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Leslie McCarthy, at the graveside of World War 1 soldier Charles Francis Conway, filmed for the RTÉ Nationwide special “writing Irish soldiers back into history”.
A PRESENTATION secondary school student is to feature in an RTE Nationwide special on the historical project ‘My Adopted Soldier’
Nationwide will broadcast two special programmes this November which focus on a unique project involving a student from every county in Ireland who adopted a soldier who died in World War 1.
Leslie McCarthy, researched the life of Charles Francis Conway who grew up in Lower Abbey Street and died in the Battle of Ginchy in France in September 1916.
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Leslie’s research uncovered a story not uncommon in Ireland after the war, where families didn’t speak about soldiers who had fought and died in the British army.
However times have changed and Leslie found living relatives of Charles Francis Conway who are now proud to speak of him and his sacrifice.
Leslie McCarthy at the beginning of her search in February this year, when we ran a story on her project.
In the second programme, Leslie reads a poem at Private Conway’s grave in France which was written specially for what would be the first visit to his grave by someone who knew his story.
The lasting legacy of the project is a website telling the story of the individual soldiers as researched by the students and it is planned to expand the database in the future making it a very valuable resource for schools and anyone with an interest in the involvement of Irish people in World War 1.
You can check out the My Adopted Soldier website HERE
The shows will broadcast on Monday 9 and Wednesday 11 of November at 7.00pm on RTÉ On
