Shell from World War I

"My uncle, John Graham, was in the Royal Navy during World War I. He was in the communications department on several battleships and he picked up this shell as a memento on one of those ships. It had been fired twice because there were markings on the back of it. After the war, he brought this home to his brother in Killeagh, Co. Cork. He came back to Ireland in ill-health and died shortly afterwards. His brother gave it to me over fifty years ago and I have kept it on the mantlepiece since then. It has appeared a few times in my grandchildren’s school projects and I think it’s an important symbol of Irish participation in World War I."