World War I drew volunteers from many lands, prominent among them being the nations that comprised what was then known as the British Commonwealth. Afterwards cenotaphs were erected in cities and towns to commemorate the fallen. November 11, Armistice Day, became a solemn occasion of remembrance.

Nowhere was there greater reason to remember those who lost their lives than Newfoundland and Labrador, whose 1st Newfoundland Regiment was nearly annihilated at Beauhamel in what became known as the Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916.

No less fervent in their belief that they were fighting for the freedom of small nations were Irish volunteers, who joined in their thousands, and died in their thousands. Regrettably their deaths did not evoke a similar response.

The Easter Rebellion broke out in Dublin in 1916, and was brutally repressed by the British Army, its leaders shot, and for many, many decades the Irish solders who died in "Flanders Fields" were forgotten in their homeland. It took Sean T. Lemass, a former Taoiseach, to acknowledge their sacrifice before national consciousness awoke, leading in recent years to a realisation that they too deserved commemoration. The most recent demonstration of that commemoration took place on Sunday, January 29, 2006, when The Memorial to the Fallen exhibition was opened at Waterford Institute of Technology.

The exhibition includes a roll of honour and memorabilia of 100 people from the southeast region of Ireland who served in WWI between 1914 and 1918.

In two respects it is unique. First, among those it commemorates is Private John Condon, who, at age 14, was the youngest allied soldier killed in World War I. He died while fighting with the Royal Irish Regiment in the 2nd Battle of Ypres.

Condon, who used the identity of his deceased older brother John to enlist, was recruited at Waterford in 1913 when he was only 13.

Second, the Memorial to the Fallen exhibition when completed will showcase a matching record of service-men and women from Newfoundland and Labrador.

Agnes Aylward, Director of the Ireland-Newfoundland Partnership, who attended the opening, said it was "hard to imagine the mixed emotions that the young men and women must have grappled with as they left their homes behind and set out to fight in often horrendous circumstances".

"Their stories will now be told to a new generation for whom the early 20th Century represents a very different world, even though that period shaped all our futures," she said.

[Editor's note: This is another example of the many links existing between Canada and Ireland.]

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