Ireland has been involved in peacekeeping missions since the 1950s in dozens of countries on behalf of the United Nations, since it joined in 1955. In a context where the study of war poets is well established, peacekeeping poets are rare.
Poet Michael J. Whelan is a former member of the Irish Defence Forces and has seen service in South Lebanon and Kosovo as an Irish United Nations support operative. His poetry serves as a valuable and even historically-significant document of the Irish soldier’s experience in peacekeeping work. Whelan makes it clear that he and his fellow soldiers are in as much as danger as those they either sent in to protect or fight. The human cost is never far away.
Source: Doire Press
Date: 2016
Courtesy of Michael J. Whelan
Produced by: Just Forests
Format: rescued wood sample
Year: 1987
Courtesy of Tom Roche
Irish Global Solidarity in 100 Objects is organised by developmenteducation.ie, an online hub focused on learning about the unequal and unjust shape of the world today, and is coordinated by Aidlink, Concern Worldwide, the Irish Development Education Association, the National Youth Council of Ireland, Self Help Africa, Trócaire and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World.
DevelopmentEducation.ie is part funded by Irish Aid.
