WW1 Memorabilia

"These are my father’s map and letter regarding a battle on 7.6.1917. My father was born in 1895 and he served in the First World War. He began study medicine before the war and resumed that afterwards. He became an ordinary GP. He studied in UCD. Every year he got first class honours, and he was always first in his class. My father died in 1958 when I was only six. On the 7th June 1917 there was the famous battle of the machine in Belgium. There were two Irish divisions – the 36th Ulster division which was regarded as being dominantly loyalists and Protestants. They fought side by side the 16th Irish division who were dominantly Catholic. It was a battle that the British was successful in. It was a battle which the Irish fought together and won together. They were all sharing a common purpose and there is a relevance to that in the 21st century. A week after the battle, he wrote a wonderful descriptive letter home to his mother. I showed Prince William the map on the 100th anniversary. "