THE IRISH DIVISION.

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 March 1917, Page 8

THE IRISH DIVISION.

A BIG GHESBY PAMSLY,

/NXiCCS ECU ANOTHER (HNCJIY {Enia if ils on You? g.) With the British Army hi France, January. Wav is a groat uniter u{ diliereiuvs —in the Held at any rate. Peace, products, and among all its violent cum trusts and contradictious nothing is more curious or more inspiring than the way in which peaceful bonds are forged out of the quarrels that are resolved in its gery crucible. Anyone ignorant of Ireland or of war might suppose that the Irish Division, to which ,1 paid a visit recently, and in which men from every part and party in .Ireland are gathered, would he seething with cliques, alliances, feuds, and active nr latent bitterness. But 'of course it is not so ; on the contrary, the men are one united family and there is no Irish question at the front. .Mon who have fought as the men of

this magnificent lighting unit fought, side by side and yard by yard through the dreadful hit of ground between Guillemont'and Ginchv, are not likely to have many differences. In such moments there is neither Catholic nor Protestant, Orange, nor (Iroen, hut • >nlv friend and foe in the ultimate and final sense. It i?' sinn fein witli a vengeance—ourselves alone; and those who are not for us are very definitely against us. And when a man from Belfast and a man from Clare come round the corner of a ruined wall on halt a dozen Germans with bombs in their hands, the degree of unanimity to which they attain is surprising. ENNOBLED BY ENDURANCE.

I had some highly informal hut deeply interesting talks with odd groups of men jn the Royal Irish, the Ministers, the Connaught:-, the Dubliiis and the .Tiiniskillings. They were men of all kinds, all faiths, all politics, all degrees, but -the impression they produced was uniform. They were all Irishmen; they were al! nut for a blood light; they had all had it, to a degree that neither ! imr you can imagine—ami they al! wanted more. They bad recently come, as I said, irom that a <r ojiv corner that won ns Guillemuiit on September 10th, that gave us Ginch.y, and so made p issib.e ihe great doings of September ibth. They till hoped that tiny would never see Giuliemont again. But when 1 tried to draw from them some idea ol wiial tnev would really like

next, it was obvious Dial it was another Giuliemont ur Gd.ciiy--omy m uus new place. .1 sougnt out some men from my own part of Lister, and heard their familiar speech, associated tor me whh green and quiet byways, with rocks and seawVeds and Die roar of tides, telling of tlie-e bloody and infernal douygs in the dug-outs, mined villages, and battered woods if Picardy. J saw laces that might so easily seem mean in the mean held of politics, that ] could so well imagine disfigured by drunkenness, bigotry, or the hateful passions of domestic strife, scarred and ennobled by great endurance, great endavnr, great aHue'. ement. THE ULSTER WAV.

And beside them, talking in soft West ei ti vices cf cxacily the same big things, which tin x had shared with them, with the men whom at homo they could hardly meet in tlie street without lighting. “There's (great shouting and streaming in it amiyways,’ - said one man, dcscr.biiig an in-

cident in a Boche tlng-oui. “You shout yonrscif U keep yourself sqiualin' rnad,” ho added in a dreanu voice; 'bind the Germans, them leg fellies most uf all, they'll scream for you.” Lhe general is, iiuilu-ss tj s,,\. an Irishman—-who else could handle such a division .‘—-and he t<dd me of many tilings which llmse boys had done widen "'ili never bo rewaided. ‘so <•., itimonpiaee are they m ihe annals of the Ariiix’. But si.) tiuil they shall remain ton leeord he lias designed a cerIdicate which is awarded to all men who have been especially reputed [or gallantry, and Die name aim deed are, entered in a great book, whose pages are fast, filling up. This js the certificate

THE IRISH BRIGADE, I have lead with much pleasure the reports o| your regimental commander and brigade commander regarding vour gallant conduct ami devotion to duty .in the field on and have ordered your name and deed to be entered in the record of the Irish Division, Major-Genera], Commander 16lh Irish Division. CONTEMPT EUR ENEMY. ihcre are others besides Irishmen in the Irish battalions, of course, but not many. it is strange to see how Irish these lew become. “ihe Englishman makes a very good irishman,'' as the general said ; and I had an example in one buy I talked to, who came, 1 trunk, irom Essex in Kent. I asked him how many Germans he had killed on the Guiilemont day, whereupon lie smiled and blushed deprecalingly and answered, “Just two, sir; but they began to surrender then.” The “just” and the “but” are purely Irish in their significance, Ihe division lias a great contempt for the Germans whom they are now Lacing, and who are keeping very quiet. “I think they’re beginning to wake up a bit now we’ve come,” J was told by one enthusiast-, “if the colonel'll let us. we’ll contrive some way to be stirring them up.” The belief that his particular battalion or brigade lias a disturbing effect on otherwise peaceful Germans is not confined to the Irishmen ; but 1 believe that there may be some justification for it in li is case.

1 cannot think that the movements of the Irish Division can be hidden from the Germans, there is a quality and flavour'about everything they do that must surely reach across No Man’s Land. And when J thought of what they had lately been through, and heard th;,it they wanted to do it again and to earn these little bits of certificates, and realised how like a family in a strange land they were, and looked into their eyes— l had to turn away without saying good-bye.