Council to send two members on Gallipoli trip

LARNE Borough Council is to send two representatives on a pilgrimage to the Gallipoli battlefields.

Independent member Roy Craig had urged that the local authority should do no more than note the invitation from the Friends of the Somme group, but aldermen Jack McKee (TUV) and Danny O’Connor (SDLP), along with UUP councillor Brian Dunn argued in favour of council representation on the 1,200-a-head trip to Turkey in March.

UUP alderman Roy Beggs and DUP deputy mayor Gregg McKeen (who was unsure if he would be available) were nominated on a majority vote.

Ald McKee asked: “What price do you put on those who laid down their life for freedom?”

Gallipoli was “a fair bit away” for “the ordinary man or woman in the street” and many whose relatives had died there could not afford to go personally to visit the scene of one of the bloodiest conflicts of the First World War.

“Public representatives can go and pay their tribute, which needs to be done,” said Ald McKee, who reminded colleagues that they had sent representatives to battlefields and cemeteries in France and Belgium in the past.

He added: “I can remember on one occasion we refused to go to such an event and we were lambasted by the Press and the public.”

Cllr Dunn said: “I initially felt that in a year when we had a zero per cent rate increase we should not go, but Ald McKee has been very persuasive.”

Ald O’Connor said it was unthinkable that the council's’s successors “in 50 or 100 years’ time” would not take up an invitation to honour the dead of the Iraq or Afghanistan campaigns.

“It’s about trying to educate the youth of today that these horrible wars must never happen again,” he added.

Delegates will be flown to Istanbul on March 19 and stay in the four-star Tusan Hotel. They will spend a day at battle sites including Anzac Cove and Shrapnel Valley and, following a one-day excursion to the ruins of the ancient city of Troy, they will attend a service on Chocolate Hill, which was captured by the 10th Irish Division in August, 1915.

On the final day they will visit war cemeteries and memorials.

Related topics: