A cold wet night on the 11th of November found a community gathering to embrace those who had been written out of that same village a hundred years ago.

Ger Whelan’s book The Forgotten chronicles the names and details of each person who fought, and in many cases died, in the First World war from Castledermot town and district.

There was a moment that caught me.

I took English Literature of the First World War while studying at Sussex. I understood some of the complexities of Irish men who were English soldiers. The army traditions, poverty as well as the fight for small nations but I hadn’t taken seriously the republican backgrounds of many of the soldiers. People left their homes as republicans, fighting for the ideal of freedom in the hope of a political reward of nationhood and returned to a changed country. An Ireland that had it’s own rebellion in their absence. A place where English soldiers, even Irish ones, were not welcome. Many veterans emigrated or became knights of the road and families held a deep silence about their sons and daughters and their connection to the war for generations.

The family names in Ger Whelan’s book are still evident in the village. John MacKenna said he recognised the names from his childhood in Castledermot. The school, local history society, families and others from the area, organised, attended and managed the event. I observed the gathering from the stage.

As the shadowy figures of a re-enactment group, from south county Kildare, peered from the corridor into the assembly hall over the heads and masked faces of the crowd. It was as if all those men and women who had been forgotten, who had been erased from the village story, were finally making their way home, back into the arms of their families and the community.

The Forgotten and our other titles are available on our website www.theharvestpress.ie

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