Ruth Dudley Edwards: On VE Day, here’s to all those who fought and defeated fascism

I had never had much of a taste for people who bragged about shooting policeman from behind a hedge during the Irish war of independence.

Later, mostly through my novel reading, came curiosity about the First World War specifically and later about my grandfather James Florence O’Sullivan, who died before I was born.

He had been described as an irresponsible father disapproved of by the women of the family.

I was told how he would come home on a Friday night with the pound that represented his entire earnings and explain that he now had to go to the pub to repay the debts of honour he had run up during the week.

But he was a gamekeeper much appreciated by the leaders, the North Cork family who owned the local estate, and his loyalty to them was so fundamental that in 1916, in his late 40s, he lied about his age and joined the Munster Fusiliers to avenge the death in the trenches in France of the heir.

It was a time of relative plenty at home since he wasn’t there to drink his pay.

Although he was illiterate, Grandfather was intensely interested in politics and memorised the items in the newspaper read to him every evening at home or in the pub.

He was a Home Ruler with no time for the 1916 rebels.

In a wonderful book by Andrew D Forest called Worse Could Have Happened, the annual celebratory Pattern Day honouring the local holy well is described.

“Here in the porter tents there were farmers and farm workers, shopkeepers, tradesman, council workers and ex-soldiers who served in the Boer War, the Great War, the Tan War and the Civil War who would all come to the well to drink and get drunk and talk about old times and to keep up the friendship.”

None of them apparently could match the energy of the singers of ‘Tipperary’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles.’

“In this tent, the veterans of many wars, melancholy ghosts no longer receiving the world's applause.

"Many of them had small pensions which if the truth were told, the world begrudged them.”

And Jim Flur, as he was known, was an outstanding singer. One of the very best.

He began…

“Upon the hill he turned

To take a last fond look

Upon the village and village church,

And the cottage by the brook.

He listened to the sounds

So familiar to his ear

And the soldier leaned upon his sword

And wiped away a tear”

Like most of the veterans of the world wars, Grandfather was rarely spoken about but I learned later from a cousin that he had been gassed during the war and had lost an eye as well. Veterans like that didn't moan about it.

I’m proud of him now, as I am of all those men who received no honours from our state for their heroism.

And today especially, on VE Day, I’m remembering all those who helped secure victory in Europe against the Nazis in WW2.

Here’s to you, Jim Flur, and all the others in the tent.

​l Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of ‘The Faithful Tribe: an intimate portrait of the loyal institutions’ and 'Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice.’