`If my voice should die on earth/ It's from the sea it may be heard/ If you leave it on the shore." Lines from the Spanish anti-fascist poet Rafael Alberti, translated by Manus O'Riordan, SIPTU's head of research.
He had a purpose in doing so. His father, Michael O'Riordan, had fought in the Spanish Civil War with a Kilgarvan man, Michael Lehane. Mr Lehane was wounded there as was Manus's own father.
When Hitler came to power, Michael Lehane felt the urge to serve the Allied cause, but given his republican sympathies, he did not wish to wear the British uniform. Instead, he joined the Norwegian merchant navy. His duty was to work on the convoys bringing war supplies across the Atlantic for the Allies.
Mr Lehane was a fireman-stoker on the steamer Brent County, sailing out of Nova Scotia on March 2nd, 1943. Six ships in the convoy were attacked and torpedoed, including his own vessel. For his valour, he paid with his life, but his memory was honoured in his native Kilgarvan, Co Kerry two years ago when surviving International Brigaders were joined in Kerry by Leif Vetlesen, a Norwegian seaman war veteran.
Some weeks ago, Manus O'Riordan found himself in Halifax, Novia Scotia, representing SIPTU at a conference. He visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, where he found a memorial stone to the Norwegian merchant navy war dead. He realised there and then that Michael Lehane had sailed out of the same port, within sight of where the stone now lies, to his death.
He laid a wreath of carnations there and a written inscription.
The story was taken up by the local media. The final line of the inscription read: "These flowers laid in his memory at the Norwegian Navy War Memorial, in Halifax on VE Day, May 8th, 1999, by Manus O'Riordan, Dublin, Ireland."