Gallipoli centenary to be commemorated in kells this weekend

The 100th anniversary of the ill-fated WW1 Dardanelles campaign in 1915, will be commemorated in Kells this weekend.
The organisers of the annual Hay Literary Festival in Kells and the weekly RTE Radio 1 programme ‘The History Show’ have joined forces to launch a centenary commemorative event.
The three-day event will commence on Friday evening with the delivery of the Francis Ledwidge Memorial Lecture by the distinguished Irish World War I historian, Philip Orr, author of ‘Field Of Bones: An Irish Division At Gallipoli’.
This will be followed on Saturday by a conference on the journalism and poetry of World War 1, entitled ‘The First Draft Of History? Journalism And Poetry In The Great War’.
Among the speakers will be Heather Jones of the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and author of ‘Violence Against Prisoners Of War In The First World War: Britain, France and Germany, 1914-1920’.
Myles Dungan, presenter of ‘The History Show’ on RTE Radio 1 and author of ‘Irish Voices From The Great War’, will also be among the speakers, as will Mark Duncan, of the Century Ireland project.
On Saturday evening, singer-songrwiter Declan O’Rourke will perform WW1-related songs in a show entitled ‘Poems of War, Songs of Peace’.
World War 1 poetry will be read by Kells-based Welsh poet Nerys Williams, while Declan O’Rourke will perform a repertoire that will include Irish anti-war songs, ‘The Recruiting Sergeant’ and ‘Salonika’, as well as the Eric Bogle trilogy of WW1 songs.
On Sunday, a day of lectures will be devoted to the Gallipoli campaign. This will include short talks by Tom Burke of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association, Donal McAnnallen of the GAA, Conor Mulvagh (UCD), Tomás Irish (TCD), John Borgonovo (UCC) and Jennifer Wellington (UCD), as well as a Turkish perspective from Murat Balandi.
Also involved in the weekend activities will be military archaeologist and historian, Damien Shiels; Tom Burnell, author of a number of works on Irish war dead, and military genealogist, Gordon Power, both of whom will be available for consultation should members of the public have questions on their areas of expertise.
All events will take place in St Columba’s Church of Ireland, Market Street, Kells. Tickets for all events can be purchased by contacting the booking office on (046) 924 0055 or email kells@hayfestival.org
The weekend’s commemoration will be funded in part with the assistance of the Reconciliation Fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
This weekend marks the centenary of the first landings by troops from Ireland, Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.
Almost 4,000 Irish soldiers died at Gallipoli, three-quarters of those in the volunteer 10th (Irish) Division. This compares with 8,700 Australians. However, while the Australian fatalities came from a complement of over 60,000 soldiers (a death rate of 14.5 per cent), the numbers of Irishmen serving in the Gallipoli campaign was closer to 15,000. This is a staggering fatality rate of almost 27 per cent.