Anthem For Doomed Youth Exhibition
The Imperial War Museum in London launched an exhibition for twelve World War I soldier poets in October 2002 entitled Anthem for Doomed Youth.

Francis Ledwidge was one of the twelve poets who featured in the exhibition which ran for six months. He was the only Irish poet amongst the twelve which included, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brook, Robert Graves, Julian Grenfell, Ivory Gurney, David Jones, Isaac Rosenberg, Charles Sorley and Edward Thomas.

Jon Stallworthy, former professor of English Literature at Oxford University wrote a wonderful book (also entitled Anthem for Doomed Youth) in conjunction with the exhibition. It tells the life stories of the twelve soldier poets and includes selections from their best work. Baroness Blackstone,
the British Minister for Arts, said in her opening address at this exhibition
that teachers and pupils studying the war poets would use Stallworthy's book.

Sadly for our own young people, while their fellow students in Britain are enjoying the works of Francis Ledwidge, they have been deprived of this pleasure because his poetry has been removed from the Leaving Certificate
syllabus. Despite numerous requests to the Department of Education, this
situation still remains unchanged.

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