Determination saw Ger through medals project
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Ger and Declan with display copies of the publication.Image 2 of 6
Ger O’Connor and Brian Gillen having a chat on the evening of the book launch.Image 3 of 6
Declan Power, who performed the official launch, with Eric Craig and Ollie McGurren.Image 4 of 6
Author Ger O’Connor signing copies of his book for Jadotville veteran, Billy Keane, and Jason McKevitt, historian.Image 5 of 6
Murty Quinn, PJ Fitzpatrick and Carmel Mugan examining a copy of Ger’s book at the launch event in the Atrium.Image 6 of 6
Ken Glynn, Enda Montgomery, Harry Carr and James McKnight at the book launch event.With dogged determination and unremitting resolve, Mullingar man Ger O’Connor has done something no one has ever done before: created an immaculate catalogue of the medals of Ireland.
Retired postman Ger, who has also given years of service to the army reserve force, set himself the task of recording and describing all the various medals awarded over the years by Irish state organisations.
The result of his comprehensive endeavours is a new book, ‘Irish State Awards – Emergency and Commemorative Medals’ and it is a follow-on to a previous publication by Ger recording the medals that have been awarded by the Irish army.
The publication was officially launched by Siege of Jadotville author and defence analyst Declan Power, who wrote the intro to the book, at The Atrium of the Westmeath County Buildings on Thursday June 2.
“The book is basically about medals from 1916, the War of Independence, the Emergency medals, and then the metals that commemorated 1966 – the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising – and then 1971, the 50th anniversary of the War of Independence,” explains Ger. “Go on further from that, and there was a garda medal brought out for the millennium.
And since that there was a few different organisations brought out Jubilee medals for 50 years of existence – the Civil Defence, the Red Cross, and the gardaí.
“Then in 2016, the army brought out a medal and another 10 or 11 different organisations brought out a medal each to commemorate their own organisations. So it’s photographs of those medals and explaining the different meanings of the colour of the ribbon and the different meaning of the inscription on the front and the reverse of the metals.”
A timely book, it ties in with the Decade of Centenaries as Ireland marks the various anniversaries associated with the foundation of the Irish state.
Ger has been doing the work and research for this book for approximately three years and it has required some degree of detective work on his part: “On some occasions I have had to travel miles to get pictures of the front and the back, because the back is as important as the front,” he said.
Ger’s book is on sale in local shops.