Rundale

Pádraig Mac Oscair

Irish troops in UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon) peacekeeping missions found themselves placed in grave danger when IDF troops attacked the areas surrounding their bunker at the beginning of October 2024, cutting off their supply lines in the process. The UNIFIL mission refused to withdraw from their post despite the Israelis repeatedly demanding they do so.

No Irish troops were killed in this assault. It nevertheless marked another dark chapter in Ireland’s decades-long involvement in the region. Since 1958 over 30,000 Irish troops have served in Lebanon, and 48 Irish troops have been killed on duty there. This represents 53% of all Irish troops to have been killed on duty abroad, and is the most of any troop-contributing country in UNIFIL. Irish neutrality has been crucial to this, as Irish participation in UN peacekeeping missions and diplomatic efforts rather than major military alliances such as NATO has been a major pillar of Irish foreign policy. The importance of this is often overlooked in discussions on Irish neutrality which claim Ireland is failing to contribute to international security.

Irish engagement in Lebanon

The involvement of Irish peacekeeping missions in Lebanon began almost simultaneously with that of Irish involvement in UN peacekeeping missions, with 50 Irish officers dispatched as observers in 1958. However, Irish involvement in the region was expanded with the participation of Irish troops into UNIFIL operations after 1978. A civil war had erupted on April 13, 1975, following the bombing of a bus carrying Palestinians to the Tell al-Zaatar refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut by Phalangist, a right-wing Christian political party and militia, whose leaders formed an elite that dominated the country’s socio-political fabric. This exacerbated the intermittent violence between left and right-wing militias. A full scale civil war erupted with alliances forming along sectarian and political lines, and the Lebanese state effectively collapsing. 

Alliances and their external backing shifted over the course of the conflict, and militias resorted to criminality and intimidation to secure funding and support in their territory. 150,000 people would lose their lives by the time the civil war ended in 1990, with 900,000 people having been displaced, although Lebanon has remained subject to periodic bombing and invasions by Israeli forces since.

Irish troops became involved in the aftermath of Israel’s 1978 invasion which aimed to crush the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which had grown a power base amongst Palestinians displaced into refugee camps in southern Lebanon since 1948.  The UN Security Council passed Resolution 425 calling for immediate Israeli withdrawal. This resolution created the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), charged with attempting to maintain peace. This force has been present in the country for over 45 years.

Battle of At Tiri

The village of At Tiri is located by a crossroads of great strategic importance, as it grants whoever holds it access to a hilltop position by which to attack towns such as Tibnin, Haris, and Haddath. This was secured by Irish peacekeepers, whose first priority was to protect the civilian population of 300 people, when it was attacked by a Christian militia known as the De Facto Forces (DFF) on 6th of April 1980. This came after a year of DFF encroachments on the village. Irish peacekeepers tried to de-escalate the situation to no avail, leading to a four-day onslaught.

The DFF started firing at the village on 7th of April. Irish troops were forced by the nature of their role as peacekeepers to de-escalate the violence rather than react to the shooting, leaving them with no option but to absorb this violence. This left them especially vulnerable, and Private Stephen Griffin became the first Irish casualty at the age of 21 after he was shot in the head by the DFF. He was evacuated to a hospital, where he died on 16th April. Irish troops refrained from firing.

Irish troops were forced to return fire on 8th April after the DFF escalated their onslaught leaving them no option but to return fire to prevent being overrun. Crucially the DFF were backed on 9th April by the IDF As part of a broader encroachment into South Lebanon.  The DFF attempted to gain entry by intimidation and inciting uprisings against UNIFIL. Irish troops managed to successfully hold off DFF incursions into At Tiri itself through a tactic of controlled retaliatory fire and containment even after the DFF attempted to sow instability in the area by bringing in youths from nearby villages to provoke a riot.

The DFF were finally cleared on 11th April, as it became clear that the Irish troops had taken their positions in the area through effective counter offensives. The DFF launched a wave of reprisals against UNIFIL. These included the killing of Privates Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett following an ambush in which they were abducted whilst escorting supplies to a UN outpost on 18^th April 1980. Their bodies showed signs of torture.

For many in Ireland, the word  “Lebanon” became an ominous one. Irish troops would bear witness to Israeli atrocities such as ‘The April Aggression’ from 11th to 27th April 1996, when hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed and nearly half a million displaced by an onslaught of Israeli rockets into South Lebanon. During this campaign more than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed when Israeli forces bombed the UNIFL position in Qana where they were taking shelter.

What has been the impact on Lebanon

Not all Irish experiences in the region were as traumatic. Irish troops were vital to providing humanitarian assistance to civilian populations throughout this time. The violence in the region was such that Irish peacekeepers were called on to form “harvest patrols” to guard farmers. Their presence enabled the return of displaced people to their home villages over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, and made the distribution of food and medical supplies possible.

Irish peacekeepers also played an important role in rebuilding society in South Lebanon following the dissolution of most of the militias in May 1991.  This was exemplified by Tibnin orphanage, which Irish peacekeepers raised money and donated time to rebuild after it had been occupied by Israeli troops and Amal militia. This was complemented by protecting workmen carrying out vital infrastructural repairs to address the damage done during the wars of the 1980s.

The locals in South Lebanon could hardly be unaffected by having such a large Irish contingent amongst them. The economic devastation brought upon the region by the conflict left many locals dependent on the money spent by UNIFIL peacekeepers, with a shadow economy forming to cater for their needs. The Lebanese were influenced by these interactions to the point where they came to speak English with Irish accents corresponding to the regions where the troops stationed there were from, a trait which continues to this day.

