Soldiering Against Subversion. Dan Harvey
of the past – of unsettled history, unreconciled identity and untolerated tradition – endured and ancient enmities, deep-seated mistrust and pernicious prejudice persisted. Necessary reform of even-handedness in local government affairs was not forthcoming or arrived too late. Implacable and ideologically opposed elements to end the gerrymandering sought instead to perpetrate the disenfranchisement of Catholics and the discrimination continued. Worse, orchestrated violent counter-demonstrations turned the already deep dividing line between Catholic Nationalists and Protestant Unionists into a pandemonium that could easily have unbalanced the stability of the entire island.
CHAPTER 2
Border-Bound Beginnings
It is with deep sadness that you and I, Irishmen of goodwill, have learned of the tragic events which have been taking place in Derry and elsewhere in the North in recent days.
Irish men in every part of this island have made known their concern at these events. This concern is heightened by the realisation that the spirit of reform and intercommunal co-operation has given way to forces of sectarianism and prejudice. All people of goodwill must feel saddened and disappointed at this backward turn in events and must be apprehensive for the future.
The Government fully share these feelings and I wish to repeat that we deplore sectarianism and intolerance in all their forms wherever they occur. The Government has been very patient and have acted with great restraint over several months past. While we made our views known to the British Government on a number of occasions, both by direct contact and through our Diplomatic representative in London, we were careful to do nothing that would exacerbate the situation.
But it is clear now that the situation cannot be allowed to continue.
It is evident, also, that the Stormont Government is no longer in control of the situation. Indeed, the present situation is the inevitable outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont Governments. It is clear, also, that the Irish Government can no longer stand by and see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.
It is obvious that the RUC is no longer accepted as an impartial police force. Neither would the employment of British troops be acceptable nor would they be likely to restore peaceful conditions – certainly not in the long run. The Irish Government have, therefore, requested the British Government to apply immediately to the United Nations for the urgent despatch of a Peacekeeping Force for the Six Counties of Northern Ireland and have instructed the Irish Permanent Representative of the United Nations to inform the Secretary-General of this request. We have also asked the British Government to see to it that police attacks on the people of Derry should cease immediately.
Very many people have been injured and some of them seriously. We know that many of these do not wish to be treated in Six County hospitals. We have, therefore, directed the Irish Army authorities to have field hospitals established in County Donegal, adjacent to Derry and at other points along the border where they may be necessary.
Recognising, however, that the reunification of the national territory can provide the only permanent solution for the problem, it is our intention to request the British Government to enter into early negotiations with the Irish Government to review the present constitutional position of the six counties of Northern Ireland. These measures which I have outlined to you seem to the Government to be those immediately and urgently necessary.
(Taoiseach Jack Lynch’s televised address to the nation, 13 August 1969.)
In response to the riots in Derry, the Irish Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, gave a carefully measured broadcast to the nation after presiding over an emergency cabinet meeting which saw Government ministers recalled from their summer holidays to discuss, then determine, an appropriate Irish Government response to the deteriorating situation in the North. There was an imperative to act, yet an equal imperative not to overreact.
Well below its peacetime strength, possessing only antiquated equipment and little reliable transport ability of any note, and with no permanently occupied military posts north of a line from Galway to Gormanstown camp in County Meath, the Defence Forces were ordered northwards:
We were a mostly barrack-bound army, sedentary, domesticated, old and as obsolete as our equipment. There were officers and soldiers still in service who had first-hand involvement in countering IRA campaigns during the Emergency and in the late 1950s. Little or none of this was ever mentioned, however. Idle and inept, would – if brutal honesty were called for – aptly describe us. Overseas service with the United Nations, however, had been our escape to professionalism and a new, totally different, emphasis on soldiering emerged. The experience of the Congo was a shock, and this outward-looking emphasis was further developed with UN service in Cyprus. Both significant involvements were a great education for us, because among the UN contingents were people from other armies who had actual war-fighting experience – during World War II and the Korean War.
The standards that we operated with, and under, led to a raising of our own standards, an increase in invaluable experience and an improvement in equipment. Despite all this, in 1969 the army was still very small, largely inactive with antiquated transport, deficient in resources and no defence policy or direction. In short, neglected. Skeletal if you like, but one without the bones of a proper framework or the flesh of any fighting capability – at best a light infantry force. Defence was the victim among government departments and very little of [the] scarce money [available] was spent on it. Conditions were unsatisfactory, pay was poor. It was choked by civil service control and lacked any perceived purpose. Ill-prepared, with a deferential, weak leadership who all too readily bowed to pressure from politicians.
The North was a powder keg set to blow, and August 1969 was a time of enormous tension and pressure. There was a great and growing unease, anxiety and concern about the immediate future, and the highly volatile and uncertain security and political situation was the context within which a neglected and unprepared Defence Force was directed to act.
There was an unprecedented urgency throughout the Defence Forces. Jack Lynch’s address to the nation was complemented by an order for immediate action and so the Defence Forces apparatus kicked into life, the organs of command and control stirred themselves and the military’s main effort was directed towards getting troops to the border in the north west to set up field hospitals.
The first phase was to consolidate the maximum available transport assets spread throughout the Western Command area to get the vehicles in and get convoys of troops and equipment out. The staff of Western Command Headquarters, located in the centre of Ireland at Custume Barracks, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, had to coordinate the details to meet the demands of their sudden new circumstances:
The many necessary land-line phone communications to outlying barracks within the command had to be channelled through the Barracks switchboard on the one external line out, for which there was great demand. The frustration was immense, the progress impeded, headway [was] hindered, advance obstructed and the time factor critical. The transport need was a priority: stores, troops; all kinds of equipment were needed and the means to get them to where needed had yet to be assembled, and great difficulty was being experienced in doing so. An added difficulty, once the land-line phone line became available, was actually making contact with the individual unit transport officers in the different barracks; [if] they not at their desks, [but] instead [were] outside in the transport yards or elsewhere. You then had to hang up and wait your turn in the queue for the external land-line again. There were bigger … concerns, however, as a picture soon emerged regarding the actual roadworthiness of much of the transport fleet. There were multiple breakdowns. The antiquated vehicles were not even making it to Athlone, and of those that did, [many] broke down on the way to Donegal.
Not all of the transport was unserviceable or broke down, and the convoys – even though they made faltering progress – eventually arrived to their destination.
Also heading northwards, and ultimately for locations along the border but from far further south, were units from the other command formations: South, East and Curragh. They moved in convoys from as far away as Cork city and county and also, as it happened, from Arklow, where the Curragh Command’s 3rd Battalion ‘The Bloods’ were on Summer Camp. Border-bound were what was