Remember Mayo's Fallen

A NATIONAL HEALING BEGINS

by

JC Sullivan

  “Fighters in every clime, every cause but their own.”[1] An irony of Ireland’s relationship with other nations is the number of men and women who have paid the ultimate price for their military service. The extent of the sacrifice is larger than one can imagine.  In County Mayo alone the memory of over one thousand has been preserved and/or restored with the opening of the Mayo Peace Park and Garden of Remembrance.

   The thought-provoking memorial comemorates those men and women from County Mayo who served and died with U.S., Allied  and Commonwealth forces in the major World Wars and UN Peacekeeping operations over the last century.  And a healing has taken place for families and the memory of the individuals who donned a British uniform and died in service to the UK. They had effectively been part of an imposed collective amnesia.

   The sacrifice of these men and woman and their families have now been rightfully honored and remembered in a publication titled “Remembering Mayo’s Fallen Heroes. The Peace Park and this book, in large part, are about what Mayo families knew but many others didn’t. 

   The noble project was compiled by the Chairman of the Mayo Peace Park Committee, Michael Feeney, in honor of his grandfather from Castlebar.  Private Patrick Feeney, 1^st Bn., Connaught Rangers, died on July 22, 1915.  The list of heroes, individual stories, documents and photographs in the book cover far-ranging hostilities, from the Boer War through United Nations service.

   If one could compile a complete list, just how large might Ireland’s sacrifice be?  For example, from our clan alone, the sacrifice of World War One was enormous. Per Ancestry.com, 504 Sullivans and 169 O’Sullivans died while fighting for the UK, 1914-1918. Perhaps the project Michael Feeney has begun in Mayo will ignite the rest of Ireland to do the same.

  To obtain a copy of Feeney’s book contact him at michaelfeeney@eircom.net.  A virtual tour of the Peace Park can be taken at http://www.mayomemorialpeacepark.org/tour.html.

Sullivan is an internationally-published writer residing in northeast Ohio. Two of his three European trips have been to Ireland. He is currently Press Officer for the AOH Ohio State Board and past-Press Officer, AOH National Board.

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[1]  Emily Lawless