WW1: Flanders & The Somme

Fly from Dublin to Brussels. Meet your Tour Manager on arrival and transfer by executive coach to Ypres. Visit the world-renowned Memorial Museum Passchendaele devoted to the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele.  It displays relics of the Great War including an extensive collection of impressive photos & carefully replicated trenches.
This evening hear the Last Post performed at the Menin Gate Memorial. Every evening at 8pm, traffic noise ceases and a stillness descends over the memorial as the emotive “Last Post” is sounded in honor of these lost soldiers. Return to your hotel overnight.

Breakfast at your hotel. Depart for the battlefield sites of the Somme. Visit the place where Father Francis Gleeson performed The Last General Absolution of the Munster Fusiliers at Rue du Bois & Le Touret Memorial commemorating over 13,400 soldiers killed in this sector. Continue to the 16th Irish Division Memorial at Guillemont marking some of the bloodiest fighting of the whole Somme campaign. Visit The Ulster Tower, a memorial to the men of the 36th Ulster Division. Inside the tower is a small chapel with a number of paintings and plaques from the various towns and boroughs of Northern Ireland. Continue to Thiepval Memorial.  Finally, stop at Pozieres Memorial before returning to your hotel overnight.

Breakfast at your hotel. Today visit the battlefield sites of Flanders including the Francis Ledwidge Memorial to the renowned Irish poet in Artillery Wood Cemetery. Continue to Langemarc German cemetery, the only German cemetery in the Salient. Visit John Condon’s Grave in Poelcappelle cemetery. Private John Condon of the Royal Irish Regiment, who at 14 is thought to be the youngest battle casualty of WW1 commemorated by the Commission. Continue to Tyne Cott cemetery, the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. Inside the cemetery two mourning angels kneel on top of dome-covered pavilions at either end of the memorial wall, highlighting the harrowing nature of the conflict in the surrounding area of Passchendaele.

Next on the itinerary is the Island of Ireland Peace Park & the Irish Round Tower at its center. This memorial is of significance because it was the first time Irish Catholic and Protestant soldiers united together to fight side by side against a common enemy. Continue to the 16th Irish Division Memorial at Wytschaete, commemorating the 16th Division’s capture of Wytschaete on 07 June 1917, the opening day of the Battle of Messines.

Your final stop today is Willie Redmond’s Grave in Locre. Willie was the brother of John Redmond, leader of the Irish parliamentary party. Return to your hotel for overnight.