US WAR HEROES HONORED IN CO. MAYO, IRELAND

U.S War Heroes are honoured  in  County Mayo.

Many world historians claim that the USA entered world war one, in time to help with the cleaning up operations.  Well if they did they certainly lost a lot of men in battle during the time they were involved. Many of those that died came from all parts of America and a lot of those were emigrants from Europe who were drafted soon after they arrived in America.  When the war was over, there were many US war cemeteries scattered around Europe, and they are a testament to America’s great sacrifice.

The US government  in  a very humanitarian gesture, offered to repatriate the bodies of fallen soldiers to their home places in Europe, if the families requested this. In County Mayo on the West Coast of Ireland, an area, which actually faces out across the Atlantic Ocean towards America, many of the family’s did just that.

Some bodies were repatriated and  buried , then they  were forgotten, their families were poor and probably couldn’t afford the money to develop the graves at the time, so with the passing of the years, there was no sign of a grave or even a marker to say that they existed, with hindsight it would have far been better if they were buried in the U.S military cemeteries in Europe where they would have received the respect and attention they had earned & deserved.

For the past two  years  in County Mayo,  a small group of  local men have continued to find and develop the graves of those unfortunate US Soldiers, they have been doing this out of their own pockets and expense as a labour of love. 

The trio are led by the Chairman of the Mayo Peace Park, Garden of Remembrance memorial, Michael Feeney, which is a   magnificent memorial to the fallen,   Michael together with  Ernie Sweeney & John Basquille  a former British soldier do this work.  They  identify  the soldiers who have no graves and Mr Pat Gorman in Dixon, Illinois does the rest, Pat researches the soldiers records and when he has this  established, he applies for a proper US military marker for the graves and the US Dept of Veterans Affairs ship the marker headstones over to Ireland.   They have developed a grave for US Army Chaplin Fr PJ Gallagher, in Belcarra, they have done a complete grave for Marine Martin Cooney from Achill, and    In September of this year they rededicated the graves of three further Mayo born U.S. soldiers, two of whom  had died in world war one and the other soldier was a veteran of world war two and Korea , who died in retirement in Ireland.

This work has been going on for the past few years and they have developed graves for a number of British soldiers as well.  They  are extremely  grateful to the US Dept of veterans affairs for all their assistance in supplying the markers, it is it is great that they have done so, as their group could not possibly afford to do it out of their  own resources.  In  all  honesty  they can barely afford to continue what they are doing right now, as it take a lot of planning, time, effort as the  materials have to be purchased and paid for and transported around.  They continue do it as a labour of love.