Northern Ireland

Ireland’s archbishops commend D-Day chaplains at prayer service in Normandy

‘As war threatens the world, we stand for peace and reconciliation’ - Archbishops Eamon Martin and John McDowell

Revd James McMurray-Taylor and Father John Patrick O’Brien SSC, Church of Ireland and Catholic army chaplains during the D-Day landings in Normandy, June 1944 (Catholic Communications Office archive).
Revd James McMurray-Taylor and Father John Patrick O’Brien SSC, Church of Ireland and Catholic army chaplains during the D-Day landings in Normandy, June 1944 (Catholic Communications Office archive).

A prayer service marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landing has been addressed by Catholic Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin and Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell.

The service took place at Royal Irish Regiment Service of Remembrance at Ranville Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, near Sword beach in Normandy, on Friday.

Archbishop Martin, whose great-uncle Edward Doherty was killed at the Battle of Passchendaele during WWI, spoke of the Christian witness of Fr John Patrick O’Brien SSC, from Co Roscommon.

Fr O’Brien 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.

Archbishop Martin reflected: “Father Jack O’Brien and the other chaplains ministered to soldiers of all denominations from every county on the island of Ireland.

“It has been largely 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 the Second World War. Unlike many others, they were volunteers, rather than conscripts - personally motivated to serve the cause of peace and freedom and justice.”

Archbishop McDowell paid tribute to the Rev James McMurray-Taylor, a Church of Ireland chaplain who landed on Sword beach on 6 June 1944, and recalled his own experience of growing up in east Belfast among, and alongside, veterans of the Second World War.