Madam, – On behalf of the Francis Ledwidge Museum Committee I wish to thank Mary Fitzgerald for her very fine article on Gallipoli (Home News, March 25th) and President McAleese for her very fine speech highlighting the “ambivalence” felt by many, regarding Irish soldiers who fought in the first World War.
Francis Ledwidge was on the school curriculum back in the 1960s and, it seems, precisely because of this ambivalence, he is now almost written out of Irish literary heritage.
As voluntary members of the Francis Ledwidge Museum Committee we are custodians of the Ledwidge cottage and garden, and we struggle (with no funding) to keep alive the name and work of this wonderful Irish poet: Francis Ledwidge.
Perhaps it is time for our educators to revisit his very fine poetry. Introduce him to young students of our country and let him have his rightful place among all our great Irish poets, or is it “too late now to retrieve/ A fallen dream” (Soliloquy, Ledwidge, F). – Yours, etc,
Madam, – As an ardent Ledwidge enthusiast, I was thrilled you chose to open your Editorial (March 25th) with lines from Francis Ledwidge's poem, The Irish in Gallipoli. However, imagine my dismay to discover you made several changes and omissions to this important poem by one of our most iconic poets. I feel it would only be fair to a great poet to re-publish in full the six lines from his poem as he wrote them:
“Neither for lust of glory nor new throne/ This thunder and this lightning of our wrath/ Waken these frantic echoes, not for these /Our cross with England’s mingle, to be blown/ On Mammon’s threshold; we but war when war /Serves Liberty and Justice, Love and Peace. – Yours, etc,