The poetry of Francis Ledwidge evokes an Ireland of traditional nostalgia. But Seamus Heaney has said of Ledwidge that his fate was more complex and more modern; his moral courage alone gave him "membership in the company of the walking wounded, wherever they are to be found at any given time".

He was killed in action in 1917, and Irish poet who richly deserves a place in the ranks of his British counterparts Wifred Owen, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon.