Solution agreed over Kildare soldier's Donadea memorial

 Coillte has confirmed that a compromise has been agreed between it and the family of the late Kildare born US soldier, Staff Sergeant Liam Flynn over a memorial erected in Donadea forest.

It said that the memorial plaque and tree will remain and the  concrete slabs will be replaced by grass. 

Sgt Flynn, who was originally from Clane, was  killed along with 10 others in a US military helicopter crash during a training exercise off the Florida coast in 2015.

His family erected a memorial to him in Donadea forest but after complaint from a member of the public Coillte asked them to remove it or part of it.

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Last May, a petition on behalf of the Flynn family to retain the memorial was  signed by 4,000 people and sent to Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed. On January 31, last, Malachi Maguire, who has been campaigning on behalf of the Flynn family to retain the memorial was told by Mr Creed's office that a solution had been agreed. He welcomed the news.

Mr Maguire said he received a letter from the office of the Minister for Agriculture’s office saying that Coillte had a “constructive discussion with members of the Flynn family.”

The Minister’s private secretary, Graham Lennon said that Coillte, with Mrs Flynn’s consent, will take up the recently laid flagstones and relay the grass sod and will reposition the existing memorial plate so that it will be clearly visible.

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Mr Maguire said the plaque in memory of Staff Sgt Flynn, which shows his rank and regiment in the US Marine Corps, will be there to tell his story as one part of 9/11 Memorial Plots, in Donadea Forest Park, for the 20th anniversary commemoration on September 11 2021 in which a contingent of American Firemen will honour, not one but, two Irishmen, both from Kildare, who contributed to bettering the lives of Americans both at home and abroad through extraordinary acts of valour.

“I’m proud to have been a very small part of that story, because in the decades to come both men will receive a tip of the hat from any who pass that pleasant grove in Donadea, and it is the thought that strangers from every part of the globe will know that our patch of green, shouldering the wild Atlantic, produce men who will sacrifice their own lives for strangers such as they.”