A towering reminder of the many sacrifices made.

(From Newsletter)

This afternoon, in the shadow of the Ulster Tower at Thiepval in France, hundreds will gather to pay tribute to UlsterOs war dead. In the sixth extract from his book, The Irish on the Somme, Steven Moore tells how the tower came to be built

THE First World War, more than any conflict before and arguably since, struck a common chord with the public. For the first time Britain, its pre-war professional force insufficient for the task ahead, had been forced to form a civilian army. Millions of men volunteered or, in the latter half of the war (though not in Ireland), were conscripted for service.

On the home front, thousands of women went to work in the munitions factories or as stand-ins for the serving soldiers in what had previously been exclusively male areas of employment. Most women were left behind to fret and worry, living in dread of the black-rimmed telegram from the War Office which would carry word of a loved oneOs death or injury.

Ireland had been embroiled in its own political conflict prior to the outbreak of war, and the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 had only served to remind people that the end of hostilities abroad would not bring peace to their own country.

It was against such a backdrop that the Irish soldiers returned to their homes and civilian life. Those in the north were greeted as conquering heroes, while in the south they sometimes faced ridicule for having Ofought for the BritishO. The differing attitudes affected how the war was remembered and commemorated both at home and on the Somme.

Following the Armistice in November 1918, a fund was opened in Ulster with the aim of providing a suitably grand memorial on the Western Front. A proposal put forward by Sir James Craig, the future first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, that it be based on a prominent Ulster landmark was accepted at a meeting held in the Old Town Hall in Belfast on November 17, 1919. After some debate, the decision was taken to construct a replica of HelenOs Tower, which today still stands proudly on the Clandeboye estate, between Bangor and Newtownards, County Down.