UP TO 200 people attended a dawn ceremony in Dublin yesterday to mark Anzac Day, which honours the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps who fought at Gallipoli, Turkey, in 1915.
Ireland first hosted a commemoration of Anzac Day in April 2006. Yesterday’s ceremony began at 6.30am at Grangegorman Military Cemetery, Blackhorse Avenue, in Dublin. Grangegorman, which is over 130 years old, is the largest military cemetery in Ireland. It contains 619 graves of soldiers, many of whom died in both the first and second World Wars.
The service was lead by Msgr Eoin Thynne, chaplain to the Irish Defence Forces. Those present included Australian ambassador Bruce Davis, British ambassador Julian King and Don Smith, first secretary at the Australian embassy.
Representatives of the New Zealand defence forces, Lieut Aston Talbot and 2nd Lieut Clare Hagward also attended along with John Spink with Shannon Lowe, representatives from cross-community group the Lily and the Poppy Project, from Belfast.
