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22
The Gazette of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.
[AUGUST, 1921
instantaneously
all
human
and
social
barriers, all things that mattered or which,
in pre-war days, we conceived to be important
in the daily problems associated with the
continual striving of a great population for
solution of its relatively petty questions of
political strategy and domestic legislation—
important, of course, in a degree to any
community—but
obliterated
by
the
threatened deluge of an unprepared Empire,
which left us confronted with but one single
problem that overshadowed all, one dominant
purpose to which all other considerations
yielded, viz., how to win the war and how
to stem the avalanche which threatened us
with disaster.
Those whose deeds and memory we honour
and perpetuate to-day, each by his individual
effort helped to stem the torrent, but were
lost in the flood.
" It is the dead that win battles."
It is the individual effort that spells col
lective results.
(8* By their sacrifice we have been saved and
survive to carry on ; let us then, for God's
sake, carry on in all things in a manner
worthy of that sacrifice of young manhood
to which our profession, in common with
others, has paid its sad toll, and, generaly
speaking, let us see to it that all the sorrows
distresses and bereavements of the war do
inspire us to closer union and
to higher
ideals of duty, of fraternity and of citizenship.
If their example be utilised and appreciated
by us for such a purpose their sacrifice will
not have been in vain, and the aftermath of
difficulty and unrest around us affords ample
scope for putting such lessons into practice.
They have passed beyond the sphere of
contemporary hatreds and strife, the great
events in which they participated for our
sake are now passing into history—history
which they will have helped to make, and
now that this terrible convulsion has sub
sided, we who survive 'may perhaps better
realise in its true proportion the real grandeur
and nobility of their sacrifice.
In our divided country there is still no
reason,
thank God, why Irishmen of all
shades of thought should not reciprocally
join in recognising heroic deeds and the
unselfish devotion of life to the safety of the
community, nor do even current Irish affairs
afford any reason why we should not emulate
each other in doing homage to heroes, and,
in so far as is in our power, recording and
perpetuating
their
title
to enduring ad
miration and example.
The Memorial has been erected in a spot
and in precincts hallowed by the thought
that in the joyousness of young life they have
all, at one time or another, passed by it to
'l
and fro from their lectures and in their daily
pursuits. Aye! brushed against the very
• walls on which is now erected the Memorial
to their memory and heroism.
They rest in soldiers' graves, but their
example endures for us and our succeeding
generations, and this Memorial, by the setting
up of all that it stands for, and by its own
artistic excellence, will serve to endow our
professional precincts with an additional
value, and is a possession ennobling and
enriching our whole legal community.
To the lessons it ought to teach and the
traditions it is creating amongst us I attach
the highest possible value, being as it is a
united tribute to heroic example of fallen
comrades ;
let it also serve to inspire in us,
as a profession greater unity, good fellowship
with one another, and in that which all pro
fessional men of high principle regard first
and before all else, the performance of duty
and a right sense of the true meaning of that
word which ennobles all work done in its
name.
Properly appreciated, it will speak to those
who come after us of those terribly critical
times through which their forbears passed,
of a time when members of their own legal
family, fixing their eyes on the great realities
of life and death, put duty first and, never
hesitating, greatly dared, died and achieved,
bequeathing to them, and also to us of this
generation, a priceless example and tradition.
Emotional regrets for them, however, will
but little avail us, who should profit by their
brotherly sacrifice, if such emotion does not
react in such efforts and results on our part,
as I have suggested, in the future, and help
us to rise to higher levels and ideals.
Most of you have read that breezy book
of
lan Hay's,
" The
First Hundred
Thousand," and may
recall
the simple
soldier lines which we might well associate
with
those gallant gentlemen
to whose
memory we do honour to-day.