In this article we remember the tragic events of sixty one years ago in Nov 1960, when Ireland suffered the highest toll on peacekeeping operations when nine men were killed by Baluba tribesmen near a bridge on the River Luweyeye on a dirt road approximately 23 Km from Niemba village in the northeast of Katanga…
In this article we look at one incident that happened sixty years ago in the Congo in Nov 1961 when Italy suffered thirteen casualties in a mass murder in what has been called the Kindu Massacre. This event shows that UN peacekeepers who might not be considered to be on the frontline were open to…
60TH Anniversary of the deaths of Lt Patrick Riordan and Pte Andrew Wickham on 16 Dec 1961 during the Battle of the Tunnel. The is the third and final article to cover the deaths in combat of 36 Inf Bn personnel in Elisabethville in Dec 1961. Compiled by George Kerton PRO IUNVA. Operation Unokat commenced…
The is the second article to cover the deaths of 36 Inf Bn personnel in Elisabethville in Dec 1961. The first article on the deaths of Irishmen during Operation Unokat mentioned the wounding of Sgt Patrick Mulcahy and four men from A Coy 36 Inf Bn by shrapnel from mortar fire that killed Cpl Michael…
Capt Christopher McNamara was from Crusheen, Co Clare and he joined the Defence Forces as a Cadet with 29 Cadet Class in 1954. He was commissioned on 25 Nov 1956 and appointed to the Supply and Transport Corps. He was appointted to Depot S&T Corps in the Curragh Training Camp and then he served in…
I was saddened to hear that Charlie Bird, the former RTE journalist, has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease and I thought back to an encounter I had with him some twenty six years ago in the town of Shaqra in South Lebanon. In 1995, Shaqra was the second most important town in the Irish…
ONUC – Operation Unokat 5 – 20 December 1961 INTRODUCTION This is the first of three articles to cover the fighting in Elisabethville during Dec 1961 where battle casualties for 35 Inf Bn and 36 Inf Bn amounted to 4 Killed and 32 Wounded. The breakdown of the figures are: 35 Inf Bn had 7…
Patrick Eugene Watters formerly of Crossmaglen, County Armagh joined the Irish Defence Forces in March 1960. Corporal Watters served with the 5th Infantry Battalion (Dublin) and remained in service until resigning from the Army reserves in March 1965. During his military career he took part in overseas duty during two of the United Nations (ONUC)…
On 24 Dec, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres announced the appointment of Maj Gen Michael Beary DSM (Retd) as Head of the United Nations Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) in Yemen and Chair of the Redeployment Coordination Committee. Maj Gen Beary succeeds Lt Gen Abhijit Guha (Retd) of India. Maj Gen Michael…
This article tells of the death twelve years ago on this day of Andrew Grene who was a senior UN civilian staff member with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti. On 12 Jan 2010, a catastrophic earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 hit an area twenty five kilometres southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince…
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