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

Most formed a defensive base in the windfarm known as the Donegal Cluster. The apparent intention was that the undulating, rocky hills, along with the windmills and anemometer masts, would deter a direct helicopter assualt on their forces. The tracks running through the area to give access to maintenance vehicles for the windfarm allowed them to swiftly move the location of their support weapons and to mass quickly to see of any assault. These tracks and their access points were, of course, dialled in for defensive fire from their mortars and machine guns, along with the entries to the hills being laced with IEDS. These positions were further covered by a company strength detachment who occupied the high points of the Bluestack Mountains themselves, with machine gun, mortar and as, it was unfortunately discovered, surface to air missiles. Hijacked vehicles were used to block the road at it’s narrowest point. These were also quickly fitted with IEDs and covered by machine gun fire from emplacements further up the steep sided hills. The Barnesmore Gap was now closed.

Subsequent debriefing of captured Carsonite fighters revealed that even at this point, the intention they had been briefed on was ambitious. They were to establish temporary dominance in the area, seek out and destroy any Irish forces they could take on in greater numbers, destroy such infrastructure as they could find to include police stations, post offices and any other target that would impair the normal running of society and to ‘improve the demographic situation’. This last goal was generally seen as an order to kill or otherwise drive from the area any civilians they could find. Then, after several days to a week of raiding, they would withdraw across the border having demonstrated they were a force to be reckoned with, thereby forcefully ensuring the union between Northern Ireland and Britain. Regretfully, it went well at first, although the counter attack was coming.

D -1

Comdt Dave Heally

‘Contrary to what alot of people wanted to do, Christ, some of the comments on Twitter were ridiculous, you have to plan these things if you want them to work. You can’t just charge in half cocked and expect that it will go well. Yes, it took days to get moving. Yes, people died as a result. No, it couldn’t have been done quicker. Remember it wasn’t clear cut at that stage, we had to gather intelligence the hard way – that fighting patrol from 28 Bn that got chewed up approaching the Gap, that Air Corps Spectre that just about made it to Sligo airport with half it’s wing missing? Unfortunately, sometimes, that’s how you find things out about your enemy’s strength.

I was still in touch with Capt Brian Quinlan at that point, he was in Ops in DFHQ and he told me the mood there was ‘busy but calm’. That surprised me, given the chaos eleswhere, but he said that some of the big decisions were made early enough and then it was just flat out doing the staff work and planning. Remember, there were raids going on all this time north of Barnesmore, there was that carrier off the coast, all along the border, no one knew what would happen next. ‘Busy but calm’. Fair enough if they were, I’ll give them that.

According to Brian, the first things that came up was the platoons in Letterkenny and Killybegs. They were told to just melt away and send back intelligence. What else could they do? Patrol the town, be seen to be seen and then get destroyed by weight of numbers? No, they were more useful doing it they way they did. The reserve platoon in the airport was different, they reckoned they could hold out a bit, just because of their location, it was further removed from the intial breakthrough, wasn’t on any of the main roads, they had more time. They rigged the whole airport for destruction anyway, just in case.

The main meat of the counterattack was going to be 2 Cav. They had swollen from being a armoured car squadron to being the national QRF, the same size as an infantry battalion but with more armoured vehicles. They were based in the Curragh though and it was pretty clear that on their own, they wouldn’t be enough. That’s where we were to come in.

We were still technically part of 1 Bn North East on the books, we had been relieved on the border, but we were still in the Curragh doing all the wind down stuff, PSS debriefings, Lessons Learned all that stuff. The result being, when they needed another battalion at short notice that had all their annual weapons training, heli drills, dismount drills, all that stuff up to date? Well, we were sitting right there. No brainer from a staff point of view, I know, but it was a hard pill to swallow. Then again, everyone was going to want a piece of the fight eventually, just these troops were tired. They’d already mentally checked out back into the reorg and resupply mode between border tours. It took as long as the first messages back from Finner to get through for people to get motivated again. Games were over at that point weren’t they?

So, overall. The plan was that 2 Cav, plus a few other armoured sub units they picked up along the way in the Curragh, would open and hold the road between the Barnesmore Gap and Letterkenny, preventing any reinforcements entering the area from the East. We were to be driven up to Finner, where we would meet up with the Air Corps helis and assault onto the top of the Bluestacks. 28 Bn would then drive through in the soft skin transport we arrived in, around the same time, to surround, dismount and engage the enemy in the Donegal Cluster. Artillery was being brought up that would engage the Bluestack targets, but the only strike and close air support we were to have was PC-9s – they were still sorting things out with the French at that point. The area would then be back filled with reservists who were being dragged up from, well, wherever we could find any. Plenty of holes in that plan at first glance, isn’t there? Well we found a few more didn’t we. Nevertheless, the situation had gone about as far as it could be allowed to and had to be stopped. We got a nice new name and were sent on our way.’

D Day

Comdt Brian Rafferty AC Ret’d

‘This was to be the first big day out for the Chinooks, we could only spare two to the operation, three for the first day, but two afterwards because we were stripping out every other aircraft we could afford to from the border. You’re always going to have some on maintenance so for that first lift in, we had three Chinooks at fifty five troops a piece, wedged in, and six AW139s at nine a piece. We had four EC135s as well for recce and sniping in theory, but in practice, two of them were calling in the PC- 9s more than anything else. So yeah, not in bad shape really, we were going to be able to put nearly all of Task Group Viking, as they were now called since there was an actual 1 Bn North East on the border, we’d get nearly them all in place in two lifts from Finner for that first assault.

The weather was holding, but a weather forecast in Donegal is really a ‘what have you done for me lately kind of thing’. Hurt us bad after a few days. Anyway, we got to Finner and the place was barely organised chaos. The runway was packed, the refuellers that came up with the convoy were nearly empty with all the aircraft that were there. There was troops bivvying up in the dunes – we saw them on the way in and thought they were security but they just had no where else to go, the place was wedged and 2 Cav hadn’t even arrived yet, the softskin convoy had left before them and gotten the troops up first. Thank God there was no one with a mortar dialled in on the place because it would’ve been carnage.

We actually ended up doing two extra resupply runs with the Chinooks, just to bring up fuel and hot meals, the place was overwhelmed because obviously notice was short, no one had time to order extra rations a month out, did they?