Defence Forces Review 2008

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Ireland’s first engagement in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations: An Assessment This ended the distinguished career of Colonel Justin McCarthy. He was the first Defence Forces officer to lead an overseas deployment of Defence Forces personnel to a UN mission and the first to serve in three different UN peacekeeping operations. Tragically, he was also the first Defence Forces officer to give his life in the performance of UN peacekeeping. To date, he also remains the most senior of the 85 Defence Forces fatalities on UN operations. McCarthy’s death preceded by ten days the tragedy of the Niemba Ambush, when nine Irish soldiers lost their lives, and was understandably overlooked in the scale of that catastrophe. However, these deaths so early in the ONUC mission were a harsh coming-of-age for the nation, as Ireland became aware of the cost that was to be borne in the cause of peace. Participation in UNOGIL established Ireland’s place ‘amongst the nations of the world’, UNTSO continued a tenuous engagement in peacekeeping, for Ireland. The experience contributed to the state’s learning process about peacekeeping, and participation in ONUC followed. At that critical juncture in Cold War world politics. Ireland established itself as a reliable member of the UN peacekeeping ‘club’ of neutral and non-aligned states. Involvement with the UN and other organisations in the cause of peace has continued since then and has now become an accepted dimension of Defence Forces service and of Irish foreign policy. Co n c l u s i o n Since joining the UN, Ireland has participated in over 30 peacekeeping missions dispersed over the five continents. Being without colonial baggage and remaining uncompromised by superpower affiliations or influence, Ireland also established an enviable reputation as an impartial ‘honest broker’ over this period. It has, through its involvement in peacekeeping, lived up to the expectations of those for whom participation in and commitment to the UN organisation was the grand strategy to establish Ireland’s place on the world stage. This achievement is now a matter of historical record and one to which the Defence Forces peacekeeping operations have made a significant contribution. The genesis of that Defence Forces involvement in peacekeeping operations remains UNOGIL, closely followed by UNTSO, the mission in which the Defence Forces have retained a continuing unbroken presence since December 1958. Upon reflecting on the significance of the UNOGIL, UNTSO and ONUC missions, there is a requirement for proper recognition of the path-finding role of Colonel McCarthy and his 49 Irish UNOGIL colleagues. At a personal level, their 1958 experience of foreign soldiering in the cause of peace infused 50 Irish participants with a personal confidence in their professionalism. They also had confidence in their training and a belief in their ability to hold their own on the international stage. In the first instance, these officers were dependant on, and sustained by, the national military training that they had received. Deployed to an international organisation run by a multinational military staff, they found their training compared more than favourably with other military officers from more combat-experienced armies. Considered from the UN perspective the quality, strength and flexibility of these resources provided by Ireland was impressive, as was the speed with which they were deployed to the mission area. This positive performance from a first-time participant in peacekeeping marked Ireland as being eminently suitable for the ‘peacekeeping club’ of reliable, neutral and non-aligned nations. Having proved itself in these early unarmed missions, Ireland and its Defence Forces undoubtedly became a future contender for early consideration for challenging peacekeeping missions. 19
Defence Forces Review 2008 From the national perspective, the role and performance of its UNMOs in this first mission was recognition of the calibre of the respective Irish officers and validation of national military training and expertise. The early weeks of UNOGIL tested and forged Ireland’s ability to react quickly and positively to an emerging international security challenge. In turn, this contributed to national confidence regarding peacekeeping matters, thereby facilitating a positive response by the government in July I960 to the secretary-general’s request for Irish troops for ONUC. In addition, participation in UNTSO, together with the instructive lessons that this provided for national civil and military administrations, was instrumental in preparing all concerned for the major escalation to participation in armed troop missions, which emerged with the problem in the Congo in 1960. At a more functional level, participation in the 1958 Lebanon mission also raised the public profile of the Defence Forces with the publicity and media coverage it generated, ensuring the unparalleled success of the Defence Forces’ 1958 recruiting campaign. 26 Those recruited during this campaign became the trained soldiers of 1960 and from this trained resource the battalions and companies for ONUC were drawn, which were in turn commanded, staffed, trained and led by many of the UNOGIL veterans. Fo o t n o t e s 1 This paper was originally presented at the conference ‘The United Nations anniversary – Looking forward’, held at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 18 November 2005, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Ireland’s accession to the UN.© Royal Irish Academy. Reprinted by kind permission of the RIA from Irish Studies in International Affairs, Volume 17, 2006 (31-42). www.ria.ie/publications/isia 2 See also Richard E.M. Heaslip, ‘UNOGIL and UNTSO: 1958-60. The pre-Congo origins of Ireland’s involvement in United Nations peacekeeping’, in Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon (eds), Obligations and responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations 1955-2005. Essays marking fifty years of Ireland’s United Nations membership (Dublin, 2005), 79-116. The paper presented at the conference ‘The United Nations anniversary – Looking forward’, on 18 November 2005, was based on this article. 3 National Archives of Ireland, Department of Foreign Affairs (hereafter cited as NAI DFA), 305/329/1, Political situation in Lebanon, Cochrane to MacWhite (letter), 17 May 1958. 4 NAI DFA Permanent mission to the United Nations New York (hereafter cited as PMUN), 222/13/1, cables from PMUN to the Department of External Affairs, Dublin, 23 June 1958. The cable of 23 June contained the following message. ‘Most urgent for Secretary General’s Office has inquired today on telephone if we could urgently provide five officers of quote Major or Captain rank unquote to join UN Observation Team in Lebanon stop will cable further details after visit headquarters this afternoon uneireann’ [sic] 5 NAI DFA PMUN, 222/13/1, the Department of External Affairs to PMUN (clear cable), 24 June 1958. The government’s response from Iveagh House was as follows, ‘Please inform Secretary General Government Agreeable in principle stop details being settled and will wire later stop request no publicity until details being settled’ [sic] 6 NAI DFA PMUN, 185PK/5Vol 1, UNEF file [sic] 7 NAI DFA PMUN, 185PK/5Vol 1. The Department of Defence correspondence to the Department of External Affairs, 20 November 1956 with attachments to the Department of External Affairs, 22 November 1956 and PMUN, 17 December 1956. 8 NAI DFA, 305/173/1 Pt1, United Nations Emergency International Force file with enclosure ‘Memorandum for the government’, 27 August 1957. 9 NAI, Department of the Taoiseach, Cabinet files 2/18, 21 March 1958. 10 Patrick Lavelle, ‘UNOGIL silver jubilee, 1958-83’, An Cosantoir, June (1983), 189-93:189. 11 Military Archives, biographical notes (extras from personal file) 0/4530 Colonel Justin McCarthy. 12 NAI DFA PMUN, 22/13/1, paper and photo clippings, 27 June 1958. The event was a major national news item and the subject of very favourable comment. 20
Page 2: Óglaigh na hÉireann Defence Force
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