Defence Forces Review 2008

Healer of the Nation
The Irish food matched the Irish uniforms. The 33rd battalion survived for weeks on “tinned
sandwiches”, whatever that might mean, bully-beef and hard biscuits. And needless to say,
pay matched food and clothing in awfulness. The Irish were probably the worst paid of any
contingent in the Congo. They earned 4 shillings (about 20 cents) a day from home and 6/- (30
cents) a day from the UN, which was worse than that being paid to the Ghanaians, Ethiopians,
Tunisians and Moroccans. As if that wasn’t enough, before Congo duty had begun, married
NCOs who usually lived at home rather than in barracks, had been paid 3/9 (18 cents) a
day for not eating at Army expense. But this allowance was forfeit in the Congo: so, with
4/- overseas allowance, these men netted just an extra three pence a day for their UN duties:
about a cent.
Red tape and bureaucracy ruled in every regard. Families at home were desperate to know how
their men were enduring life in the Congo, but mail was unaccountably held up. Phone-contact
was impossible. Journalists accompanying the Army were able to make communications
with a radio ham (an amateur enthusiast) by short-wave in Dublin. And though words were
exchanged with the Army Chief of Staff who made his way to the ham’s home in Booterstown,
Department of Posts and Telegraph regulations prevented the journalists from filing copy via
the radio: and this was a regulation which the newspapers dutifully, if cravenly, obeyed.
Yet the UN appetite for more Irish soldiers told another story: their equipment might be
medieval, but these men were good. They had the traditional 3-D Irish martial qualities:
discipline, duty, and dogged good humour, in evidence from Fontenoy through to the Crimea
and Ypres. At home, the Irish audience – starved of good news - seemed to revel in the very
Irish triumph over a very Irish adversity. But a clue as to what lay ahead came with the death
of one of the most outstanding soldiers of his generation, Colonel Justin McCarthy, in a traffic
accident. A star of the earlier deployment in Beirut, he had been appointed chief of staff to the
UN Commander, the Swede Van Horn in the Congo. About to take over as force-commander
from Van Horn, exhausted by overwork, and incredibly, without a driver, he lost control of
his car and was killed.
Suddenly, the silver lining that was the Congo was developing a dark cloud; and it grew
darker still with the Niemba ambush. I do not propose to discuss that here, not least because
the broader details are known to most readers. But I would hazard the almost unpalatable
opinion that seldom have the deaths of any Irish soldiers had such extraordinarily beneficial
effects on their country. Because after that disaster, Ireland knew that there was a price to be
paid for being a grown-up country; there was a price to be paid for soldiering; and the price
was not just in the blood of brave young men, but also in political steadfastness in adversity.
Curiously enough – and I do not believe this has been remarked on before – what we may call
the unionist community (which still existed, though without ever explicitly and openly using
that term about themselves) responded very rapidly and warmly to the creation of a fund by
the Irish Times (at that time, still a largely Protestant newspaper) to support the families of
the men killed in the Niemba ambush. They, of course, still remembered the Great War in
a way nationalist Ireland did not. Foreign sacrifice lay in their blood. The Church of Ireland
Archbishop of Dublin was one of the first to contribute, with £10: a lot of money at that
time. Lady Brooke gave £10. The High School Old Boys also gave £10, as did the Earl of
Mountcharles. Many other titled grandees did likewise.
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