Irish Army

The Irish Army is the land component of the Defence Forces of Ireland. As well as maintaining its primary roles of defending the State and internal security within the State, since 1958 the Army has had a continuous presence in peacekeeping missions around the world. The Irish Army is organised into two brigades. The Air Corps and Naval Service support the Army in carrying out its roles.
The Army has an active establishment of 7,520, and a reserve establishment of 3,869. Like other components of the Defence Forces, the Irish Army has struggled to maintain strength and had only 6,322 active personnel, and 1,382 reserve personnel. However, the Irish government introduced several measures in an attempt to improve recruitment and retention, and in 2024 inductions to the Defence Forces exceeded discharges.

Roles of the Army

The roles of the Army are;

To defend the Irish state against armed aggression.
To give aid to the civil power. This means that the Army assists, when requested, the Garda Síochána, who have primary responsibility for law and order in Ireland.
To participate in multinational peace support, crisis management and humanitarian relief operations in support of the United Nations peacekeeping missions, and EUFOR.
To carry out other duties which may be assigned to them from time to time. For example, assistance on the occasion of natural disasters, assistance in connection with the maintenance of essential services, etc.
History

Beginning of the Army

The Defence Forces, including the Army, trace their origins to the Irish Republican Army, the guerrilla organisation that fought British government forces during the Irish War of Independence. In February 1922, the Provisional Government began to recruit volunteers into the new National Army.
The Provisional Government was set up on 16 January 1922 to assume power in the new Irish Free State. On 31 January 1922, a former IRA unit assumed its new role as the first unit of the new National Army and took over Beggars Bush Barracks, the first British barracks to be handed to the new Irish Free State. The National Army's first Commander-in-Chief, Michael Collins, envisaged the new Army being built around the pre-existing IRA, but over half of this organisation rejected the compromises required by the Anglo-Irish Treaty which established the Irish Free State, and favoured upholding the revolutionary Irish Republic which had been established in 1919.
As such, from January 1922 until late June and the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, there existed two antagonistic armed forces: the National Army, built from a nucleus of pro-Treaty IRA units, and armed and paid by the Provisional Government; and the anti-Treaty IRA who refused to accept the legitimacy of the new state. Both forces continued to use the Irish-language title Óglaigh na hÉireann, which had previously been used by both the original IRA and its predecessor, the Irish Volunteers of the mid-1910s. In July 1922, Dáil Éireann authorised raising a force of 35,000 men; by May 1923 this had grown to 58,000. The National Army lacked the expertise necessary to train a force of that size, such that approximately one-fifth of its officers and half of its soldiers were Irish ex-servicemen of the British Army, who brought considerable experience to it.

Civil War period

The pro-Treaty Sinn Féin party had won an election on 16 June 1922. Anti-Treaty IRA units, who had occupied the Four Courts in Dublin, had kidnapped JJ O'Connell, a lieutenant-general in the National Army. The Provisional Government was facing increasing British threats of direct intervention. They acted to assert control over the situation and The Irish Civil War broke out on 28 June 1922 with the shelling of the Four Courts by Free State forces.
In the early weeks of the Civil War, the newly formed National Army was mainly composed of pro-Treaty IRA units, especially the Dublin Guard, whose members had personal ties to Michael Collins. Its size was estimated at 7,000 men, in contrast to about 15,000 anti-Treaty IRA men. However, the Free State soon recruited far more troops, with the army's size mushrooming to 55,000 men and 3,500 officers by the end of the Civil War in May 1923. Many of its recruits were war-hardened Irishmen who had served in the British Army during the First World War. W. R. E. Murphy, a second-in-command of the National Army in the civil war, had been a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, as had Emmet Dalton. Indeed, the Free State recruited experienced soldiers from wherever it could; two more of its senior generals, John T. Prout and JJ "Ginger" O'Connell, had served in the United States Army.
The British government had supplied the National Army with small arms and ammunition as they departed from Ireland as well as a few armoured cars. They later supplied artillery which enabled it to bring the Civil War to a relatively speedy conclusion. The Four Courts and O'Connell Street were taken from anti-Treaty IRA units during the Battle of Dublin in July 1922. The anti-Treaty IRA were also dislodged from Limerick and Waterford in that month and Cork and County Kerry were secured in a decisive seaborne offensive in August.
The remainder of the war was a guerrilla war, concentrated particularly in the south and west of the country. On 15 October, directives were sent to the press by Piaras Béaslaí, the Free State director of communications, to the effect that Free State troops were to be referred to as the "National Army", the "Irish Army", or just "troops". The Anti-Treaty troops were to be called "Irregulars" and were not to be referred to as "Republicans", "IRA", "forces", or "troops", nor were the ranks of their officers allowed to be given. National Army units, especially the Dublin Guard, were implicated in a series of atrocities against captured anti-Treaty fighters.
The National Army suffered about 800 fatalities in the Civil War, including its commander-in-chief, Michael Collins. Collins was succeeded by Richard Mulcahy.
In April 1923, the anti-Treaty IRA called a ceasefire, and in May it ordered its fighters to "dump arms", effectively ending the war.

