Ireland update

Irish Shield

Before we go to Utah, new information has come my way and I think many will find it interesting.

I have written, previously, about the Irish citizens who fought beside us, and died, in Vietnam. The number at the time it was first discovered to be true was 16 and their families were honored when the Traveling Wall visited Ireland. Since then the number has changed; to 19, then 22 and now 29. Not all of these were with U.S. Forces, some were Air America, the Canadian Military, the Australians, and AID. A total of 2500 Irish citizens participated in our efforts to aid the Vietnamese people.

There is a memorial, which I have posted elsewhere on this site, in Kilarney, at Adair Manor. This memorial, however, is not specifically to Irish Vietnam Veterans. All of that is about to change!

A new memorial honoring the 29 Irish citizens lost in the war has been approved to be built in Ennis, in County Clare. This is especially interesting and meaningful to me as my ancestors are from County Clare.

Currently in the design and fund raising stage, the memorial is a ways off and today I spoke with one of the organizers and they are hoping for 2014 completion and dedication.

If you are interested in learning more about this wonderful project, please go here;

 http://www.theirishvietnamveteransmemorialproject.org/index.html

On these pages you will see a tab called The 29 and if you click an individual name a short bio will appear.


If you would like to read more about the existing memorial at Adair, click on Colorado, at the left of this page. When it opens scroll back to the second or third post from Colorado to read more about it.

I encourage anyone who is interested to support this project, as I have, by sending a check to

http://www.ivnvmp.org

OR To;    The Irish Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project
                P.O. box 90592
                Alexandria, Virginia 22309

We will go to Utah, as previously promised, on the 16th at 9:00am.

UPDATE  Just today I got an email from Declan Hughes who founded Irish Veterans. He and his organization feel that this project is untimely, unnecessary and wrongly uses information taken from their site. I currently have no opinion about this as I do not yet know enough to decide. You may want to check out Irish Veterans at, Irishveteransmemorialproject.com for more information about this issue.