“No Gas, No Barbed Wire...”

I took this on 14 October, 2018, in my friends’ garden, after a heavy rain shower.

 

It’s one hundred years, today, since the end of The Great War, the “war to end all wars”.

 

Old men sending young men to their deaths...

 

“The sun, now it shines on the green fields of France;

There’s a warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance.

And look how the sun shines from under the clouds.

.............There’s no gas, no barbed wire, there’s no guns firing now...

But here in this graveyard, it’s still No Man’s Land

The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand

To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man

To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

 

“Ah, young Willie McBride, I can’t help wonder why,

Do those that lie here know why did they die?

And did they believe when they answered the cause,

Did they really believe that this war would end wars?

Well, the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,

The killing and dying were all done in vain.

For Willie McBride, it all happened again,

And again, and again, and again, and again.

 

Did they beat the drum slowly, did the play the fife lowly?

Did they sound the Death March, as they lowered you down?

Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?

And did the pipes play The Flowers of The Forest?”

 

“The Green Fields of France”

YouTube: RTÉ The Late Late Show

Finbar Furey & Christy Dignam version.

 

 

South Carrick Hills

SW Scotland

 

 

For all The Fallen, everywhere. 💙

Done