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 to become four ad hoc ‘cobbled together’ company-sized infantry groups. The newly designated 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th Infantry Groups were to deploy to border areas, including the towns of Dundalk, Castleblayney, Cootehill and Cavan, to participate in what was to be a very complex operation:
I was on ‘Exercise Shanagarry’ in East Cork and we were aware that matters were becoming hot in the North, and one night, very late, while asleep I remember being awoken by someone telling me I must report back immediately to my unit, the 1st Motor Squadron in Fermoy, Co. Cork. I arrived there in the middle of the night (early morning 14 August 1969) to find the camp a hive of activity. The unit had been placed on ‘12-hours’ notice to move’ to the border. I remember as a young officer being impressed watching the army system kick in from a logistics point of view. Trucks arrived from Collins Barracks, Cork, to the camp’s main gate, the drivers descending from the cab of the truck, handing over the vehicles’ keys and log book and receiving in return a signature for them and a travel warrant for public transport to return to Cork City. We took our allotment of 1st line ammunition from holdings stored within the camp; the balance was removed into Collins Barracks, Cork. The entire unit was mobilised.
The 1st Motor Squadron was an ideal unit to send. We had ‘wheels’ (vehicles), [and] were loosely self-contained as an already integrated entity. It was the correct company-size strength of 140 and we had recently been on Summer Camp where we had to build a camp, run it and on completion strike (deconstruct) it. Whilst on camp we rehearsed checkpoints (CPs) moving in bounds and such like; ideal preparation, but as it happened, completely unintentional preparation for what lay ahead. All this on the back of two exercises: ‘Exercise Shanagolden’ (for the FCÁ) and ‘Exercise Shanagarry’ (1st Brigade). The older, sick and more infirm troopers (soldiers) of the unit were to be left behind and along with the 11th Battalion FCÁ headquarters staff would act as a fire piquet for the camp.
Having completed our arrangements we gathered somewhat excitedly for a departing conference and whilst waiting for the Southern Command Intelligence Officer to arrive we began wondering among ourselves [if we] were going in (to the North)? What will be there? What are we to do if we come face to face with the B-Specials, or even the British army? Are we to take them on? The briefing was short but intriguing. The last order we received was: ‘Get to Mullingar, bed in and wait for sealed orders.’ There was concern about the availability of relevant maps and when we raised questions about this we were told, ‘with the sealed orders would be maps’ and with that we were on the move.
We passed out through the gates of Fitzgerald Camp, Fermoy, late afternoon 14 August 1969 at 4.30 and [when] we turned left onto the main Cork to Dublin road there was a large crowd of family members, townspeople and well-wishers there to say goodbye and cheer us off on our way. This was repeated again as we passed through Mitchelstown and it seemed ever increasingly so by even larger crowds as we went through the various towns along our route until we came to Portlaoise and Mountmellick, where what seemed like huge cheering crowds greeted us. On our arrival to Columb Barracks in Mullingar we found turmoil reigned as troops coming together to form the Infantry Group were arriving in and shaking out, accommodated mostly in tents. The sealed orders from Dublin arrived also, placing us on a ‘half hours’ notice to move’.
Meanwhile, the night of 13–14 August saw the continuation of the Battle of the Bogside in Derry and the spread of street violence, clashes and large-scale rioting across the North, especially in Belfast where the situation had tragically and alarmingly led to loss of life and the burning out of Catholic families from their homes, along with much disorder and dislocation elsewhere.
To ensure that this unrest, unsettledness and insecurity was contained and the strife did not spread into the South, troops were directed to head for the border immediately:
On the cessation of the Taoiseach’s address, we headed for the border that same night in old 1951 Bedford trucks and clapped out Land Rovers from Custume Barracks, Athlone. I was company commander of 6th Infantry Battalion Company, which was scrambled together, and we left Athlone at 10 pm heading to Donegal to be prepared to protect the Field Hospitals we were to establish. There was a certain hype, expectancy and excitement also prevailing, that perhaps we might be crossing the border. With this playing on the back of my mind I stopped the convoy outside Boyle, Co. Roscommon, and did a thorough check through the ammunition to discover that no 84 mm anti-tank or 81 mm mortar rounds had been loaded. Arriving in the early hours, we began setting up ‘Camp Arrow’ in an open field in darkness on the Letterkenny to Ramelton road, close to the border. I was concerned that we had no Force Protection measures in that open field and were not left position checkpoints on the road frontage running outside along the camp’s boundary with the roadway. And so to set up camp, the soldiers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) had two man bivvies, the officers were in larger eight-man tents, wherein stores were also placed. The first hours were fairly ad hoc, and with two more infantry companies expected; one from the East and one from the South, we had to prepare accordingly. They did arrive the next day, but by a bit of good fortune, the 4th Engineer Company were on Summer Camp in nearby Finner Camp and they assisted greatly in getting latrines and other such necessities, even managing to set up a working television on an outside pole in the middle of the field. The support weapon ammunition, ponchos and other equipment began to arrive in, as did the First Line Reservists, even some from England, supported by their English employers. There we sat, keeping a low profile, not conducting any patrols. After a number of days we began to question what we were doing there. Among
