Festival of Remembrance in Northern Ireland’s centenary year did not include a tribute to the service and losses on behalf of the province

I was glad to see a Festival of Remembrance on Saturday night which appeared remarkably normal as I recall saying to my wife last year that due to the pandemic we may have attended one of the last Festivals of Remembrance to see the Chelsea Pensioners, or to be held in a packed out Royal Albert Hall, when we were there in 2018.

What a mercy that such things can resume — and how few there are who acknowledge the One who showed the mercy.

Remembrance has become a defining characteristic of what it means to be British and that is a good thing.

The role of our nation in defending freedom not just for the United Kingdom but for the democratic world is something worthy of remembrance. A nation which remembers the evils of fascism and honours those who fought to defend it will be the better for so doing.

As a country we should have a more rounded view of the way of the world for remembering the sacrifice of pervious generations, a realisation that there is real evil out there and sometimes war is a moral imperative in order to be on the side of right.

Saturday’s Festival of Remembrance was a fitting reminder of the price which was paid because it had to be paid.

But there was a glaring omission which should cause us to reflect.

Around a year ago I spoke to a friend about ways in which the centenary of Northern Ireland could be marked. He came back to me with a set of excellent ideas, one of which was to lobby the Royal British Legion for inclusion of a tribute to the sacrifice made to defend Northern Ireland’s place within the UK over the last 100 years in the Festival of Remembrance.

Jim Allister raised this issue with the NIO both in a meeting and in writing. He wrote to the Royal British Legion on the matter. He raised it with the Northern Ireland Veterans’ Commissioner and I know Mr Kinahan sought to progress the matter.

Yet on Saturday reference to this part of the UK was absent.

An ideal opportunity to remember the service and sacrifice of the B Specials, the RUC, the UDR and the countless British Army regiments who served in Northern Ireland and gave so much was lost.

An opportunity to remember that in part of the UK people were murdered for remembering the sacrifice for freedom (in Enniskillen in 1987) was lost.

Three summers ago I attended the Royal British Legion event at the Menin Gate to mark the century of the Great Pilgrimage and as I sat in the stands the lady next to me asked why I had a badge on my lapel remembering Enniskillen — I wear it to all remembrance events and to work every day in Stormont to act as a reminder of what some of the people I meet up there did and why I should never be comfortable in the building.

I explained to the lady my connection and with tears in her eyes she told me that her husband had dug people out of the rubble that day.

That lady hadn’t forgotten. Yet there was no place to remember any of the suffering and sacrifice in our centenary year.

A nation remembered on Saturday. Yet it is so, so telling when one considers what it chooses to forget.

Could it be that the decision to exclude specific mention of Northern Ireland was part of the wider UK government policy of total disinterest in defending the proud record of Her Majesty’s forces in our Province?

Samuel Morrison, TUV Dromore, Co Down

• Other comment pieces below, and beneath that information on how to subscribe to the News Letter

• Henry McDonald Nov 15: NHS workers should be required to have Covid vaccines

• Ben Lowry Nov 13: Essays in 2010 about NI on its 2021 centenary foresaw province staying in UK but not change from within

• Owen Polley Nov 13: Woke theories on history, gender and race get ‘stormy applause’

• Peter Robinson Nov 12: Opinion polls matter, if questions are well-defined

• Patrick Roche Nov 11: Archbishop’s comments a moral indictment of unionism

• Esmond Birnie Nov 10: Increasing interest rate now could lessen pain down the line

• Kenny Donaldson Nov 9: Amnesty admission makes mockery of Irish legacy criticism of Britain

• Ruth Dudley Edwards Nov 9: A draining Sunday along the border, then at Lyra film

• Writers Oct 30: We probe Irish nationalist myths in our new book which defends the Union

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