The grave of major William (Willie) Hoey Kearney Redmond (1861-1917), Irish politician, lawyer and soldier at Locre Hospice Cemetery in Loker, Belgium
William Hoey Kearney Redmond (13 April 1861 – 7 June 1917) was an Irish nationalist politician, lawyer and soldier, who was killed in action in World War I. Redmond's body was buried in a detached grave in the convent's garden outside the Locre Hospice Cemetery, on the 8 June 1917, near to where the bodies of men from his Brigade who also fell in action that day are buried. At his request, soldiers from both the 16th (Irish) Division and the 36th (Ulster) Division provided his Guard of Honour. The men of the 36th (Ulster) Division made a donation of £100 to a memorial fund for him. In October 1919 his widow Eleanor visited the grave and was pleased with how it had been kept by the Sisters. When the War Graves Commission started to concentrate burials in the area they wrote to her asking for her permission to move him. Eleanor requested that his body be left where it lay in the care of the nuns of Locre. Redmond was the 'Grand Old Man of the Irish Division' and is a key representative figure of the Irish constitutional nationalists who fought in the 1914-1918 War. His detached 'lonely grave' came to be emblematic in the subsequent political passage of events in Ireland in the 20th Century of the dislocation and ambiguity that the Irish nation felt for its sons who had chosen to fight in the conflict. In a memorandum attached to his will, Redmond wrote -- "I should like all my friends in Ireland to know that in joining the Irish Brigade and going to France I sincerely believed, as all the Irish soldiers do, that I was doing my best for the welfare of Ireland".
Size: 5760px × 3840px
Location: Locre Hospice Cemetery, Godtschalckstraat 5, 8958 Loker (Heuvelland), West Flanders, Flanders, Belgi
Photo credit: © DE ROCKER / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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