One hundred years on, all of us are connected in some way to the First World War, whether through family history or because of its long term impact on the world we live in.  From 2014 to 2018, across the world, countries and communities will come together to commemorate and remember the importance of those who fought and died.

This year, during YARN Storytelling Festival, Mermaid will exhibit photos, letters and maps through which we will tell the story of a local man’s search to uncover part of his family history, and the story of the last journey of his great uncle John Cleary, one of the 9th Dublin Fusiliers who was killed in France in 1916.

‘A few years ago I learned that one of the names on the War Memorial near the train station in Bray was that of my grandfather’s uncle, John Cleary. When I began to look for more information, I discovered his story was also that of other men from the Wicklow area. Although we don’t even have a photo of him, with the help of modern technologies and the recent digitisation of many records it is possible, a hundred years later, to follow in the steps of John and his colleagues and to walk the fields of northern France in which they fought, and where so many of them still remain.’ – Seán Downes

The exhibition will also include materials gathered by Bray Cualann Historical Society about Wicklow men in the First World War