Pat Cummins (85) from Glasnevin, Dublin, lost his father and three uncles to war wounds. James Donnelly (87) from Phibsboro, Dublin had an uncle who refused to fight the rebels in Dublin during Easter week, 1916. He was sent to the Somme where he lost his life.
Pat Cummins (85)
Glasnevin, Dublin
Pat Cummins, who served as a TD for Dublin South Central between 1958 and 1965, had a father and three uncles who died because of their war wounds.
One of his uncles, Cpl John Nicholl, of the Glasgow Highland Light Infantry, died in August 1916 aged 19. His father, Sgt Pat Cummins, fought in Palestine and at Gallipoli.
"It was a tough time. They came home and we had a very disturbed country at that time. We were in the midst of our insurrection and then the civil war and there was political upheaval after that. And it's only in recent years that the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association brought this memory out.
"They were Irishmen and we love them. When I go to the Somme I will be saying that I hope the Lord may bring peace to a very disturbed world.
"We're hoping, God willing, to go to the Somme in September.
"Every year in the month of June at the Cenotaph in London there is a ceremony . . . I had the honour one year and I laid a wreath on behalf of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. And the chief of staff of the army - at that time it was Gerry McMahon - he took the salute from the Irish Army.
"We have a beautiful country - we love our country. And this is history being made today. What you saw today is the answer to people who are still living with closed hearts and closed minds."
James Donnelly (87)
Phibsboro, Dublin
James Donnelly has links to both world wars. He served time as a German PoW in the early 1940s. In the Great War, his uncle fought with the Irish volunteers.
"My mother's half-brother, Frank Brabazon, died before the Somme. He was in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers 8th Battalion and was based in the Curragh in 1916. When the rebellion broke out they were sent to Dublin, but there was a whole lot of them that wouldn't go and they were slapped on the train straight away and sent to France.
"He was killed in early June 1916. He was about 37.
"The only one I vaguely remember was my uncle Joe, who died of lead poisoning.
"He had worked in a printing press for a while before, so maybe that was it. But a bullet had gone into his chest, past his heart and lodged into his spine. The story how that happened was that his friend was lying over him with binoculars and Joe leaned up to see and the bullet hit him."