MAJOR REDMOND’S GRAVE

New Zealand Tablet, 2 August 1917, Page 21

MAJOR REDMOND’S GRAVE

BURIAL IN A CONVENT GARDEN. Mrs. William Redmond and Mr. John Redmond have been supplied with further details from an official source regarding the death at the front of Major William Redmond. It appears that Major Redmond had a position in connection with the Staff, which in the ordinary way would have kept him at headquarters behind the firing line during the advance. He, however, urgently insisted that he should be allowed to go into action with his regiment, and finally the general reluctantly consented. Major Redmond was leading his men when a shell exploded in his immediate vicinity and seriously wounded him. He was picked up shortly afterwards by an Ulster Division ambulance and was' taken to an Ulster Division Field Hospital. Mr. John Redmond has received a letter from the doctor in charge of this field hospital, in which he says Unit Major Redmond never recovered consciousness and died within a few hours. Subsequently his body was removed (o a little village some miles behind the fighting line, and it was buried there at the urgent request of the Belgian community and nuns in the village, in the private garden of the convent, at the foot of a statue and motto erected in honor of our Lady of Lourdes. _ The burial services were conducted by the chaplains of the two divisions/the Ulster and the Irish Division, and were attended by representatives of all the troops within reach. The grave was decorated with flowers by the children of the village, and a farewell volley was fired by a mixed body of men representing the Irish Division and the Ulster Division. Sir W. Robertson's Tribute General Sir William Robertson. Chief of the Stall' has written to Mr. John Redmond the following letter'Dear Mr. Redmond,-! have just returned from 1 ranee, where I have been for the last few days There is not a soldier of any rank in France, to say nothing ot England, who is not deeply sorry at the" death of your brother. lie went over the top-General Plumer told me— with the men and fell a truly gallant soldier of the Empire, lie has not did, let us hope, in vain tor the sake of the cause he had at heart. I doubt if he would have wished to die otherwise than fightiii" with the two fine Irish divisions, which set such a fine example. If only people at home were animated by the same spirit which prevails between these divisions the Irish question would cease to exist

Ihe Queen and Mrs. Redmond

• , The c Queen has telegraphed to Mrs. Redmond, widow of Major Redmond: " Please accept my heartfelt sympathy in your great sorrow Messages of sympathy have been received iron, General Sir William Robertson, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord French, Lord Derby, the Protestant Inmate of Ireland, Cardinal Logue, Cardinal Bourne fen- Edward Carson, Colonel James Cram, and Mr John Dillon. Willie Redmond's Heroism. In his personal tribute to Major Redmond Mr loyal and more steadfast friend." Loth House of Paras 'one of my best friends, and there never was a more oyel and more steadfast friend." Both Houses of Parliament have made a notable contribution to the sacrifices demanded by the war, and the House had lost many promising young members from whom it had reason to expect great services in the future. Arnold those noble examples of heroism the heroic sacrifice of Major Redmond stood apart. He had arrived at the age when by common consent a man could not be expected to endure the hardships of war, but he of his own free will sought its dangers and privations, and did it with that cheerful courage which always radiated from his personality. There was no man more convinced of the justice of the Allied cause

Blit he. was, above all,. an Irish patriot. He felt that this was Ireland’s greatest opportunity of winning liberty for herself and fighting side by side with Britain in this great world-struggle. It was for Ireland he gave his gallant life. In his last speech he told them:

“While English and Irish soldiers are suffering and dying side by side, must the eternal quarrel between the two nations go on? In the name of God, we here, who are perhaps about to die, ask you to do that which largely induced us to leave our homes, that which our fathers and mothers taught us to long lor, that which is all we desire to make our country happy and contented, and will enable us to say when we meet Canadians, Australians, or New Zealanders, ‘Our country, just as your country, has self-govern-ment within the Empire.’ ” He was carried tenderly and reverently from the battlefield by Ulster’s soldiers and in an Ulster ambulance, concluded Mr. Lloyd George. “The solemn speech which I have read comes to us now from an honored grave on the frontier of the land he gave his life to deliver.”

Mr. Asquith associated himself with the tribute, and said the incorporation of all Ireland in the Empire by ties of mutual confidence, real, affecting and lasting good will be the best and most enduring monument to Major Redmond’s memory. Mr. Joseph Devlin voiced the grief of the Irish Party, at the same time taking the opportunity to ask that as a prelude to the Convention the Sinn Fein prisoners should be released.

Sir Edward Carson, too, spoke with great feeling of “my life-long opponent, Major Redmond,’’ 'one with whom he had never had a bitter word. Major Redmond fell fighting by the side of Ulstermen, and he could not help recalling the fact that the first member of this House to make the supreme sacrifice was an Ulsterman. It was not necessary to dwell on these facts. They were eloquent of themselves. They could fight side by side in the trenches for the continuance of liberty, and he would like in his own time to see some solution of the long-continued Irish question which would meet the ideals of liberty of all parties in Ireland.

Mr. Wardle added the tribute of the Labor Party.