New book focuses on Kilbeggan's links with WW1

From the quiet fields and small villages of Westmeath, hundreds left to fight in WW1 and, tragically, never came home again.A man who has spent hours poring into papers and documents that contain the life stories of the Kilbeggan people who took part in WW1, has written a book telling the stories of what became of them.The project has been a labour of love for writer Ray Metters, and his publication, Who Answered the Bugle Call? is to be launched on Wednesday January 25 at the lecture room at Kilbeggan library at 2.30pm."Although the book is mainly a tribute to the largely forgotten war dead of Kilbeggan, it also examines surviving combatants and considers the affects of modern warfare upon the community," said Ray this week.Relief workers, many of them women, are among the groups whose outstanding resilience and achievements have been largely erased from public memory, he adds, citing the case of Mrs Locke of Locke's Distillery."She not only joined the band of voluntary dedicated Red Cross VAD nurses who went overseas to care for the wrecks of war, but went on to campaign for, and eventually govern, the newly established Red Cross Hospital at Bloomfield House, Mullingar," says Ray.Cases from similar sized towns in southern Westmeath and northern Offaly have also been studied when making comparisons with the Kilbeggan experiences."British Army service and pension records have proved invaluable in this respect, providing not only the list of soldiers but also their regiments, details of backgrounds, occupations, ages, marital status, children, health details and conduct reports," Ray continues.He says interesting stories emerge of men who escaped from probable slaughter on account of ill-health or who were discharged because of injuries caused by bizarre incidents such as sleep walking."There are amusing tales of recruits who adopted aliases and sad instances of men being killed in accidents on the mainland before they even embarked for Europe. Several underage lads feature, most of them being bailed out by anxious mothers armed with baptismal certificates - the standard proof of age."One revealing fact emerging in the study is the extent to which army life extended beyond the typical war image of infantry soldiers charging out of trenches to a sergeant's whistle."Many of the men from the midlands were attached to units engaged in activities seldom mentioned in connection with the Great War - as veterinary workers, vehicle drivers and maintenance operatives," Ray says."Several were employed within the Royal Engineers as messengers and quarry-men or even functioned in the strange-sounding Inland Water Transport Corps."With the centenary of the Great War approaching, it is hoped that the Kilbeggan Heritage Group's publication written by Ray Metters and supported by Westmeath Community Development Limited will be among many which recall the names of both combatants and civilian involvement.Historians Kathleen Flynn and Stan McCormack will be introducing and contributing to the launch, at which there will also be samples of the music that would have been familiar to the men who went to war.The book is available from normal outlets in Athlone, Mullingar and Tullamore.