Defence Forces Review 2008

Defence Forces Review 2008
In this unique experiment in 20th century self-inflicted, democratically-approved poverty,
there was cross-party support for a reduction of the already tiny Defence Forces budget. Mr
Manly (Fine Gael) said it should be cut from £6 million to £5 million. Mr Casey (Labour) went
one better, saying that any money spent on “defence” was simply unwarranted in Ireland.
And then the Congo crisis erupted, across the world’s media, with centre-stage in the coverage,
almost from the outset, the soldiers of his bizarre and backward little island in the Atlantic.
Clearly, the first mission in Lebanon had impressed UN officials, and Dag Hammerskjold, the
UN Secretary of General, was emphatic that he wanted as much of the Irish Army as possible
under UN Command.
Even today, we would be proud at such a distinction; but the Ireland of 1960 was simply
electrified. Nothing like it had occurred in the nearly forty years of independence; and by
sublime coincidence, the newly elected Chairman of the UN was the Irish representative,
Freddie Boland. It was too good to be true: and as things turned out, indeed it was.
Modern soldiers will recognise some of the political responses of the time as being typical
of how politicians do not understand the UN. The sky-blue helmet is UN headgear, and he
(or she, today) who wears it, serves the UN, not their country of origin. This was clearly not
grasped by Noel Browne TD, who asked in the Dail that in order to preserve our neutrality, the
aircraft taking Army contingents to the Congo should not be American, and that preferably our
own aircraft should be used. But of course, the Air Corps did not have any such aircraft (and,
scandalously, still does not); and nor did Irish International, (as Aer Lingus was known then)
– the first of its three Boeing 720s was right then being flight-tested in Texas. Mr Sherwin
(Independent) declared that the Irish contingent should be known as the Casement Brigade, in
honour of Sir Roger Casement’s great work in the Congo, as if it was serving as an Irish force.
(It must be said that this failure to grasp the concept of the extinction of national identity upon
donning the blue beret lives on: a far more recent Minister for Defence refused to fly in a UN
aircraft because of its RAF origin and aircrew).
Most readers will be vaguely aware of the almost comical material discrepancies between the
Irish in the Congo and their counterparts from other countries. Simply, we did not live in the
same world as they did. Our soldiers did not even have proper UN berets; instead they wore
blue US helmet-liners as substitutes. Pictures of the time of soldiers leaving from Baldonnel
look as if they come from 1914: the same gaunt, toothily cheerful faces, the same smiling
sweethearts, the same flat caps, and unbelievably, almost the same Lee Enfield rifles.
And when the soldiers got to the Congo, by USAF C-133 Globemaster or the first of the
C-130 Hercules, they remained in a different world. They did not have sheets to sleep under
in the tropical heat, only heavy serge blankets. They wore the famous bulls-wool uniforms,
which would sooner or later have killed them. They exchanged those in due course for a
mad selection of Burma-style left-over battle-dress from the Second World War, some made
in Canada, some in Britain, and all of it ludicrously ill-fitting. The Canadians, meanwhile,
had shorts and light shirts, and the Swedes – of course - arrived with a full range of tropical
gear made at home. Despairing at anything useful being sent from Ireland, the Irish battalion
ordered some shorts from a local factory in Brazzaville.
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