Declan Daly - Borderline - An Oral History of the Brexit Wars 2020-2022

The dissolving of C Coy, which was already understrength to start was used as an excuse not to press charges when, as is now almost beyond doubt and widely accepted, the remaining buildings in Starfort 4 were put to the torch when the unit withdrew. If there was no C Coy, there could be no OC C Coy to charge. This logic was contested loudly at a meeting between the Minister for the Defence and Foreign Affairs, the Chief of Staff and a member of the DOD who was attending on behalf of the the, still new, Secretary General of the Department. When the DOD member suggested that the fort would be rebuilt from existing funds and more soldiers found to occupy it, the breifing officer allegedly replied that the fort would only be occupied by soldiers walking over a carpet of civil servants, in light of their lack of concern for the wellbeing of members of the Defence Forces, or so the story goes.

Apocryphal or not, it was following that meeting that the decision was made, on the Ministers recommendation, that Defence be seperated from Foreign Affairs and a fulltime minister employed. That this minister was almost immediately produced as a Taoiseach’s nomination to the Seanad suggests that this was not the first time this had been discussed. The fact that an ex Army Brig Gen could be appointed as a Senator out of sequence with the normal timeline, and with very little political opposition, suggests that cross party support had already been felt out for such a move.

Before touching on the practical effects of the death of Starfort 4 – which was loudly claimed by the IRA as a victory – it is worth discussing the major impact that the appointment of Sen Davis to the role of Minister for Defence had. Formerly Brig Gen Davis (a rank he held based on appointments held overseas as a force commander with the UN, his highest domestic appoinment having been Director of Strategic Planning Branch in DFHQ) had a long career in the Defence Forces including the usual assortment of overseas trips and commands before retiring in 2016. His subsequent career as an advisor to the boards of several companies who had personnel and interests in conflict areas meant that he had maintained a discrete but still observable profile.

As the likely scale of the post Brexit violence began to become apparent, tentative agreements were made to entice him into service again. Specifically, he was given a very free hand to reform things in both the civil and military side of the defence house, on the grounds that his fulltime retirement would follow his appointment. As if to lay down the ground rules for the change in culture that was going to be required, the Senator, as his very first act and with his seal of office from the president still in hand, called the Sec Gen of the DOD and instructed that arrangements be made with immediate effect for the issuing of medals to the soldiers who fought at Jadotville, exactly in line with their commanding officer Comdt Pat Quinlans recommendations. This was well received in the Defence Forces but with some unease in the Department he now ran. Nevertheless the point was made that past wrongs can be put to right quickly if you really want to, and that changes can happen fast with the right drive and application of streamlined decsion making.

The cleaning out and retirement of senior members of the DOD has been attributed various actors including the Senator, the new Sec Gen and even the Red Team, but there is little doubt that within a very short period of time, policy in the Defence Organisation was directed by the minister and that the Chief of Staff and his advisors were far more empowered than previously had been the case. The Senator also surrounded himself with advisors who were experts in their fields. One of the most prominent was another former member of the Defence Forces who had served as an enlisted man in the Army before moving into the field of research and development. His specialist focus was on one thing – process acceleration.

Putting the assembled skills around him to work, the Senator directed an accelerated build up of forces, including first and second line reserves, the second line being the ‘new FCA’ and the first line being both ex regulars and ‘special skills servicemen/women’. The new FCA would eventually be formed with an establishment of 20,000 (this has never been reached no matter how many times it has been quoted, the highpoint was 6,000). The first line reserve ‘SSS’ soldiers, which as has been often said is one small typo short of catastrophe, largely consisted of various I.T. trained personnel who became the 29th Cyberwarfare Bn. The ex regulars in the first line reserve included the Red Team, although they adopted an old FCA Battalion number. Transparency and consistency with existing norms never became their strongpoint.. The policy and strategy of securing the border was laid out early on, it was up to the existing personnel however to buy the time for the build up to take effect. With the policy and strategy being deliberatly kept out of circulation, it required discipline and motivation on the part of the Defence Forces rank and file when morale was already being battered.

The crash and recovery of Echo 292

Jan 2021

It was raining. Just misty, sticking to the hills crap, but apparently that had been enough. Cpl Diane Keane had never seen combat up to now, she’d done one tour in the Leb more or less straight out of recruit training and before all this kicked off. It had been a quiet trip according to the old sweats, but enough to give her an extra bump on her NCOs course. That came early enough in the twenty two year olds’ career but there were plenty of NCO vacancies to be filled. Either way she wasn’t sure if this even counted as combat per se.

She wiped off the salty sweat that the rain was washing down her forehead and into her eyes and shook her helmet with one hand to try and scratch an itch right on the hotspot where it sat on the top of her scalp. There was still fuck all to see though, but they’d heard it. The EC135 helicopter had meant to be part of their ISR cover for a Coy strength (well big platoon, but who’s counting) patrol of eastern part of the Cooley Mountains. It had been delayed due to the weather but after a bit of pressing by Bn HQ the pilot decided to ‘have a look’. They were up near the ridgeline east of Long Womans Grave and should have been able to see across into Warrenpoint and Rostrevor in the North, and Greenore at the bottom of the hill they were standing on, but all they could see was about twenty metres in front of them.

Whatever had happened to the helicopter, she knew immediately something had gone wrong. She could hear the usual slap of blades they made when they turned, before the sound increased in pitch and volume before lowering again and then returning with a vengeance. The actual explosion itself was different than she would have thought, the shout that went up in the patrol meant she wasn’t the only one who knew it was coming, or the only one with the sudden fear of where it might land because it seemed like it was all happening right above them. The noise when it came; they were all familiar with the snap of rifles, the crack of a supersonic round passing over your head and even the boom of rapidly expanding gases from high explosive going off, but this, this was more of a ‘whomp’ noise. You’d imagine it should have been quieter than the others, but it wasn’t and it still felt like being kicked in the back. She could feel the shockwave go through her when the fuel went up on impact.

It seemed like an age but couldn’t have been even a minute before they came on the scene. Or bits of it anyway. She passed pieces of smouldering matt green composite material from the tailboom on the ground. Bits of the peat bog surface of the hill were torn up and gouged by what had obviously been fast moving metal and ahead a orange glow in the mist told them they were close.