SOLDIERING
AGAINST
SUBVERSION
SOLDIERING
AGAINST
SUBVERSION
THE IRISH DEFENCE FORCES AND INTERNAL
SECURITY DURING THE TROUBLES 1969–1998
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
© 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
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
Abbreviations
| AC | (IRA) Army Council |
| APC | Armoured Personnel Carrier |
| ARW | Army Ranger Wing |
| ASU | Active Service Units |
| ATCP | Aid to the Civil Power |
| AVRE | Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers |
| CIÉ | Córas Iompair Éireann (the Irish
|
