IRISH SOLDIERS’ HEROIC PART IN THE WAR.

New Zealand Tablet, 25 April 1918, Page 5

IRISH SOLDIERS’ HEROIC PART IN THE WAR.

Lady Kingston, president of the Shamrock fund, and vice-president of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Help Society, Dublin branch, was in America recently, and in an interview said; “One hundred and fifty thousand Irish soldiers have gone from-their homes in Ireland to fight the Germans. Of this number not less than 2000 have returned disabled. Irish soldiers have played a heroic part in the European struggle. Whereever the war has raged France, Flanders, Gallipoli, or Mesopotamia, honorable mention has been made of Irish regiments. Ireland’s sons went to the war strong, whole-hearted; the light of battle in their eyes, courage and determination in their hearts. Many of them will never return. To others shells, poison-gas, and other instruments of war have done their deadly work, and the men are returning, as they are to other countries of the British Empire, in all manner of disablement. These men can never go back to their former occupations • they must be taught new trades and given a fresh start in life. One of the things that has impressed me in America,’’ continued Lady Kingston, “is the wrong idea that many Irishmen here have of the Ireland of to-day. It is not the Ireland they left in 1871 or in 1885, but a new Ireland, as different as two epochs.”