Taoiseach to unveil Ballina war monument

Taoiseach to unveil Ballina war monument


Anton McNulty

A WAR memorial dedicated to the men from the Ballina region who died during World War I will be unveiled by An Taoiseach on on Saturday, June 30.
The new war monument, which was recently erected on the Green Garden, opposite Leigue Graveyard entrance, remembers the 182 Ballina men who died during the World War I conflict. It lists their names and the areas of the town they were from.
The monument was erected by the committee of the Ballina Comrades of the Great War 1914-1919. The committee is currently liaising with the Ballina office of Mayo County Council and a number of ambassadors will be invited to the unveiling, including the French, Belgian, Canadian, American and Australian ambassadors.
Ballina has the unenviable distinction of being home to the first and last Irish man to die during World War I. The first man to die was Stephen Kennedy from Ardoughan, Ballina. He was 35 when he died from injuries in a hospital in the French village of Athis Mons, located 16km south of Paris, just two days after the outbreak of the war.
There was further tragedy for the Kennedy family when two of Stephen’s siblings lost their lives. His brother, John, aged 32, was killed in action on March 21, 1918, and his brother William, was killed in action on January 21, 1916.
In February 1919, Captain William Marsh of Lower Bridge Street, Ballina, was on his way home from the front on extended leave when he contracted influenza and died in his parents’ home of pneumonia. He was the last Irish soldier to die before the official end to the war.