Meathman's Diary: The bishop and the big Russian cannon

It’s hard to believe it is almost 36 years ago, but I can remember it like yesterday. Probably thanks to the plentiful supply of photographs from the day – Confirmation Day. It was 16th May 1986, in the Church of the Nativity, Kilmessan, with a recently appointed co-adjutor bishop, a very youthful Dr Michael Smith.

Afterwards, it was into the Wellington Court Hotel, Trim, for one of Kathleen Fay’s dinners, and a ramble around the town before we headed off to a cousin’s wedding reception in Jury’s Hotel, Dublin.

A coffee-coloured leather jacket and beige trousers ensemble had been put together by Eileen Smyth of Sartor on Navan’s Trimgate Street. (I think Keogan and Carty, where I had got the First Holy Communion suit from the late Michael Denning, was gone by then). And one of the photographs from the day was of little ginger me in my Sartor style sitting on the wheel of a big black cannon at Trim Castle, a picture still doing the rounds sa bhaile.

I had often looked at that photo, and at the cannon many times since, and wondered where it came from. And it has taken the Russian invasion of Ukraine to enlighten me.

It appears that the cannon is a spoil of war, a trophy to mark British Allies’ victory in the Crimean War.

That war gave us the Victoria Cross, Florence Nightingale and the Charge of the Light Brigade. It also gave us the dozens of Russian trophy cannon which still adorn towns and cities across Britain, Ireland and the former Dominions. Remember, back then in the 1850s, we were all part of the empire! God Save The Queen and all that. She could do with saving now.

A refresher: The Crimean War (October 1853–February 1856) was fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support from January 1855 by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan. Another major factor was the dispute between Russia and France over the privileges of churches in the holy places in Palestine. Never ends, does it?!

Anyway, the main focus of the Crimean War became the Allied siege of the principal Russian naval base on the Black Sea, Sevastopol, which lasted for over a year. The war was ended by the Treaty of Paris of 30th March 1856.

In January 1857, Crimean trophy guns were distributed to British military and naval establishments and to “deserving or desirous British and Irish towns and cities having room to contain them”. Some 300 cannon distributed in this way across Britain and its dominions and dependencies, and Trim was either deserving or desirous! God save us all!