The Edmondson Blog

Inscriptions from the mausoleum of Daniel and William Cormack, in the cemetery at Loughmore, County Tipperary, Ireland:

By the IRISH RACE, in memory of the brothers DANIEL and WILLIAM CORMACK who for the murder of a land agent named ELLIS were hanged at NENAGH after solemn protestation by each on the scaffold of absolute and entire innocence of that crime, the 11th day of May 1858. The tragedy of the brothers occurred through false testimony procured through GOLD and terror, the action in their trial of JUDGE KEOGH, a man who considered personally, politically, religiously and officially was one of the monsters of mankind, and the verdict of a prejudiced, partisan packed perjured jury. Clear proof of the innocence of the brothers afforded by ARCHBISHOP LEAHY to the VICEROY of the day but he nevertheless gratified the appetite of a bigoted, exterminating and ascendancy caste by a judicial murder of the kind which lives bitterly and perpetually in a nation’s remembrance.

Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori illi autem sunt in pace. [In the sight of the unwise they seem to die, but they are in peace.]

In commemoration of the removal of the remains of the CORMACK BROTHERS from the jailyard at NENAGH to this mausoleum on May 11th 1910. In the morning a solemn REQUIEM OFFICE and HIGH MASS were celebrated in the Parish Church, Nenagh, Canon McMahon presiding, and an immense number of Killaloe priests being in the choir. The funeral cortege which contained MR JOHN DILLON, M.P., MR J. HACKETT, M.P., and many others of high name and inspiring example, was by magnitude, representative-ness and observance unprecedented in IRELAND. At Loughmore, the pastor preached a funeral oration and assisted by priests from IRELAND, ENGLAND, AMERICA and AUSTRALIA, officiated at the placing of the remains here to rest in peace and honour until the day of their vindication by Jesus Christ before the whole human race in the Valley of Josophat.

Corpora sanctorum in pace sepulta sunt: et vivent nomina eorum in aeternum R.I.P. [The bodies of the saints are buried in peace; and their names live for evermore. R.I.P.]

According to Google Search Results.

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


On 2nd May, 1915, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer was killed by German artillery fire and was buried that day. In the absence of the chaplain. his friend, Major John McCrae, brigade-surgeon with the First Brigade of the Canadian Forces Artillery, conducted a simple service at the graveside.

It is believed that John McCrea began his famous poem In Flanders Fields that evening, writing it on a scrap of paper upon the back of fellow officer, Lawrence Cosgrave during a lull in the fighting.

Alexis Helmer’s grave was lost in later fighting and so he is one of the 54,896 names commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial.


John McCrea’s poem was published in Punch that December and became the most famous poem of the Great War. It was the inspiration for poppies being sold in remembrance of the War Dead. He never returned home, dying in France of pneumonia in 1918.

Lawrence Cosgrave went on to become the Canadian signatory to the Japanese Instrument of Surrender at the end of the Second World War.