AND THEIR REDEMPTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 30 October 1917, Page 7

AND THEIR REDEMPTION.

The best battle for Ireland’s redemption is being fought on the western front. Mr Michael MacDanagh, in “The Irish on the Somme” (Hodder and Stoughton) proves this up to the hilt. “I am as proud of the Ulster regiment as I am of the Nationalist regiments,” declares Mr John Eedmond, in an introduction and Michael MacDonagh, a Home Euler and Eoman had been ousted from the United States Catholic, is as fervent in his praise of the deeds of the Ulster Division as of the exploits of the Irish Division and the Tyneside Irish. The Ulster Division is entirely Protestant and Unionist; it consists of the men of the Ustcr Covernant, and holds four Victoria Crosses.

It fought its first great fight at the Somme on July I, I9lfy Mr. MacDonagh records how Captain Goffikin took out an orange handkerchief, and, waving it round his head shouted, “Come on boys, this is the First of July,” There was a hoarse responsive yell of “No surrender!” and Mr. MacDonagh says: “It was the answer given by the gallant defenders of Derry from their walls to King James- and the ber seiging Jacobites.” At the Somme the Germans had five linos of heavy entrenchments, and the Ulstermen penetrated them for distances varying from two to three miles in depth.On Sunday, September 3. 1916, the Irish Division, known for old timers sake as the Irish Brigade, took Guillemont at the rush to the proud strains of the pipes chaunting “Brian Born’s March.” The country across which they charged was pictured by a soldier of the Munsters as “all holes tied together. Characteristically, the Brigade captured Guillemont without knowing it. “Where’s that blessed village we’ve got to take?” they shouted. “We’re in it boys,” replied a captain of the Munsters, and ho placed the green flag with the gold harp on the dust heap which was one the centre Guillemont. For months the Irish Brigade and Ulster Divisions worked in harmony side by side. Private Cooney, of the Eoyal Irish Eegiment, tells how he met a soldier of the Ulster Division one morning and they got into talk about their birthplaces. One told that he was an Athlonc man and a member of the National Volunteers, the other that lie was from Belfast and an Ulster Volunteer. “Well,” said the latter, “that is all over now. Wo are Irishmen fighting together, and we will forget ail these things.” Private Cooney adds: “This young Belfast man was very anxious to impress me with the fact that we Irish were all one; that there should be no bad blood between us. ”