“Everyone will receive a cross,” a British officer told his battalion, advancing on the German-held village of Ginchy during the Battle of the Somme on 9 September 1916.

“Whether it’s a wooden cross or a military cross,” the officer added “depends on your luck.”

Private Patrick Henderson, a 29-year-old Fusilier from Enniskillen, was amongst 200 from the battalion who weren’t lucky and his is one of more than 580 names on Enniskillen’s War Memorial.

Along with over 1,000 UK-wide towns and villages Enniskillen will be ‘visited’ by ‘There but not There’ silhouetted figures, marking the forthcoming Armistice Centenary.

The evocative, life-size, transparent-Perspex figures will have a solemn, silent presence in church pews and other locations, honouring local men like Private Henderson who paid the ultimate sacrifice during WWI.

The figures will be in Enniskillen’s St. Macartin's Cathedral and Darling Street Methodist church, with reflections emphasised in the Presbyterian church by light from the beautiful ‘White Comrade’ stained-glass memorial window, already featured in the Impartial Reporter’s WWI commemorative articles.

The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust presented Enniskillen with the silhouetted figures and Steven Inman, one of their Trustees from London, will be here on 11 November to attend our local commemorative events.

George McCaffrey from Rossorry was an 18-year-old Enniskillen shopworker when he enlisted with the Royal Field Artillery in 1915.

He went to France’s front lines in 1916.

On June 22, 1917, 20-year-old Bombardier McCaffrey died while his unit’s massive 18-pound guns barraged enemy lines.

The stained-glass ‘White Comrade’ in the Presbyterian Church depicts Christ ministering to a wounded infantryman.

Fivemiletown Parish Church’s beautiful memorial window features Saint Barbara, the patron saint of artillerymen.

It’s thought to be the only Saint Barbara window in Ireland.

Unveiled on Sunday 13th March 1921, it was erected by the parents and brothers of Major Ralph Montgomery DSO, who died on active service with Royal Field Artillery on 1 April 1919.”

When the window was dedicated in 1921the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Clogher spoke about the late Major Montgomery, a son of the historic family from nearby Blessingbourne estate.

“Four brothers from the Blessingbourne family saw active service in the war,” said the Lord Bishop, “three of them were in the artillery. In the providence of God three came safely through it all, and the window…will perpetuate the memory of the one who had made the great sacrifice for King and country.”

Major Ralph was born on 26th April 1884 and brought up on the family demesne.

He served heroically with ‘D’ Battery, 88th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, was wounded in 1916 and died aged 34 in at the military hospital in Doullens, Somme, France.

He was buried in Doullens Cemetery.

Royal Artillerymen’s badges and formal neckties bear a zig-zag flash of lightning, which comes from the legend of Saint Barbara, depicted on the church window.

Most accounts place Barbara in the 3rd century, in Nicomedia, where Turkey is today, or in Phoenicia in present-day Lebanon.

Barbara was very beautiful, with a number of ardent suitors. This angered her wealthy father who had already chosen her husband-to-be.

So he imprisoned her in a stone tower which appears on many paintings of Saint Barbara, and on the Fivemiletown window.

Her father, a devotee of the Greco-Roman religion, also worried that his daughter might convert to the emerging Christian faith.

Barbara’s prison tower had only two tiny windows through which she hauled up baskets of food on a rope.

Someone put a book about Christianity in the basket, which she perused, and begged her father for freedom to find out more about the Christian faith.

He refused to release her and her great despair made her ill.

Barbara’s father called for a healer, who, despite his contempt for Christianity, turned out to be not only a believer but a priest.

Barbara was baptised and persuaded some of her father’s estate workers to make a third window in the tower - denoting the Three in One - God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Her father told Barbara that she must renounce her new faith or die.

She held to her faith and her father beheaded her.

At that moment, the legend goes, a bright light surrounded her body and a blinding bolt of lightning killed her father.

In time Saint Barbara was invoked to grant safety from lightning, and later she became the patron saint of gunners and artillerymen, who were at risk from ‘fiery elements’.

During the large programme of local Armistice Centenary events collectively entitled ‘The Battle’s Over’ there’ll be an illustrated talk about Enniskillen Presbyterian Church’s memorial window in the church on Friday, November 10 at 7.30pm.