Somme 2016
The Battle of the Somme commemorations took place over the last week—1st July—and the town of Grandvilliers ( twin town of Athy ) invited two youths from Athy to lay a wreath at the cemetery in Thiepval. Sean Lawler and Matthew Anderson travelled to Picardy on Sunday 26th June and were sponsored by the Athy Twinning Committee. They stayed with a host family in Grandvilliers for the duration of their visit. There were many highlights to their visit and below they document their memories.
Having travelled to Grandvilliers previously with Athy Town AFC and the Twinning Committee I asked Jean Pierre Vasseur (chair of the Gandvilliers Twinning Committee) if it would be possible to travel to the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme said Sean. In January he contacted me and invited myself and Matthew to travel and to represent Athy at the wreath laying ceremony. We flew to Beauvais on Sunday 26th June and were met by Jean Pierre and brought to Granvilliers where we met with our host for the week, Alaine Leulier a local school teacher and soccer coach. The annual town Bar B Q was being held that day and we took the opportunity to meet some old friends from the local Soccer club and be introduced to new ones. We also watched the Euro game France –v- Ireland and being the only Irish present we had to put up with a bit of good natured abuse which we duly returned a hundredfold. On Monday we visited the local newspaper offices and wrote about t what we thought were the similarities between the towns and people and also what differentiates us. Tuesday brought us back to school (and we thought that when we left Ardscoil na Trionoide at the end of May that we wouldn’t sit behind a desk again until September) and we spent all day with young people of our age. We were cooking, gardening, playing petanque etc—if only school was always like this On Wednesday we were driven to Paris and were given a guided tour of the sights by our hosts. We had a great time visiting this wonderful city and seeing it through the eyes of a native rather than as a tourist. Thursday morning we went again to the newspaper to translate our report into French with the aid of a staff member and a computer In the afternoon, we went to Beauvais to an adventure centre and some tree climbing. Jean Pierre and his wife Maryvonne hosted dinner at their home with friends. Friday we left Grandvilliers at 5,15am (please don’t tell our mothers that we actually got out of bed at that hour) with members of the Twinning committee and 4 teenagers from the town to attend WW1 Battle of Somme official commemorations at Thiepval. After laying a wreath to the Irish soldiers who lost their lives during what must have been a terrifying battle, we met our President Mr Michael D Higgins and his wife. He asked us about our week long experience and our feelings on what was a very emotional day. We also had an interview with French TV . Sadly Saturday came too soon and unfortunately we had to say Au Revoir to our many friends in Granvilliers to head home. |
Thanks
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We would like to pay special thanks to the Twinning committees in Athy and Grandvilliers for arranging this wonderful trip –the memories will remain with us forever and hopefully our French friends will visit us in the not too distant future.
Tom Kearney, chair of Athy Twinning said that he would like to see more people—especially the young-- taking the opportunity to visit Grandvilliers as this will help foster greater understanding between our 2 peoples. He said that the aim of the Twinning is to engender relations in the Cultural, Heritage, Sporting, Educational and Economic fields. Jean Pierre Vasseur , chair of Grandvilliers Twinning hopes that we can encourage more young people to travel between the 2 towns in the future |