Irish President Mary McAleese will visit Gallipoli on March 24.

IRISH President Mary McAleese is to visit the World War I battlefield of Gallipoli in Turkey on March 24 to remember the 3,000 Irish soldiers who died there.

Mrs McAleese will dedicate a foundation stone of a proposed memorial to Irish casualties at a cemetery in the Suvla Bay area, where the 10th Irish Division were part of an invasion force in August 1915.

Last September, Mrs McAleese attended a ceremony in Killarney, Co Kerry to commemorate local men who served and died in the First World War.

Mrs McAleese said that when Ireland was “undivided” and a British colony, at one time 40 per cent of all those serving in the British forces were Irish.

“Time allows us to look differently at things,” she said.

The Echo understands that a relative of the President was one of those who lost their lives at Gallipoli.

The President’s trip has been welcomed by Sydney author Jeff Kildea, whose book Anzacs And Ireland prominently covers the Gallipoli campaign.

“I see this as part of an ongoing process of growing recognition of the role of the Irish in the First World War,” he said.

“In Ireland the Gallipoli campaign is largely unknown, and yet Irish troops played a very significant part in it.

“She’s going to commemorate a memorial to the 10th Irish Division, which landed in Gallipoli in August 1915 and served alongside the Australians at Lone Pine. Overall, the Irish lost more than New Zealand at Gallipoli throughout the course of 1915.

“The Irish landed on the first day. The 29th Division landed on April 25. The 10th Division landed in August as part of the big offensive.

Over 3,000 Irish were killed at Gallipoli,” said Mr Kildea, who is a practicing barrister and teaches Irish Studies at the University of NSW.

“There has been an awakening in recent years in Ireland about the involvement of Irish soldiers in the First World War. It had long been suppressed because it didn’t fit the nationalist narrative.

“In recent years people have been able to come to terms with the fact that a lot of Irishmen fought in that war, even though it was often regarded as England’s war.

“For many nationalists it was seen to be a way of trying to assure home rule, [showing that] the Irish could be trusted to do their bit. But the war went on too long and [Home Rule Party leader John] Redmond lost control and the Sinn Féin group gained control and the war became very unpopular,” said Mr Kildea.

“Those who fought in the war, when they came home, were often treated pretty badly. It has taken a few generations before people have been able to reconcile the two narratives and getting a situation where the people of Ireland are starting to commemorate [those who died in World War I].

“Now you even get Sinn Féin officials saying ‘my grandfather was there’. Alex Maskey, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast, laid a wreath at the Cenotaph in Belfast,” he said.

“More and more there has been reconciliation and the President has been very much in the forefront of that. She is part of that movement that is trying to put away the bitterness of the past and commemorate Irish soldiers.

“Over 200,000 Irishmen fought in the First World War and 50,000 were killed.”

by Pádraig Collins