On the 1st of July, 1916 one of the greatest battles of the First World War, the Battle of the Somme, commenced. Before it ended five months later – having achieved nothing – there were over a million casualties, among them many Irishmen in the British Army. One of the most famous was Tom Kettle, poet, professor of economics at University College Dublin and Nationalist MP. He is commemorated in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, by his portrait bust with poignant lines from his best known poem, “To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God”, written shortly before his death. One hundred years later, on the 1st of July, 2016, Matthew Russell, vice-president of the FNCI, presented the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, through the Friends, with the rug which Kettle had with him in the trenches. It had been sent back to his widow, Mary Sheehy Kettle, after he was killed, and was later given by her to the donor’s mother.
