It is that time of the year when we as a nation remember. I suspect that by the time you read this blog, it will nearly be time for the two minutes’ silence at 11 a.m. GMT, that is the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, remembering the time when the guns fell silent at the end of the Great War.
I hope to be at the Cenotaph next to Belfast City Hall, where last Sunday PA MagLochalainn and others from the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association laid a wreath in the shape of the pink triangle, like the one pictured above from 2008.
NIGRA tends to remember those that died at the hands of the Nazis, which I have argued would be more appropriate to Holocaust Memorial Day which is commemorated on 27 January each year. However, the simple pink triangle can be seen as a reminder when others are laying their wreaths today and on Sunday of the many gay servicemen and women who both serve and have served in the Royal Navy, the British Army, the Royal Air Force, and all other services of the Crown.
Many have served and many died in past conflicts. Others are serving today in lands far from our shores. But they are still doing their duty, to Queen and country.
The Royal British Legion helps many who have served, as well as their dependents who are in need of assistance. I urge everyone to remember the work of the RBL and give generously to the Poppy Appeal.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Tug fás ní ḃeıḋ d’aoıs, mar atá fágṫa agaınn go ḃfuıl fás d’aoıs;
Ní ḃeıḋ feıḋm ag aoıs bonn dóıḃ, ná na blıanta Cáıneann.
Ag dul síos na gréıne agus ar maıdın
Leanfaımıd oraınn cuıṁneaṁ orṫu.
Remembrance is one of the few days of the year when most bell towers will have their bells half muffled as in the clip below. The bells ringing here are the bells of Coventry Cathedral which survived the Second World War unlike the cathedral itself which was almost completely destroyed by German bombs.
Gyronny Herald 