish nighi, with a wicrd ami wonderful died, die i’ rendi t.'auadians do not need (o learn the language of the peasants m these market towns. Soldiers from .Somerset use many old Saxon words which puzzle their Cockney friends, ami the Lancashire men have brought the Northern burr with them and the grit of the Northern spirit. And Ireland, though she will not have conscription, lias sent the bravest of her boys out here, and in all the bloodiest battles since that day at Xlons the old lighting qualities of the Irish race have shone very brightly again, and the blood of her race has been poured out upon these tragic lields. One of the villages behind the lines is so crowded with Irish boys that I found it hard not to believe yesterday that a pari of old Ireland itself hud’ found its way to Flanders.

In one old outhouse the cattle had not been evicted. Twelve Flemish tows lay cuddled up together on the ground floor in damp straw, which gave out a sweet sickly stench, while the Irish soldiers lived upstairs in the .loft, to which they climbed up a tall ladder with broken mugs. “UUD SAVE IRELAND. 1 went up the ladder after them —it was very shaky m tlie middle —and pulling my head through the lotL gave a greeting to a number of dark figures lying m the same kind ot straw (hut 1 hud smelt downstairs. One boy was sitting with Ins buck to the beams playing a penny whistle very so 111 y to liimsell, or perhaps to the rats under the straw.

"The eraylures are that bold,” said a boy trout bounty Cork, “that when we first cin'iie m they sat up smilin’ unit sang' ‘Hod save Ireland.’ JJetlad, and its the truth 1 in-alter lollin’ ye!’’ The billets arc not very dry and hot very clean. What can you expect, iu tune ol wart And anyhow it’s good p> he away 1 i-oui lilt' shells, even if the ram does come through the beams ol a broken root, and soak through the plaster ot wattle walls. The Irish boys are good ul making wood tires in these old barns and pigsties, it there are a few bricks about m make a hearth, and, sure, a baked potato is no Protestant with a grudge against. Hu- I’ope.

'J'Jicri- an no such luxuries in I In* trenches wlicn the Dublin:, ami (he Mini slurs were up' in tin' lii'ini;' Inn l . I lii ll shel ling 1 was so violent that it, was tliliu nll. to got up tin.' supplies, anil mime ol Ihr lioyii iiatl lo full built on Ilnur iron rations, it was tins only complaint, which npe ol them malic when I asltoil him what ho thought of his (irsl experience uniler (ire. “il was all right, suit, ami not mi bint as t'd beijii after thinking, il, only my up petite hud not been bigger limn my bell, at all.” IN ’ll 1K DANUKIt ZONK.

The spirit of these young Irish m shown by sumo who hail just come oul Irom the old email ry to join their com rades in Iho firing line Win n (ho tier mans put over a number of hlicllh, doing sonio damage to the, Irenche,, and wounding one or two men, the temper of Iho hula broke out, nnd they wanted to gel ovei this parapets and make a, dash lor I he eii emy. “’Twonld taycli (hem. u leenim,” they told their, ofliccrs, who had some, (('onlile in restraining them. These new eomen-, had lo lake part in |)je digging which goer oti Inlnml (ho linen at night-- out 111. (lie Ojien, uillnml tin- shellei of a Irrinii, It WHS mu min wiuk, esp,n ally when the. (human M.ues went up, sd liouelfmg (heir ligurei. mi t tic skyline,and u hen one ,|I Hie enemy's mnehine guns began tor.lia.lter. Hill. I he Irish Imys fomnl ||,e heart for a jenl, and inn- ol resting on hi: spade for a monienl slare.l over the, enemy s lines and said, iw.'iy I,ho olil devil lake I he :pnlpeiui who works that typewriter!" . It was an uncommonly hot time forlho.se who had eonm fresh Irom the I ranchos, some Ilf Ihoso boys who had not guessed the realities of war until then, lint they

canio out proudly—“with their tails up, 1 s;dd one ot their officers—after their baptism of lire. THE DITCHES OF DEATH.

Down the high street of one of the villages —‘‘high street” is a good name for the mud track between the hovels —X met an Irish captain, whose face as In' came up seemed to ring a little hell in my memory. W hy, yes, last time I had met- him there was a hell ringing and ringing, in the -smoking room ot the House of Commons, and down the lobbies of that House. It was an Irish politician with whom on that afternoon at Westminster I had sat

eating toasted muffin, before the world went mad, talking of Irish Land Acts and Homo Rule and other subjects which seemed of great importance then. Since then he has sat. in the ditches of death —and has slept in them for six hours of terrilie bombardment, which is a proof of nerve — and has seen the sun rise over barbed wire and dead bodies and the barren fields of battle.

“There are no politics out here," he •aid. “W e are soldiers facing the cominon enemy.” lie has seen more than a world away from the lobbies l of the House of Commons, but does not regret his journey, because he believes in a full life, and the adventure of knowledge, and ungrudging service to ideals which are vital ami eterilal. In this faith he has brought up his son, the youngest officer in the British Army, who is with him now in Flanders, taking the same risks, though while I was with him his thoughts and words went back to Ireland, and ho hoped that the voung farmers of the Old Country would join the Army in greater numbers because, as ho said, those who hold the land should fight for the land. IRISH MKbOIAIRS IN FRAN OCRS. It was with this oflicer that 1 heard the Irish pipes. The drum and fife band of the Ministers was practising m an old barn on the wayside. and presently, in honour of visitors, who were myself ami another, the pipers were sent for. They were hve tall lads, who came striding down the street of Flemish cottages, with the windbags under their arms, and then, with the hie men sitting on the straw around them, am the drummers standing with their sticks readv, they took breath for the good old Irish tune” demanded by the captain. , It was a, time which men could not sing very safely in Irish yesterdays, ami it held the passion of many rebellions heatts, amt the yearning of them. Oh ! 'Paddy dear, and did you hear tile news that's going round '! The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground.

She’s the most distressful country that ever vet was seen ; They’re hanging men and women there tor the wearing of the green. Then the pipers played the March of O'Neill, a wild old air as shrill and fierce as the spirit of tho men who came with their Irish battle-cries against Elizabeth’s pikemen and Cromwell’s Ironsides. 1 think tho lads who still stay back in Ireland, and tho old people there, would have been glad to stand with me outside this Flemish bam and to hear the old tunes of their race played hy tho l>oys who are out here fighting for them. I think they would have wept a little, as 1 saw tears In the eyes of an Irish soldier bv my side, for it was the spirit of Ireland herself, with all her poetry, and her valour, and her faith in liberty, which came crying from those pipes, and I wished that, the sound of them could carry across the sea.