Remembrance Day

Lord Bew Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Selkirk of Douglas, for securing this debate and for his moving opening speech. I echo his words that it is a privilege to speak in a debate of this sort in this House.

My remarks will follow partly in the spirit of my noble friend Lady Flather. I make the point before I start that it is enormously important to acknowledge the varied nature of the sacrifice that has been made in the struggle to maintain freedom in this country, and that full acknowledgment of that is part of ensuring better relations between different groups in our society.

Ireland provides a striking example. I remind noble Lords that in the case of Ireland there was no conscription in either the First World War or Second World War, so all the sacrifice that was made by Irish people of different traditions was entirely voluntary. In the First World War, nearly 135,000 Irishmen volunteered, in addition to the 50,000 who were already serving with the regular Army and in the reserves in August 1914. Within a few weeks of the outbreak of war, no fewer than three Irish divisions—the 10th (Irish), the 16th (Irish) and the 36th (Ulster)—were formed from Irishmen, Catholic and Protestant, who responded to the call to arms. An estimated 35,000 Irish-born soldiers were killed before the armistice in November 1918. Over 4,000 of those died in the 16th Irish Division.

We have grown increasingly free in recent years of that version of the relationship between the two countries in which the only important military event was the Easter Rising, in which 450 people died. I am increasingly aware of the other important context of the sacrifice of Irishmen of both traditions in the First World War. I should add that, in the Second World War, 170,000 Irishmen again volunteered freely in the Allied cause. It is important, and no accident, that the increase in what is called the peace process, but more profoundly in the better relations between the two islands, has been characterised in recent years by an awareness, both in Ireland and in Britain, of the importance of those men and women who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars. That process culminated in the important visit made by Her Majesty to Dublin earlier this year.

I shall say a few words about the Irish who died in the First World War. The first Member of Parliament to die was Arthur Bruce O’Neill, the Unionist MP for Mid-Antrim, who died within a few weeks of the war starting, on 6 November 1914. He had four children and his wife was expecting another. That other child was Terence O’Neill, who became Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and a Member of this House. I also happily report that another kinswoman of Arthur O’Neill, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, is in her place. This House has intimate connections with the case of the very first Member of Parliament who died in arms in the First World War.

However, this is not a question of unionist sacrifice alone. Several Irish Party MPs joined up in the First World War. One of the most moving moments in that war was the speech made in June 1917 by Captain Willie Redmond, the brother of the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who had cheated on his age to get in and serve but at the age of 55 spoke to Parliament about what was happening at the Front, in one of the most dramatic speeches in uniform ever given in the other place. He was killed at Messines in 1917. A number of other Irish nationalist MPs—most recently, I think, Stephen Gwynn, who is the subject of a biography published this week by Colin Reid—also served in that war.

These remarks about Ireland, on the importance of acknowledging the importance of mutual sacrifice and the positive role that that has played in recent years, do not apply only to Ireland. That is why the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, were so important. An important book by Shiraz Maher has just been published, Ties that Bind. It reminds us of the sacrifice of Muslims in the First and Second World Wars as they fought alongside the other Imperial and Commonwealth forces. About 65,000 Muslims were killed in Flanders and Mesopotamia alone in the First World War. Similar Muslim sacrifices were recorded in Burma, Italy and north Africa in the Second World War.

The noble Baroness has already referred to the beautiful set of Portland stone gates installed in 2002 on Constitution Hill that acknowledge that sacrifice alongside that of other Commonwealth soldiers. I support the noble Baroness’s words. It is a reasonable request on her part that senior members of the Government should consider attending that place and marking in some way the importance of that sacrifice. She has made a tremendously important point and I support it as strongly as I possibly can.