Defence Forces Review 2008

Defence Forces Review 2008
officers were also informed that five of those present would leave in two days for observer
duty in Lebanon. Based entirely on this scant information volunteers were sought. With no
time to consult their wives or next of kin, all did so. Five were then selected and Lieutenant
Colonel Justin McCarthy was nominated to lead the group. From the very beginning McCarthy
featured prominently in correspondence between Dublin and the mission in New York. Born
and educated in England, he joined the Defence Forces in 1932, was commissioned in 1934
and was a Lieutenant Colonel by 1945. He later completed the British army staff course at the
British army staff college, Camberley, England and held a range of important appointments
before his selection for UNOGIL. 11 Unusually for an officer of his time, he was a fluent
French speaker. It is likely that this, together with his completion of the British army staff
course, and his performance in a variety of demanding career appointments all combined to
mark him as the best candidate to lead the group on this historic assignment, the first foreign
deployment of Irish military personnel on operational duties.
Ir i s h o f f i c e r s in UNOGIL
Following the completion of a minimum of military administrative formalities and a meeting
with Taoiseach Eamon de Valera on 26 June, the McCarthy group left for Lebanon on 28
June 1958. 12 Soon after they joined the mission, the operational situation became much more
complicated for UNOGIL. A republican coup toppled the regime in Iraq, which threatened to
destabilise the region. The Lebanese and Jordanian governments both felt threatened by the
coup in Iraq and sought military assistance from the United States and Britain. The United
States deployed marines to Beirut, and Britain deployed its troops to Amman. While these
military deployments appeared to contain the situation, the entire Middle Eastern region,
and Lebanon in particular, remained tense from July to October. Eventually, all the issues,
which had made the region the focus of international diplomatic and military attention, were
resolved. This was achieved diplomatically through the good offices of UN secretary-general
Hammarskjold. In October, the United States and Britain withdrew their forces and UNOGIL,
having first expanded to over 600 personnel, was eventually downsized and withdrawn in
December 1958.
In addition to the original five, the Defence Forces subsequently provided 45 other Irish
officers in four separate deployments. 13 All of these officers went through a nomination and
selection process identical to the original five. They each received orders to report to Defence
Forces headquarters and were then presented with the option of making themselves available
as volunteers. They all choose to volunteer despite the limited knowledge of the mission,
its hardships or dangers. Many felt they had voluntarily enlisted in the Defence Forces and
consequently were available for whatever deployment was required of them. 14 In this manner,
and out of this experience, the Defence Forces’ commitment to the ‘volunteer’ concept of
overseas service was established and has survived to the present day.
Beirut, in July and August 1958 was a highly sensitive, complicated, Cold War flashpoint.
UNOGIL was required to walk a tightrope between the conflicting demands of the host
government interests and those of an occupying superpower. There was also the prevailing
threat from the United Arab Republic, a belligerent adjoining state. In this confused operational
cauldron, McCarthy, after only one month in the mission and at the request of his UNOGIL
superior, was promoted to full colonel status and appointed deputy to UNOGIL’s Norwegian
14