Withdrawal and re-engagement

The Middle Eastern peace process of the 1990s saw a gradual de-escalation of violence and Israeli military presence in South Lebanon,  culminating in the withdrawal of Israeli troops in 2000. UNIFIL was disbanded, and Irish troops withdrawn. This was not to last. Irish troops were re-engaged as part of the second UNIFIL mission following the 2006 Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. Irish troops have served continuously since.

This has been fraught with danger. The most recent fatality occurred in December 2022 when Private Sean Rooney, a 24-year old officer from Newtowncunningham, Co. Donegal, was killed when a vehicle he was travelling in was fired on. His family are still awaiting answers as to the circumstances surrounding his death, with newspaper reports suggesting there was a technical and intelligence failure on the part of his vehicle’s sat nav which saw him driving on a route never taken by a UN vehicle before. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Irish peacekeepers are never entirely safe. Many people and political parties in Lebanon have been critical of UNIFIL involvement in the country, with some arguing that their presence has been ineffective in preventing attacks. Some have gone so far as to demonise UNIFIL, with the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah having described UNIFIL as an “armed foreign force operating on Lebanese soil” and a “spy for Israel.” and others have accused UNIFIL of facilitating the abduction of civilians.

The impact of this on soldiers

For many Irish soldiers, being posted to Lebanon was an opportunity to see the world when foreign travel was a luxury, and the wages represented generous financial compensation at a time of mass unemployment. Many soldiers’ memoirs of their time spent serving in Lebanon, such as Martin Malone’s Lebanon Diaries and Dan Harvey’s Peacekeepers: Irish Soldiers in Lebanon, make reference to the soldiers’ fascinations at being surrounded by other cultures for the first time after coming from the Ireland of the 1970s and 1980s. Dan Harvey recalls being particularly taken with spending Christmas in Jerusalem, witnessing a city of pivotal importance to three religions just before the physical barriers between the communities erected by the Israeli state became insuperable.

This was not without its costs. Marriages came under strain as soldiers spent months at a time on duty, with births and funerals were missed. Many soldiers developed health problems such as PTSD and hearing loss from spending time in an intense combat zone, and were forced to go to court to seek recourse from the Irish state after it decided to contest claims. This led to the media vilifying them as “greedy”, and questioning the value of peacekeeping to the taxpayer.

This was compounded by the nature of peacekeeping duties, which are based on protecting civilians from harm and have no influence on the outcome of conflicts. Irish troops placed themselves in harm’s way and incurred serious injuries without seeing any resolution to the conflict. Dan Harvey’s sense of frustration was shared by many peacekeepers:

“For us, no fairytale happy ending would coincide with our return home. We would leave the situation unresolved, with the Israeli army’s withdrawal not quite completed, a village militia presence still in existence and strife remaining prevalent in the area. We would have to reconcile ourselves to this: it is the nature of peacekeeping.”

Palestine

One of the lasting legacies of the Irish presence in Lebanon was the increased public awareness of the conflict in the Middle Eastern amongst the Irish public. The cause of Palestinian liberation had yet to attract mainstream awareness in Ireland outside of leftist and republican communities, particularly prior to the First Intifada. The army recruited from a wide cross-section of Irish society and exposed many troops and their families at home to the reality of the situation and the shared experience of colonisation and dispossession in Irish and Arab history for the first time.

This was articulated by Martin Malone: “The Israelis were occupying another nation’s territory – a strange situation for Irish soldiers in the sense that foreign troops occupied part of our own country – small wonder that perhaps some Irish troops had a sneaking regard for the Lebanese.” Irish troops regularly engaged in skirmishes with the IDF in South Lebanon in the 1980s, and Irish army officials were enraged when they learned that members of Shin Beth (Israel’s domestic intelligence service) had been present at At Tiri.

The increase in Irish public interest in the Middle East culminated with the founding of Ireland Friends of Palestine in 1981. This group lobbied for a resolution to the conflict in the Middle East which recognised Palestinian statehood and the PLO, alongside raising awareness of the plight of Palestinian refugees in South Lebanon and the mistreatment of Palestinians within the 1948 territories. Whilst never a mass movement like the contemporary Palestinian solidarity demonstrations, Ireland Friends of Palestine nevertheless introduced many now-familiar tactics such as direct action and boycotts to the cause of Palestinian solidarity in Ireland.

None of this would have been possible without Ireland’s long-standing policy of  military neutrality. Irish neutrality has been an active set of practices based upon international cooperation, peaceful conflict resolution, disarmament, and peacekeeping. Irish military officials and diplomats have emphasised that the institutions of international co-operation such as the United Nations rather than imperial alliances such as NATO are the best way to ensure international peace. Ireland’s history of colonialism and its independence struggle have added moral weight to its independent, non-aligned foreign policy around the world, particularly in post-colonial contexts like Lebanon. This has meant that Irish troops are trusted by the Lebanese public to a greater extent than other UNIFIL soldiers, such as the German troops, as it is believed they will act in the interests of their safety and refuse alliances with Israel.

Calls for Ireland to join NATO or European military alliances in the interests of “maturity” ignore the singular and crucially important contribution made by Irish peacekeepers to the safety of people who have been subjected to horrific assaults by colonial powers backed by imperial militarism for decades.