Defence Forces (Ireland)
The Defence Forces are the armed forces of Ireland. They encompass the Army, Air Corps, Naval Service, and Reserve Defence Forces.
The Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces is the President of Ireland. All Defence Forces officers hold their commission from the President. Still, in practice, the Minister for Defence acts on the President's behalf and reports to the Government of Ireland. The Minister for Defence is advised by the Council of Defence on the business of the Department of Defence.
As of June 2025, there were 7,531 permanent personnel in the Defence Forces out of an established strength of 9,739, a decrease from September 2020 when there were 8,529 personnel, comprising 6,878 Army, 752 Air Corps and 899 Naval Service personnel. As of August 2024, there were also 1,720 personnel in the Reserve Defence Force out of an established strength of 4,069.
Role
The Irish state has a long-standing policy of non-belligerence in armed conflicts, including neutrality in World War II. Ireland's military capabilities are modest. However, the state has a long history of involvement in United Nations peacekeeping operations. Functions of the Defence Forces include:- Preparation for the defence of the state against armed attack.
- Assisting the police force, the Garda Síochána, including the protection of the internal security of the state.
- Peacekeeping, crisis management and humanitarian relief operations in support of the United Nations.
- Policing the fisheries, in accordance with the state's obligations under European Union agreements.
- Miscellaneous civil contingency duties requested by the government such as search and rescue, air ambulance provision, providing secure air transport for ministers, assistance in the event of natural and other disasters, ensuring the maintenance of essential services, and assisting in dealing with oil pollution at sea.
History
The Irish Volunteers were central to the Easter Rising staged in April 1916. After the rising, the Volunteers gave allegiance to the First Dáil, the parliament of the revolutionary Irish Republic. At this time, the Volunteers became known as the Irish Republican Army. From 1919 onwards, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against British rule in Ireland that is now known as the War of Independence.
A truce in July 1921 brought hostilities to an end; the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on 6 December. The Provisional Government was then constituted on 14 January 1922. The IRA was divided between those who accepted the decision of the Dáil in ratifying the Treaty and those who did not: consequently, both civil war and re-occupation by the British became possible. In February 1922, the pro-treaty IRA became the National Army of the Irish Free State. With declining relations between the remaining units of the anti-treaty IRA and the newly recruited pro-treaty National Army, the Irish Civil War broke out on 28 June 1922. It ended in victory for the National Army when, on 24 May 1923, the anti-treaty IRA Chief of Staff, Frank Aiken ordered his volunteers to dump arms.
On 3 August 1923 the new state passed the Defence Forces Act, raising "an armed force to be called Oglaigh na hEireann consisting of such number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men as may from time to time be provided by the Oireachtas the new parliament of the Irish Free State." The Forces were established on 1 October 1924.
The state was officially neutral during World War II but declared an official state of emergency on 2 September 1939, and the Army was mobilised. As the Emergency progressed, more and newer equipment was purchased for the rapidly expanding force from Britain and the United States, as well as some manufactured at home. For the duration of the Emergency, Ireland, while formally neutral, tacitly supported the Allies in several ways. Allied aircraft were allowed to access the Atlantic Ocean via the Donegal Corridor. German military personnel were interned in the Curragh along with the belligerent powers' servicemen, whereas Allied airmen and sailors who crashed in Ireland were very often repatriated, usually by secretly moving them across the border to Northern Ireland. G2, the Army's intelligence section, played a vital role in the detection and arrest of German spies, such as Hermann Görtz.
In September 1946, the Naval Service was established as Ireland's maritime force and as a permanent component of the Defence Forces.
Ireland became a member of the United Nations in 1955. The first contribution to peacekeeping was in 1958 when Army officers were assigned to the United Nations Observation Group in Lebanon. Since 1958 the Defence Forces have had a continuous presence on armed United Nations peacekeeping operations, except between May 1974 to May 1978. The first armed peacekeeping mission was to the Operation des Nations Unies au Congo in 1960. During the ONUC mission, a company from the Irish Army were involved in a battle at Jadotville, in which the Irish held out against a larger Katangese force. A memorial to Irish personnel who served as United Nations peacekeepers was unveiled in 2009 in the town of Fermoy, recording that there was a total of ninety Irish fatalities while on active service with the UN until that date.
