Westminster: Remembrance Service for Combined Irish Regiments Association

The annual remembrance service organised by the Combined Irish Regiments Association took place on 6th November at St Patrick and All Saints of Ireland Chapel, overspilling into the main body of Westminster Cathedral. Always held on the Thursday before Remembrance Sunday, this year the service fell on the Feast Day of All Saints of Ireland.

Former Vicar General of the British Army, Mgr Phelim Rowland officiated at the ecumenical service attended by representatives of the Irish Regiments and Constabulary with the Chairwoman and six members of The Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross Widows' Association, whose husbands were murdered by Irish Republican terrorists, alongside members of the Combined Irish Regiments Association.

Lt.Colonel Peter McFarlane, Chairman of the Association read out the Roll call of Regiments and the Irish Police Services of the Crown as representatives solemnly laid wreaths followed by the exhortation, known as the Kohima Epitaph.

'They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old, Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them'.

A piper from The London Irish Rifles Association Pipes and Drums played the lament, 'Oft in the stilly night.'

Following the De Profundis, psalm 130, prayers for peace and commitment were said and the National Anthem sung heartily.

Mgr.Rowland concluded the moving service with a traditional Gaelic Blessing.

The Duke of Connaught, youngest son of Queen Victoria was responsible for the memorial chapel .He headed a committee that determined to have a suitable memorial for all the Irish fallen in WWI in Westminster Cathedral.

Together with distinguished military personnel he sought to raise funds to complete and decorate the existing Irish chapel and erect memorials across the sectarian divide, which caused questions to be raised in the House of Commons.

Winston Churchill speaking in Parliament on 6 July 1920 remarked that he saw no need for Government intervention, 'If people seek consolation by these rolls, they have every right to do it.'

On 12th November I924 the seventeen green leather-bound volumes of the Rolls of Honour from all Irish Regiments in the British Army were solemnly placed in St Patrick and All the Saints of Ireland Chapel in Westminster Cathedral recording the names of all 50,000 Irishmen killed. One volume records those who served in non Irish regiments.

Hidden from sight in a green Connemara marble cabinet, covered with a grille, beside the altar, many people are unaware of this memorial to the Irishmen who gave their lives in WWI which is listed by the Imperial War Museum and Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Sixteen ceramic Irish regimental badges surmounted by bronze wreaths with inscribed plaques beneath were placed on the marble pillars around the chapel walls.

Fr E McGuinnness, Chaplain to the Irish Guards, and Bishop Keatinge, Catholic Chaplain to the Armed Forces were present at the ceremony.

The Imperial War Museum lists the chapel as an official war memorial.

It is through their website that I discovered a great uncle who died on 6 November 1914 at Ypres, was commemorated in Westminster Cathedral in the Irish Chapel's Rolls of Honour .I was privileged this year, on his anniversary, to be amongst the wreath layers for the Irish Guards, his regiment from 1912. His only other memorial is on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

LINK

Combined Irish Regiments Association: www.ciroca.org.uk