Remembrance Sunday Lest We Forget They shall not grow old, as we who are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.

November 11th is Armistice Day. It was in 1918, at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, in the eleventh month, that the armistice was signed which brought World War I to an end. Two minutes of silence is observed annually on this day at 11.00am in honour of all those who have ever died in the service of their country.  The Sunday which falls closest to the 11th November is known as Remembrance Sunday.  On this day, we take time to remember and give thanks for all those people who suffered and/or died in both world wars, and in subsequent conflicts since.

Many thousands of men from Ireland, north and south, served with the British armed forces.  During World War I alone, men of the 10th (Irish) Division, the 16th (Irish) Division and the 36th (Ulster) Division served with great distinction and bravery.  These men fought with courage and by the end of that war, almost 30,000 from the little island of Ireland had given their lives.  "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).  These men and their families, along with all the casualties of war, are remembered and honoured on Remembrance Sunday.

Make no mistake, war is a desperate, futile, savage and wasteful thing. There is no glory in it; only pain, grief and despair.  As the war poet Wilfred Owen (who died on 4 November 1918, just a week before Armistice Day) wrote: "My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old Lie: 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori'." (ie. it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one's country).  However, for those who suffered and died, both at home and in foreign fields, we respectfully pay our debt ... that of remembrance.  For our tomorrows, they gave their today.