Irish National War Memorial Gardens

Irish National War Memorial Panorama

Just south of Phoenix Park, across the River Liffey, are the gates to the Irish National War Memorial…  Continue reading

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Grangegorman Military Cemetery – Part One

Last year I found myself in Dublin for a few days, and while the missus was meeting up with friends one afternoon, I took the opportunity to visit a cemetery that I had wanted to see for quite some time.  If you ask most people in Dublin how to get to Grangegorman Military Cemetery they won’t be able to tell you (I’d heard this so I tried, and they couldn’t), but if you head up the eastern edge of Phoenix Park, past the Garda headquarters and the McKee Barracks, you’ll find the cemetery soon enough.  It contains many First World War burials, British soldiers evacuated from the trenches to hospitals in Ireland who subsequently died of their injuries, as well as casualties of the Easter Rising in 1916 and the War of Independence between 1919 and 1921.  Continue reading

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Menin Road South Military Cemetery

A wet afternoon, just a few hundred yards east of the Menin Gate, finds us at Menin Road South Military Cemetery.  Continue reading

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A Tour of Zillebeke Part Twelve – Zillebeke Churchyard

Zillebeke Churchyard

The churchyard at Zillebeke contains 30 CWGC headstones, two of which are special memorials, and, most unusually, two private memorials, a total of 32 burials in all.  Six of these men are unidentified, and of the remaining 26, six are Canadians killed in 1916.  The majority of the 20 British burials were made in December 1914, nearly all are officers, and many of their names reflect the aristocratic nature of the British officer class in the early days of the First World War.  Continue reading

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A Tour of Zillebeke Part Fifteen – Hill 60 Part Three: Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) Cemetery

Larch Wood

The final part of this long tour of the Zillebeke area takes us to Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) Cemetery, some four hundred yards west of Hill 60, and the final resting place of many men who were killed in the almost continuous fighting that took place there.  Continue reading

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A Tour of Zillebeke Part Fourteen- Hill 60 Part Two: The Caterpillar Crater

Hill 60 from south Panorama

Hill 60, on the far side of the railway cutting, and, to the right, the trees that conceal the Caterpillar Crater.  Continue reading

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A Tour of Zillebeke Part Thirteen – Hill 60 Part One

606

Sun and snow on Hill 60, January 2013.  Continue reading

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