Courtney McGrailStaff reporter
Archbishop Eamon Martin has urged Catholics to remember the First World War, while praying on the spot where Irish troops died at the Somme.
“In remembering the horrors of the war a century ago it helps us to redouble our efforts towards building peace, healing and reconciliation,” the Primate of All-Ireland said.
“I know that we have gone our separate ways in many ways over the last decades in Ireland and the more recent conflicts have tended to divide us and we don’t realise the shared narrative that there is in the sacrifice of those men in the First World War.
“So I am hoping that being here myself will give a signal to Catholics that it is okay for them to remember the First World War and I am hoping that it will also open up the Protestant community to realise that many Catholics died side by side with their ancestors here on these fields of France,” the Archbishop of Armagh said.
Thousands of soldiers from across Ireland died or were wounded at the Somme as part of the British Army. The first day, July 1 1916, was the bloodiest in British military history.