My Adopted Soldier is a special hour long documentary on a unique project involving a secondary school student from every county in Ireland, paying tribute to a soldier from his or her county who died in World War 1. Following on from RTÉ Nationwide programmes last year, this reversioned documentary broadcast on the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Somme, takes a further in depth look at the stories of many Irish men who fought in the battle.
RTÉ followed the students, as they researched their soldier’s story and in some cases found living relatives. They uncovered some intriguing and tragic cases before travelling as a group to the Somme to get an insight into what their soldiers had gone through and to pay their respects at their graves. In many cases it’s believed this was the first time that the soldier’s story had been told and his grave visited.
The project is a unique one according to the man whose idea it was, history teacher Gerry Moore from Glenties in County Donegal. Never before has a group of young people representing each of the 32 counties, paid a tribute like this to Irish men who lost their lives in WW1, young men who were not much older than the students themselves. The lasting legacy of the project is a website telling the story of the individual soldiers as researched by the students and it’s 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.
Presented by RTÉ’s North West Correspondent Eileen Magnier, the programme follows some of the students as they go in search of their soldier’s life story, and those who are working on the website where all research is being uploaded www.myadoptedsoldier.com, helping to write these soldiers back into Irish history.