Irishbatt
Title | Irishbatt PDF eBook |
Author | Henry McDonald |
Publisher | |
Pages | 216 |
Release | 1993 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN |
Blood, Sweat and Tears
Title | Blood, Sweat and Tears PDF eBook |
Author | Tom Clonan |
Publisher | Liberties Press |
Pages | 230 |
Release | 2012-11-25 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1907593772 |
Irish troops have served 40,000 individual tours of duty over four decades in Lebanon. All over Ireland, in almost every family, there is a father, a brother, a sister, son, daughter or cousin who has come under fire in South Lebanon. Forty-seven Irish troops died in Lebanon and thousands more have returned with physical and psychological injuries. Blood, Sweat and Tears tells the true story of the Irish at war. Clonan brings the reader on a tour of duty in Lebanon from 1995 to 1996. His vivid account brings you from a rain-swept Dublin Airport on a dark October night to the massacre of 118 innocent men, women and children in the village of Qana, South Lebanon in April 1996. The reader is taken on patrol with the Irish army and shares in their black humour, their fears, frustration and pain. It is through this odyssey that the heartbreaking nature of peacekeeping operations as seen through Irish eyes is laid bare like never before. Blood, Sweat and Tears is above all a story of personal loss, loneliness and the psychological trauma of military service in a time of war. As the narrator comes to terms with the slaughter of innocents around him, he will ultimately be confronted with the loss of those closest to him at home in Ireland. 'Tom Clonan brings to life the sights, sounds, smells and characters of southern Lebanon. His beautifully written book is in turns funny, gripping and heart-breaking.' - Lara Marlowe
From One End of the Rainbow
Title | From One End of the Rainbow PDF eBook |
Author | Frank Sumner |
Publisher | Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency |
Pages | 321 |
Release | 2013-08 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 1622129768 |
From One End of the Rainbow: A Story about the Life Inside the Irish Defence Forces and Beyond is about how the truth can be clouded by what's perceived as reality. With the "truth," everybody is blameless. There are no "fall guys" - no victims, no reason, no justice - just a carefully woven sequence of events with no beginning and no end that will stand the test of time. Thirty-two years later, the "truth" is confronted with reality. The whole panoramic consequences of that takes its toll on the conscience and raises its head to be exposed in its very raw format. This invites the reader to determine the real truth, be the judge and the jury, and pass sentence. It exposes the real "politics" of the Government. How in fact the "privileged" are protected at all costs. It ascribes the destitute feeling of betrayal that eats into the very vertebrae of the real meaning of military life. The book also gives an insight into daily military life, the characters, the routine, and the effect it has on family life. Being a soldier is a vocation that can only be compared to religious life, because the feeling is the same when you retire. The reality is, an old soldier never dies.
Essays from The Irish Sword: An Irish Sister of Mercy in the Crimean War
Title | Essays from The Irish Sword: An Irish Sister of Mercy in the Crimean War PDF eBook |
Author | Military History Society of Ireland |
Publisher | Essays from the Irish Sword |
Pages | 328 |
Release | 2006 |
Genre | History |
ISBN |
The second volume of essays on Irish military history, is a facsimile version of the original articles from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The articles were first published in the Irish Sword, the journal of the Military History Society of Ireland. The Society was founded in 1949 with the aim of promoting the study of Irish military history, defined as the history of warfare in Ireland and of Irishmen in war. Each contribution to the second volume has been chosen because it is regarded as authoritative. The authors include scholars, professional soldiers, diplomats and a distinguished international journalist. The study of Irish units in the British army is represented by J A MacCauley's account of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The first world war is the context of Terence Denman's analysis of the conflicts, military and political, that underlay the formation of the 10th (Irish) Division, Patrick MacCarthy examines the post-war history of the five Irish regiments that were selected for disbandment in 1922 in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. There are articles devoted to Ireland and the American civil war and General P J Hally gives an account of the military aspects of the 1916 Easter rising in Dublin. The civil war of 1922-3 is examined from a pro-treaty perspective by Michael Hopkinson and from the perspective of the treaty's opponents by Brian P Murphy. The divisions of the period resurface in Brian Hanley's study of the Volunteer Reserve of 1933 in relationship to the IRA. The organisation and capability of the army during the Second World War is considered by Donal O'Carroll, Eunan O'Halpin discusses aspects of military intelligence, Noel Dorr discusses the development of UN peacekeeping concepts over the last fifty years from an Irish perspective. Robert Fisk considers the role of the Irish in UNIFIL (United Nations interim force in Lebanon) between 1978 and 1995 and David Taylor relates his experience with UNIFIL as company commander in 1979-80 and as a battalion commander in 1992.
Defending Ireland
Title | Defending Ireland PDF eBook |
Author | Eunan O'Halpin |
Publisher | OUP Oxford |
Pages | 402 |
Release | 1999-07-22 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0191542237 |
This fascinating and original book is the first to analyse the evolution of internal security policy and external defence policy in Ireland from independence to the present day. Professor O'Halpin examines the very limited concept of external defence understood by the first generation of Irish leaders, going on to chart the state's repeated struggles with the IRA and with other perceived internal and external threats to stability. He explores the state's defence and security relations with Britain and the United States and, drawing extensively on newly released records, he deals authoritatively with problems of subversion, espionage, counterintelligence and codebreaking during the Second World War. In conclusion, the book analyses significant post-Second World War developments, including anti-communist co-operation with Western powers, the emergence of UN service as a key element of Irish foreign and defence policy, the state's response to the Northern Ireland crisis since 1969, and Ireland's difficulties in addressing the collective security dilemmas facing the European Union in the post-Cold War era. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the development of independent Ireland since 1922.
Our Heroes
Title | Our Heroes PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | |
Pages | 300 |
Release | 1916 |
Genre | Ireland |
ISBN |
Into Action
Title | Into Action PDF eBook |
Author | Dan Harvey |
Publisher | Merrion Press |
Pages | 254 |
Release | 2017-03-13 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1785371142 |
Into Action is the story of the Irish Defence Forces’ role as international peacekeepers since 1960. While primarily posted to uphold the transition towards peace in overseas conflicts, they have at times inevitably been forced to fight back against often aggressive opposition. Dan Harvey’s fascinating and accessible history follows the major military incidents in the peacekeepers’ sixty-year campaign, from Niemba, the Siege at Jadotville, and Elizabethville in the Congo to At-Tiri in Lebanon, and Durbol in Syria. These are to name just a few of the military engagements that involved supreme bravery on behalf of the Irish Defence Forces and, at times, ended in terrible tragedy. Dan Harvey’s detailed account of the military operations they were involved in reveal the defence forces’ effective responses to crisis and conflict; how they stood firm during ethnically-motivated rioting in Gracancia or intervened in the midst of a clash between Chadian government forces and rebel attackers, and how the Irish nation was halted into mourning in November 1960 by news that nine soldiers of the 33rd Irish Battalion had been killed by Baluba warriors near Niemba in the Congo. These are the deeds and tragedies that have come to define Ireland’s role in international peacekeeping. Into Action reveals the true story of this role and the immense courage that have underlined its operations from the beginning.