However, when one of the soldiers made a local girl pregnant, causing controversy and jealousy, with the result that the authorities learned that British solders were in hiding. Three were discovered in a hayloft, one making his escape. The others were shot by a firing-squad. (The full story is contained in the book `Newry�s War Dead`, edited by Colin Moffet, and produced by the Equality Unit of Newry and Mourne district council.

One of the youngest victims of the war was 17-year-old Private James McGrath, son of a butcher, John McGrath from Market Street in Newry. He had been a member of the National Volunteers and opted for active service. However, he sustained frost-bite, was admitted to Liverpool Hospital, but died soon after wards.

A large crowd attended the funeral, with pipers leading the cortege to St Mary�s `Old Chapel.` Chief mourners were his father John; William (brother), Mary (sister) and James and Thomas McGrath (uncles). Blinds were drawn in houses along the route, while Fr Daniel O�Hagan delivered the eulogy.

He stated: �Death has been busy this year. It must be frightening to see young men in the prime of life, overcome in the field of battle; a sad thing to witness their vitality, sapped on a sick-bed in a hospital; and saddest of all to see them die, far from home.

Death cares not for weapons or shells, ramparts or trenches. It smiles at the science of war, whether striking generals or privates. We must all become its victims.�

Among the decorations awarded were the Victoria Cross to Michael O�Leary from Newry, and Robert Hill of Aughnahooey, near Kilkeel. Large crowds greeted their arrival home in each case. Captain Roger Hall of Narrow Water received the Military Cross for distinguished service.

But Terry Ruddy, conductor of St Joseph�s Band in Newry, was notified that a former employee in his butcher shop, Private Ted Hunt, who was also a trombonist in the band, had been killed in action. Brigadier-General George Bull, son of Newry magistrate George Bull of Downshire Road, died of wounds received in France. One son had lost his life in the Boer War, while another was killed in India.

A well-known Newry boxer and athlete, PT Spain was based in the police station at Church Street in Newry. He joined the Irish Guards, being wounded in the battle of Marne. On return home he was greeted by friends, who noticed he was no longer a happy, carefree young man, but was aged-looking. When the call came for more recruits, PT joined the Dublin Fusiliers, was promoted captain, and returned to France, where he lost his life.

While Newry may have had the highest ratio of recruits, Bessbrook must have the same distinction for villages, as 410 men enlisted, 85 losing their lives. As Thomas Martin states in the book `Newry�s War Dead`, �for a small village the consequences of such a sever loss of life were immense. Many were skilled workers in the local linen mill, so their death and serious injuries had an enormous impact on the Model village.

�While those at home were suffering minor deprivations, our soldiers were facing and tasting dearth a thousand times daily. They were enduring hardship beyond description, wading through bloody mud, attacking and defending a morass of human devastation.

�A great war leaves a country with an army of cripples, and an army of mourners. But there is also an army of gallant ex-servicemen, who returned after risking their lives for their country, some bearing reminders of the conflict that they will carry to the grave. They will have experienced the horrors of modern warfare, so that for the rest of their lives they will be powerful advocates of peace.

�When they left the Model Village, with the call of duty ringing in their ears, they had longings to remain in those quiet surroundings. And they had mothers, wives and sweethearts, relatives and friends; they had a thousand ties that bound them to the village. These were not ruthless warriors, - they were young men, with life before them, and a wealth of possibilities.

�No one then could see the end, but those sons of the Bessbrook area would join with their countrymen, prepared to meet the foe before the barrage reached their own firesides. They had an ideal before them; a cause behind them, and the spirit of a race within them. So their deeds were worthy if the traditions in which they were nurtured,� stated the Memoir of Thomas Martin, at the unveiling of Bessbrook�s War Memorial in 1934.

Incidentally, Captain Alexander Stuart, a Bessbrook Presbyterian minister, was killed in action in 1917, a few weeks after he took up duty in France.

The Sinn Fein election poster, referred to at the outset on display at the exhibition in the Newry Museum, which focuses on local men who had fought in the First World War, condemns MP�s from the Irish Parliamentary Party, who �would not vote against conscription in Ireland.� One of those named were the MP for Newry, John Joseph Mooney (IPP).

A bye-election in South Armagh had been cause by the death of local MP, Charles O�Neill in 1917. The constituency had been a nationalist stronghold, and the election was seen as an important test for Sinn Fein, who selected Dr Patrick McCartan, a surgeon in a New York hospital as candidate. A rally in Newry town centre was addressed by Eamon de Valera and Countess Markiewicz.

But though the IIP candidate, Newry solicitor Patrick Donnelly, was successful, the contest was seen as a defining moment in modern Irish history. There followed the decimation of the Parnellite party�s support in 1918, and the emergence of Sinn Fein as the dominant electoral force. Now history is repeating itself!

Meanwhile, most people will be aware of the Christmas during the First World War, when British and German troops left their trenches and socialised in `no-man�s-land`, playing a football match, before resuming hostilities. Many people hoped they would witness the DUP and Sinn Fein clambering out of their trenches, shaking hands, and joining a power-sharing executive.

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