During the Troubles, the period of civil conflict centred on Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1998, the Defence Forces deployed to aid the Garda Síochána. Troops were deployed for duty to the border areas, new border military posts were established, and in 1973 new permanent border units were established. In 1969-70, there were proposals considered for a limited military intervention in Northern Ireland to protect the nationalist community, known as Exercise Armageddon, but it was seen to be unworkable and was not adopted by the cabinet. Although units were moved to the border region in 1969–70 during the Battle of the Bogside, in order to provide medical support to those wounded in the fighting. In 1974, troops were deployed to maximum-security prisons in Portlaoise and Limerick where IRA prisoners were detained. Armed troops were deployed in 1976 to all major post offices during a three-month national bank strike. In 1978, cash-in-transit escorts were established to protect large cash movements throughout the state, continuing until 2014. The Central Bank of Ireland had the Government put in place contingency plans to provide armed Defence Force security for major Irish banks over public order fears if a cash shortage was triggered during the 2008 financial crisis. Tasks in military aid to the civil power continue today, but no longer to the same degree or intensity.
Current overseas deployments
As of March 2025, there were 428 Defence Forces personnel deployed to overseas missions and locations in 17 missions. The missions were:| Organization | Area | Name | Deployed |
| UN | Middle East | UNTSO | 13 |
| UN | Lebanon | UNIFIL | 350 |
| UN | Syria | UNDOF | 3 |
| EU | Bosnia and Herzegovina | EUFOR | 5 |
| NATO | Kosovo | KFOR | 13 |
| EU | Italy | EUNAVFOR MED IRINI | 4 |
| OSCE | Austria | Irish Representative at OSCE Headquarters | 1 |
| EU | Belgium | Irish EU Military Staff | 8 |
| EU | Germany | EU Battlegroup | 14 |
| UN | USA | Irish UN Delegation Military Adviser | 1 |
| OSCE | Austria | Irish OSCE Delegation Military Adviser | 1 |
| EU | Belgium | Military Representative to EU | 4 |
| NATO | Belgium | Liaison Officer of Ireland to NATO | 4 |
| EU | Belgium | EU Operation Althea | 1 |
| NATO | Belgium | Irish Liaison Officer to SHAPE & Military Co-Op Division | 1 |
| UN | Uganda | UNMAS | 1 |
| EU | Germany | EUMAM UA | 4 |
Funding and development
In 2020, the Irish defence budget was €1.04bn. This included €780m on defence and €259m on army pensions. Department of Defence spending was 0.27% of GDP in 2020 and 0.29% in 2019.In 2022, the defence sector budget was €1.1bn and in July of that year the Irish government announced plans to increase this to €1.5bn by 2028. As part of the plans to move to "Level of Action 2", as of 2022, the number of civil and military personnel was set to be increased from 9,500 to 11,500. Planning also began for improvements in radar capabilities. The Defence Forces specified the procurement of an integrated radar system for land, sea and air function and that the Army's structures and capabilities would be redesigned to meet "international best practice". The plan also proposed the establishment of an Office of Reserve Affairs to design a Reserve Defence Forces "regeneration plan".
The projected budget for 2024 was €1.5bn, including an extra €21m over previous expenditure and €34m in capital expenditure on top of the original capital ceiling of the National Development Plan. This also included budget for an additional 400 enlisted personnel during 2024.
Organisation
The Defence Forces are organised under the Chief of Staff, supported by Deputy Chief of Staff Operations, and the Deputy Chief of Staff Support. They consist of a Permanent Defence Force, which is a standing force and provides the main capability for military operations, and the Reserve Defence Forces, military reserve forces which support the PDF if necessary. The PDF is organised into three service branches: the Army, the Naval Service, and the Air Corps. The RDF may be further subdivided into a First Line Reserve and a Second Line Reserve; the First Line Reserve comprises former members of the Permanent Defence Force, while the Second Line Reserve comprises an Army Reserve and a Naval Service Reserve. A reorganization of the RDF in 2013, referred to as the "single force concept", has resulted in units of the RDF being embedded within units of the PDF, rather than existing entirely in parallel as a separate reserve force; this moves away from the traditional approach of the RDF being considered a fourth service branch of the Defence Forces.In January 2022, the Commission on the Defence Forces recommended the establishment of an 'Information Command', under the command of a general, to handle cyberattacks and misinformation.