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News
Irvinestown churches host visit by the Princess Royal
Princess Royal meeting Archdeacon Paul Thompson with community leaders.
Irvinestown had the honour of welcoming the Princess Royal to the War Graves at both the Church of Ireland (Derryvullen North) and at the Roman Catholic Church (Sacred Heart), neighbouring churches in Irvinestown, Co Fermanagh today. In these two burial grounds were laid to rest 84 airmen who died on active service in the Second World War.
Trevor Wilson a parishioner at Derryvullen North meets the Princess Royal.
This visit was an honour the town received not as a single church or a single tradition, but as one community.
These airmen served in the forces of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They were Protestant and Roman Catholic alike; men of different nations and faith traditions who served together, died together, and now lie together in our Co. Fermanagh town.
Each year the people of Irvinestown and the surrounding area remember them together: acts of Remembrance are held at both burial grounds; clergy of the Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist churches lead the worship together; youth groups from across the community take an active part in the parade and service; the Royal British Legion and ex-Service associations share in the proceedings and Cadets place crosses at all the war graves. This unified annual observance seeks both to remember those who gave their lives and to pass the keeping and honouring of their names from one generation to the next.
This visit by Princess Royal brings wider recognition to what Irvinestown does every year. It places the attention of others on a community that remembers its war dead together, Protestant and Roman Catholic, at the same graves, in the same service, on the same day. Our hope is that the impact of this visit will be to affirm the shared remembrance and strengthen our resolve to continue it; to tend these graves, to tell the story of those who lie here, and to pass that duty to the young people of today, so that the men buried among us are never forgotten and the freedoms they secured are always valued.
After the visit to Irvinestown, Princess Royal visited Castle Archdale on Lower Lough Erne, one of three wartime Royal Air Force stations on and around the lough, and the base from which flying boats operated during the Battle of the Atlantic, the campaign in which the airmen buried in Irvinestown lost their lives.
“These graves hold young men who served together and died together; we honour them best by remembering them together, as one community, and by handing that remembrance to our children, so that no name, and no sacrifice, is ever lost,” the clergy of the four churches said together.
“Our hope for this commemoration attended by Princess Royal is that it deepens the bond between us and entrusts to those growing up today the special responsibility of honouring all who made the ultimate sacrifice, and of ensuring they are never forgotten.”
Issued jointly by:
Canon Kevin Duffy, Roman Catholic Church
The Rev Gunther Andrich, Presbyterian Church
Mr Jonathan Simpson, Methodist Church
The Venerable Paul Thompson, Church of Ireland
The Princess Royal meets Pamela Allen and Eileen Dunlop.
The leaders of the four churches in Irvinestown hold a short service at the Cross of Sacrifice.