what is the irish army for?

[cyberianpan]

I'd hate that we waste money in oppressing you, can you please help in estimating the size of your forces ?

cYp

Who's this "we" you speak of? Are you in the military and if so can you tell me if Is it a pretentious military thing to sign off at the end of every single post despite the fact you have a user name to identify yourself?

We=taxpayers
Signoff=not relevant

Can I have some estimates ... just general numbers, proficiencies , locations ...

cYp

[merle haggard]

They have been proved to be useless in protecting the Irish people from foreign attackers - thankfully the Irish were able to defend themselves adequately without the toy soldiers

Not up here we weren't and the "toy soldiers" never lifted a hand to our aid.

not officially anyway , however a few were patriotic in nature , such as the late Anton Mac Ghiollabhride

[múscailte]

[quote=merle haggard]

They have been proved to be useless in protecting the Irish people from foreign attackers - thankfully the Irish were able to defend themselves adequately without the toy soldiers

Not up here we weren't and the "toy soldiers" never lifted a hand to our aid.

not officially anyway , however a few were patriotic in nature , such as the late Anton Mac Ghiollabhride[/quote:30ricb15]
I take it that's not Vol Anton Mac Ghiollabhride, killed in Fermanagh that you are referring to?

[Cael]

When advocating the Stepping Stone approach Michael Collins had this to say-

"Our army, if it exists for honourable purposes only, will draw to it honourable men. It will call to it the best men of our race - men of skill and culture. It will not be recruited as many modern armies are, from those who are industrially useless."



Unfortunately Collins & Co. ended up recruiting the dregs of the British army into the free state army. Later on, O'Higgins saw to it that most of the pro treaty IRA were driven out of the free state army altogether (ast they were considered politically suspect) and the British army mercenaries made the backbone of this new army. So much for the best men of our race

Men like Emmet Dalton could hardly be called the dregs of the British Army. He held the rank of Major by the end of the Great War before he joined the IRA and later became GOC of the new Free State Army, I think he masterminded the attack which recaptured Cork city from the sea.

Its a fact that the free staters nearly always used firing squads made up of demobbed British soldiers to carry out the execution of POWs like Erskine Childers, as they could not trust former IRA men to do it. However, these demobbed brits often were totally incompetant at the task. Erskine Childers famously asked the firing squad to move closer - but this was not patriotic bravado - he knew that the average British soldier was a lousy shot and usually ended up wounding victims rather than killing them. Liam Mellows had to be put out of his misery with a bullet to the head from a hand gun, as the British soldiers cut him to pieces and set his cloths on fire without hitting any vital organs. He died slowly and in agony.