National Army

With the end of the Civil War, the National Army had grown too big for a peacetime role and was too expensive for the new Irish state to maintain. In addition, many of the civil war recruits were badly trained and undisciplined, making them unsuitable material for a full-time professional army. The Special Infantry Corps was established to perform the army's first post-war duty, breaking the strikes of agricultural labourers in Munster and south Leinster, as well as reversing factory seizures by socialists.
Richard Mulcahy, the new Irish defence minister, proposed to reduce the army from 55,000 to 18,000 men in the immediate post-Civil War period. This provoked an Army Mutiny in 1923–24, particularly among former IRA officers who considered that former British Army officers were being treated better than they were.
On 3 August 1923, the new State passed the Defence Forces Act, putting the existing armed forces on a legal footing. This Act raised "an armed force to be called Óglaigh na hÉireann consisting of such number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men as may from time to time be provided by the Oireachtas." The date of the establishment of the Defence Forces was 1 October 1924. The term "National Army" fell into disuse.
The Army had a new establishment, organisation, rank markings, headdress and orders of dress. The National Army's Air Service became the Air Corps and remained part of the Army until the 1990s. An all-Irish language-speaking unit was created – An Chéad Chathlán Coisithe was established in Galway, and functioned exclusively through the medium of the Irish state's first official language.

The Emergency

Ireland remained neutral during the Second World War, which was referred to as "The Emergency" by the Irish government. About 5,000 soldiers deserted and joined the British military. Those who returned in 1945 were summarily dismissed from the armed forces and disqualified from any form of state-funded employment for seven years. These soldiers received an official amnesty and apology from the government of Ireland on 7 May 2013.
Despite the Irish stance of neutrality, the Army was greatly expanded during the war. At its peak, the army was made up of almost 41,000 personnel, with another 106,000 reservists. Upon the outbreak of war two independent brigades were raised. During the so-called Phoney War period, numbers of men mobilised decreased. The Fall of France, however, saw a significant change in the government's attitude, and by early 1941 seven brigades were mobilised. On 9 May 1941, Minister for Defence Oscar Traynor approved the establishment of the 1st Division and 2nd Division, both of which encompassed six brigades, leaving the 5th Brigade to remain independent, as part of Curragh Command. This expansion was undertaken in the face of potential invasions from either the Allied or Axis powers.
In the Christmas Raid of 1939, the remnants of the IRA stole a large quantity of the Irish Army's reserve ammunition from its dump at the Magazine Fort in Dublin's Phoenix Park. While this was seen as an embarrassment for the Irish Army, most of it was recovered.
For the duration of the war, Ireland, while formally neutral, tacitly supported the Allies in several ways. For example, the Donegal Corridor allowed British military aircraft based in County Fermanagh to fly through Irish airspace to the Atlantic, thereby greatly increasing their operational range. G2, the Army's intelligence section, played a role in the detection and arrest of German spies, such as Hermann Görtz.

Peacekeeping missions

Since Ireland joined the United Nations in 1955, the Army has been deployed on many peacekeeping missions. The first of these took place in 1958 when a small number of observers were sent to Lebanon. A total of 86 Irish soldiers have died in the service of the United Nations since 1960.
File:IrishArmy 36Btn Congo 1961.jpg|thumb|Irish ONUC troops man a position over the Elizabeth road tunnel during the Congo Crisis, December 1961