Talk:Irish Army

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[edit] Ways to improve the article

This Article needs serious Work, not that the stuff there isn't good, but there is allot more info. that could be put in. For instance surely there should be parts about the Army's equipment, Guns, Vehicles etc. It needs links to Steyr Aug, Scorpion Tank etc. I don't know if I'll be able to do all that's needed as I'm pretty new to this, but this could be made into a good article if someone is willing to work on it. Hibernian

I agree, I recently finished compiling a list of DF equipment, vehicles & weapons in the equipment section which includes many pictures. I feel that we need a seperate page for history, peace-keeping missions, the ARW, a list of DF barracks, description of the Brigade areas & the easter parade. Likewise the Reserve page is in dire need of a clean up. I'll start preparing these tonight, but would need help creating the link box(that says Irish Army & has links to all Irish Army r articles.) -Chris

Okay, so I've added a section on Uniforms, Vehicles & Weapons. I still need these to be placed in that linkbox if somebody would do that it'd be great. -Chris


Hi Onynyo. Great work with the new pages, however I think it would be good if we could have a section about the Army's Weapons and Equipment on this page. I think it should be about the stuff they have historically used, as well as an analysis of these and their effectiveness etc.
Some time ago I was trying to write just such a section, however I go side-tracked and never finished it (I also accidentally posted it into the article unfinished a while ago, because I pressed the wrong button, lol).
Here's what I wrote so far, I may finish it some time or perhaps you (or others) could include it (or parts of it) into the article.
==Weapons and Equipment==
The Irish Army has historically purchased and used Weapons and equipment from other western countries, mainly from European nations and especially from Britain. Generally all equipment is of NATO standards design, Ireland usually doesn't produce it's own Armaments and has a very limited Arms Industry (almost non-existent).
In the beginning the Army used the British Lee-Enfield Rifle, which would be the mainstay for many decades after independence. In the 1960's some modernization came with the introduction of the Belgian made FN FAL 7.62 mm assault rifle.
Currently the standard weapon for an Irish Army soldier is the Austrian made Steyr AUG 5.56 mm assault rifle (also used in the other branches of the Defence force). The Steyr began to replace the older FAL in 1988, although some of the Reserve forces continued to use the FAL until 2002.
Other weapons in use by Irish Army are the FN MAG know as the General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG), the FGM-148 Javelin Anti-tank guided missile (replacing the MILAN).
===Vehicles===
The Irish Army has Historically preferred Light vehicles to the heavy Armour types used by other European nations, and this preference continues today. The most recent purchase was of a large number of the Swiss made Mowag Piranha Armoured fighting vehicles which have become the Army's primary vehicle in the Mechanized infantry role (these are equipped with 12.7 mm HMGs).
The Army's only Tank type is the British made FV101 Scorpion Light tank, with a 76.2 mm main gun.
Other Vehicles include the Panhard AML (with 90 mm gun).
(Note: the formatting of it here is not how it would appear in the article).
The main problem I encountered was lack of detailed information on the Net, the dates of introduction are especially hard to find (I hope someone knows these and can included them) this list is not complete by any means and is basically a rough draft, which needs improvement.
One other thing I would like to add to this article is what possible plans/strategies the Irish army actually has in the event of a serious war (such as invasion), It would be good to do an analysis to see whether our forces could actually defend the country against an aggressor.
--Hibernian 05:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


As a former member of the Irish DF I would not be, in any way, happy to see the country's defence plans being posted on the internet. Such material would be very harmful to the our defence forces. Likewise Seeing if we could win a war... seems a bit pointless. Wars are unpredictable.

On the other hand I do like your other suggestions and would like to see them being implemented into articles.

I would like to see the main 'Irish Army' page being cleaned up, it seems to drag on too much. Perhaps some of the topics mentioned on that page would be better if they were in their own article. For example, brigades & structure.


I do not mean like secret plans or stuff like that, I simply mean info that is already available in the public domain (and probably already on the internet), like the Irish army's composition and strengths and weaknesses compared to others. Lots of Wiki Military articles have stuff like this about other armies.
It's just that I think explaining how the defence forces would actually go about defending the country if it needed to be defended, would be a good thing to have in an article about it. For instance what are the Defence Forces main strategies/tactics?, for other countries like say America you can say they rely on Combined arms, Armoured assaults, Air superiority, special forces etc. So what are the Irish army's main strategies/tactics? Presumably we can't rely on armour or air power, since we don't have much of either, so what is their style of warfare?
With allot of Infantry and APCs and the like, our army is light, so this limits its options, would they perhaps practice some form of Guerrilla warfare?
Well anyway I hope that wasn't to rambling, but my point is we should have something in the article about how the army would intend to fight a war.
Oh and on another note, I remember that I have lots of pictures of Army vehicles from the 2006 Easter 1916 parade and from a recent military vehicles show, so some of those may be useful here.
Oh and also, you are meant to sign your username after each comment so everyone knows who's talking and where one person's comment ends and another's begins.
--Hibernian 06:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

We need a photo for the rank structure area. If somebody could maybe get a photo of a general or the chief of staff that would be great.--Onynyo 00:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I've just uploaded this picture [1], I took it at the 2006 Easter Parade in Dublin. This is the guy who was leading the Parade, but I don't know who he is or what Rank he is (I assume he must be pretty high ranking). It's not a great picture, but Perhaps this can be used for the area you suggested. I have a few more good pictures of Troops and vehicles from that parade that I could upload that might be useful.--Hibernian 18:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New Additions...

31st of July: I added the new Army Corps section today, with pictures for most of the corps. Some photos for the MP section would be great, if anyone can help? --Onynyo 00:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


who keeps eiditing out the photos on the different Irish military pages, surly he can't own the copyrights to them all?

There are unfortunately getting deleted because they are not allowed by Wikipedia rules, because they didn't have any source information. If you want a picture to stay on Wiki it has to be legally free for use, the person who uploaded them needs to prove that they are allowed under wiki's rules, otherwise people will delete them.
By the way, that reminds me, I just uploaded some of my pictures of Irish Military stuff (which have no copyright) the other day, so if anyone wants to put those images on some of these pages you're welcome to (You can see them here, My Images). (I do need some help in identifying some of the vehicles in the pics though).--Hibernian 19:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Army and Gardai

Is it worth mentioning anywhere the support the Army give to the police when money deliveries are made to banks in the Republic? Does this still occur? Its been a while since I popped across the border for fuel Alastairward 11:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Army escorts vans if they carry more than 2 million euro, it still occurs, probally the safest way to deliver it. September 7 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.41.101.181 (talk) 19:38, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Braveheart movie?

  • Is it true that extras in Braveheart were members of the Irish Army Reserves?
Yes. Many of the battle scenes (like the cavalry charge deflected by the "wall of spikes", Battle of Stirling Bridge, attack on York, etc) were all filmed in Ireland, and members of the (then) FCÁ populated both armies. The RDF also composed a majority of the extras used in the filming of the Omaha Beach scences in Saving Private Ryan. [2]. Guliolopez 13:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

This page needs a lot more referencing. 4 references and 2 external links for such a large topic isnt nearly good enough. Prose is fine, and so are the supporting material. A bit more information could be added to the sections, but otherwise, this article is pretty decent. T/@Sniperz11editssign 21:30, 10 March 2008 (UTC)