Soldiering Against Subversion. Dan Harvey

      Lieutenant Colonel Dan Harvey, now retired, served on operations at home and abroad for forty years, including tours of duty in the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and South Caucasus, with the UN, EU, NATO PfP and OSCE. He is the author of Into Action: Irish Peacekeepers Under Fire, 1960–2014 (2017), A Bloody Day: The Irish at Waterloo and A Bloody Night: The Irish at Rorke’s Drift (both reissued 2017), and Soldiers of the Short Grass: A History of the Curragh Camp (2016).

      Dedicated to Commandant Peter Young,

      Military Archives, RIP. A friend and mentor.

      First published in 2018 by

      Merrion Press

      An imprint of Irish Academic Press

      10 George’s Street

      Newbridge

      Co. Kildare

      Ireland

       www.merrionpress.ie

      © Dan Harvey, 2018

      9781785371851 (Paper)

      9781785371868 (Kindle)

      9781785371875 (Epub)

      9781785371882 (PDF)

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      Interior design by www.jminfotechindia.com

      Typeset in Minion Pro 11.5/14 pt

      Cover design by www.phoenix-graphicdesign.com

      Cover front: Irish Defence Forces Troops from the 4th Infantry Battalion, Collins Barracks, Cork, on rotation to the border area deploy from a Panard Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) whilst on Border Duty during Operation Mallard. Photograph courtesy of Captain Tony Doonan (retired).

      Cover back: An Irish Army soldier, courtesy of Military Archives, Dublin.

      Contents

       Abbreviations

       Foreword by Dermot Keogh

       Preface

       Prologue

       Part 1 Beginnings

       Chapter 1 Troubled Times

       Chapter 2 Border-Bound Beginnings

       Chapter 3 The British Army Blunders

       Chapter 4 The Provisional IRA Emerges

       Chapter 5 The Irish Government Shudders

       Chapter 6 Truckloads of Troops

       Part 2 The Border

       Chapter 7 Soldiering on the FEBA

       Part 3 ‘The Bog’

       Chapter 8 Break-Out

       Chapter 9 Break-In

       Chapter 10 Blocked

       Part 4 Beyond the Border and ‘The Bog’

       Chapter 11 The Battle of Ballsbridge

       Chapter 12 Balaclava Bandits

       Chapter 13 Boatloads and Bunkers

       Part 5 Becoming Better

       Chapter 14 Capability Development

       Chapter 15 ATCP and Peacekeeping

       Conclusion: What If?

       Epilogue

       Chronology of the Troubles in the Republic

       Acknowledgements

       Appendix: Operation Armageddon

       Bibliography

       Index

       Plates

Abbreviations