Some 600 people turn out on April 25, 2015 for the annual Anzac Day service at Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin to mark the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. The crowd is three times that which usually attends the service and reflects the increased interest in the Gallipoli campaign on the centenary of the military debacle.

The Australian ambassador to Ireland Dr. Ruth Adler and British ambassador to Ireland Dominick Chilcott are both at the ceremony along with diplomatic representatives from both New Zealand and Turkey. The Irish Government is represented by Tánaiste Joan Burton, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Rersources Alex White and Minister of State for Communities, Culture and Equality Aodhán Ó Ríordáin. Poems and prayers are recited and ten schoolchildren read out the names of Anzac troops who drowned when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed off the Irish coast on October 10, 1918.

Burton says so many people from all the nations involved in the Gallipoli campaign lost relatives there and it is important that such an event should never happen again.

Ó Ríordáin says his own great-uncle James Sheridan was killed at Gallipoli five days after the landings and now lies for eternity in V Beach Cemetery. He adds that the decade of centenaries has sought to “reawaken the dormant memories, the forgotten, the unspoken and maybe even dispel some of the shame there that might have existed. Like so many other Irish families I too have discovered in recent years to those who fought in World War I as well as those who fought for Irish freedom here”.

A wreath is laid at Grangegorman Military Cemetery on behalf of the people of Ireland by Minister for Communications White.

Later White and the British ambassador unveil at Glasnevin Cemetery eight paving stones commemorating Irish-born soldiers who won the Victoria Cross (VC) during the war. Four of the soldiers involved, Pte. William Kenealy from the Lancashire Fusiliers, Pte. William Cosgrove from the Royal Munster Fusiliers, Capt. Gerald O’Sullivan from the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and Sgt. James Somers also from the Royal Inniskilling, won theirs at Gallipoli.

Among those present at Glasnevin Cemetery is Joe Day, a relation of Corporal William Cosgrove.

At the unveiling ceremony in Glasnevin Cemetery, White reveals that he had two great-uncles who were killed at the Somme. He says a “great silence” had descended on Ireland after the first World War but he hoped that silence has now ended.

Chilcott says nine million soldiers served in the British Imperial Forces during World War I and only 628 were awarded the Victoria Cross, the equivalent of less than one in 10,000 of those who fought. “Those who earn it are certainly the bravest of the brave. These men are very special. That is why we honour them,” he says.

The other Irish VC winners who are honoured with paving stones are Lieuteant George Roupell from the Royal Irish Fusiliers, CSM Frederick Hall from the Canadian (Winnipeg Rifles), Major David Nelson from the Royal Artillery and William Kenny from the Gordon Highlanders.

The paving stones are paid for by the British Government and all 34 awarded to those who were from what is now the Republic of Ireland are placed around the Cross of Sacrifice in Glasnevin Cemetery.

(From: “Hundreds attend Anzac service in Dublin to remember Gallipoli dead” by Ronan McGreevy, The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com, April 25, 2015. Pictured: British Ambassador to Ireland Dominick Chilcott (right) meets Joe Day from Whitegate in Cork, whose grand uncle William Cosgrove VC survived Gallipoli, at the Glasnevin Cemetery commemoration to mark the 100th Anzac anniversary. Photograph: Peter Houlihan/Fennells)