Poignant look at great sacrifice

There's renewed interest in a neglected sector of the military past of Auckland - and New Zealand, reports Edward Rooney.
Henry Benner Morris was a lance corporal with the Auckland Regiment when he met his death in the bloody trenches of France on September 28, 1916.
The 21-year-old is buried at Heilly Station Cemetery in Mericourt-L'Abbe, 19km northeast of Amiens, with almost 3000 Commonwealth servicemen from World War I.
The Irish immigrant joined the war effort through New Zealand's territorial ranks. From the age of 12 all  boys in New Zealand received military training. In 1911 New Zealand formed a  part-time national militia of 25,000.
Most who volunteered to join the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) in August 1914 came from this territorial Army.
"Harry" Morris joined an ill-fated journey into the teeth of a voracious war machine when he sailed out of Auckland on February 14, 1915. Under General Godley, the NZEF joined the Australian Imperial Force in Australia. The two forces were sent to Egypt for training in British weapons.
Australian and New Zealand forces were merged to form the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Some were sent to defend Suez, but most went to the Gallipoli front.
The  Anzacs suffered more than 33,600 losses - more than a third - by the time they withdrew in January 1916. The New Zealand troops were then transferred to the Western Front in France.
When he was killed, Lance Corporal Morris' next of kin to be notified was his sister Mand Morris, of 34 Grand Parade, Cork, Ireland. It's not an untypical story, but one that has found fresh interest from an Irish effort to trace and remember all that country's fallen.
The Irishmen who came all the way around the world to settle in New Zealand, only to return to die on the battlefields of Europe, are the focus of an extensive new book - A Great Sacrifice, Cork Service Men Who Died in the Great War.
Project spokesman Sean Healy says the research spread from an initiative for all Irish counties to honour their Great War dead.
"It is envisaged that each county of Ireland would research and compile a  roll documenting all the men and women from that county who died in the Great War of 1914 to 1918 and on through to 1921 when many died from illness or wounds from their service in World War I," says Mr Healy.
It began in 2008 when the Cork Vocational Educational Authority asked Irish military historians Gerry White and Brendan O'Shea to form a project team to compile the roll of names of the Cork war dead.
"At the start of this project it was understood that this amounted to 2200 names," Mr Healy says. "However, what we discovered during our research was astounding - almost half again were never recognised or ever recorded as being from Cork.
"The final count in the Cork book was 3784. And this may still increase, as news of the book's publication is circulated.
"Despite a huge publicity campaign two years ago, some names were never put forward and these will be added in the second printing with an addenda to the first book also being published."
The title of the book, A Great Sacrifice, is a phrase taken from the many letters written to the families of dead soldiers by Reverend Francis Gleeson, the chaplain of the Royal Munster Fusiliers. His diaries, which are referred to many times in the book, held the names and addresses of all the fusiliers in his detachment.
"On the death of each soldier he would write to their poor mothers, grieving wives or to their inconsolable fathers who asked themselves to their dying day: 'Why did my son go?'
"Father Gleeson would end his letter of comfort by saying: 'They paid a great sacrifice.'."
Mr Healy says the project team aimed to ensure that all, or as many names as could be found, were entered in the book. Eventually, it was decided to include men and women from other countries who were fighting but who had been born or had a family connection with Cork City or county.
"As a result, many of the names in this book are from the New Zealand and Australian Expeditionary Forces as well as the forces from the United States and Canada," he says. "There are 21 names of New Zealand soldiers in A Great Sacrifice who died during  World War I and were born or had family here in Cork. At least 85 others survived the war.
"If there are any relatives who have any further information on any of these men, the project team would be very grateful if they contacted us."
Mr Healy expects the book will also be a great resource for descendants and relatives of the fallen throughout the world.
"It is the project team's fervent hope that people who find their relative's name listed in this roll believe, as we do, that they were brave men and women who at last have their rightful place not only in their own country's history, but as importantly in the long and proud history of Cork. "The book has created a renewed interest about the lost Corkmen  of  World War I and I would love if some of your countrymen or women could find a name from their past connections with Cork."
Sean Healy hopes his research can be extended.
Pages of history
A Great Sacrifice, edited by Gerry White and Dr Brendan O'Shea, is published by Evening Echo Publications, Cork. For more details, or to share information with the research team, email: seanhealy9@yahoo.co.uk