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[Yvonne]

Ledwidge monument krijgt meer allure

Vlakbij de Carrefour des Roses in Boezinge bevindt zich in de Poezelstraat langs het 'Ledwidgepad' een monumentje ter ere van de Ierse dichter Francis Ledwidge.
Hij sneuvelde daar op 31 juli 1917. Aan het monument komen binnenkort een aantal aanpassingen. Het fietspad dat er voorbijkomt (op de oude spoorwegbedding) zal verplaatst worden achter het monument. Aan de voorkant komt een grasveldje en bijkomende aanplantingen zullen de site meer allure geven. Hierbij krijgt de taxus, als Ierse symboolboom voor herinnering en herdenking, een centrale plaats.
Door deze herinrichting zal een groepsbezoek aan dit monumentje veel comfortabeler kunnen verlopen, zonder storend belgerinkel van fietsers.


http://www.nieuwsblad.be/GT/Index.aspx?genericId=193
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Met hart en ziel

[patten]

mooi zo monumenten dienen onderhouden te worden (vind ik toch)
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patrick vancoillie
laat ons de belgische gesneuvelde soldaten nooit vergeten wat er ook moge gebeuren...... diksmuide...merkem....nieuwpoort ..... de ijzer !!!

[Yvonne]

Published: Wednesday, 6th May, 2009 12:13pm

Ledwidge Museum committee in appeal for 'new blood’

The Ledwidge Museum in Slane.

The committee which runs the Ledwidge Museum in Slane is anxious for 'new blood’ to come forward to help run the very popular facility.
They have appealed for new members to attend their annual meeting on Wednesday 12th May in the Poet’s Rest in Slane.
Spokeswoman Rosemary Yore said they need more help. “People may now have more free time than in the past and we badly need new members. We would urge people with a genuine interest to get involved,” she said. “Sadly, we lost four very good members in the past year.”
The museum is the cottage birthplace of World War I poet, Francis Ledwidge. It is a perfect example of a 19th century farm labourer’s cottage and was purchased and restored by the Francis Ledwidge Museum Committee in 1981. Dr Benedict Kiely opened it as a museum in June 1982. It houses the poet’s works and artefacts from World War I, alongside memorabilia of the period.
The museum is regarded as an important tourist attraction in the area and the poet is growing in popularity all the time.
Francis Ledwidge was the eighth of nine children born to Patrick and Anne Ledwidge on 19th August 1887. He was the first child born in the family’s new home, a labourer’s cottage at Janeville, just outside the village.
His father died when he was just four years-old but, despite the initial hardship, his literary talents flourished from an early age.
Described as an “erratic genius” by his schoolmaster, Thomas Madden, Ledwidge joined a literary society for juveniles and his first poem of note came when he was aged 15.
When he left school, the young poet went to work as a grocer’s apprentice in Rathfarnham, Dublin, but hated his time there.
After just a week, he stole away in the middle of the night and walked the 35 miles home to Slane. He then undertook a variety of jobs in the Slane area, including farmhand, roadworker and miner. He continued to write poetry and had many of his poems published in local newspapers.He acquired a patron in the form of local aristocrat, Lord Dunsany, who ensured that the poetry of Ledwidge would find a wider audience as his poems began to be published in the literary magazine, Saturday Review. Dunsany also facilitated the introduction of the young poet to the Irish literary circle which included AE (George Russell), Thomas MacDonagh, Katherine Tynan and James Stephens, amongst others.
The poet was also a keen political activist. While employed in Beauparc copper mines, he organised a strike for tolerable working conditions. He was a founder member of the Slane branch of the Meath Labour Union and held the position of the general secretary of the Meath Labour Union Approved Society for a year.
However, when war broke out, he enlisted in the Royal Inniskillen Fusiliers at Richmond Barracks in Dublin and his first introduction to the war was at Gallipoli. He also served in Serbia but died on 31st July 1917 at Boezinghe, north-west of Ieper (now Ypres), in Belgium.

c http://www.meathchronicle.ie/news/meatheast/articles/2009/05/06/39257-ledwidge-museum-committee-in-appeal-for-new-blood/
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Met hart en ziel