Tributes paid to Irish chaplains at D-Day prayer service

Leaders of the Church of Ireland and Catholic Church have attended a prayer service in Normandy, France, to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing.

The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, Archbishop John McDowell, and the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Archbishop Eamon Martin, jointly reflected on the sacrifice of those who gave their lives in 1944.

They delivered their respective addresses at the Royal Irish Regiment Service of Remembrance at Ranville Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, near Sword Beach in Normandy.

Archbishop McDowell paid tribute to Reverend James McMurray-Taylor, a Church of Ireland chaplain who landed on the beach, on 6 June 1944.

He also recalled his own experience of growing up in East Belfast among, and alongside, veterans of World War II.

He said: “All of the residents had been physically damaged – usually with the loss of a limb – although I cannot remember any sense of bitterness.

“In other words, I was surrounded by men like James McMurray-Taylor. Extraordinary, ordinary people who did their duty and did it cheerfully in often very difficult circumstances.”

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Archbishop Martin spoke of Father John Patrick O’Brien SSC from Co Roscommon who was ordained in 1942 as a priest for the Mission Society of Saint Columban.

Due to wartime travel restrictions for missionaries, he trained as an army chaplain and accompanied the D-Day invasion in Normandy.

The Catholic Archbishop pointed out that Father Jack O’Brien and the other chaplains ministered to soldiers of all denominations from every county on the island of Ireland.

Archbishop Martin said that it had largely been forgotten – perhaps conveniently at times – that tens of thousands of men and women from all over the island of Ireland served side by side during WWII.

“As war and violence once more threaten to destabilise our continent and our world, Archbishop John and I stand here together at Ranville, witnessing to peace and reconciliation, to fraternity and common humanity,” he said.