Galway soldiers tell of life in the Irish Guards

They call them the Micks, although the world knows them as the Irish Guards, formed by order of Queen Victoria at the start of the 20th century. And while you don’t have to be Irish to join, as Dave O’Connell reports, there’s a fair smattering of our own among the ranks, including a number from Galway.

When the month started out, the 1st Battalion Irish Guards had one moment of history on their calendar for June – the trooping of its colours to mark the Queen’s birthday last weekend, for the first time since 2009 – until London found itself right in the firing line in the war on terror.

But being on the frontline is nothing new to these soldiers who spent their lives in the world’s hottest terror spots – among them many Irish natives who find themselves in Afghanistan or Iraq, or previously in Kosovo, Libya or the Middle East.

There’s a smattering of Galway soldiers among their number – but such is our history with our nearest neighbours, they are proud to serve but prefer to protect their families by remaining anonymous.

John is a Lieutenant Corporal in the Irish Guards, having joined in April 2011 at the age of 21. And typical of so many, he enlisted because he only ever had one dream – to be a soldier.

“I left school at 17 and attended university for a year, but quickly discovered that this path was not for me,” he says.

Upon leaving University in 2008, I entered the workforce, getting a job in a local supermarket, a job that I found incredibly boring and unfulfilling. Throughout this time I had harboured ambitions to join the Irish Defence Forces, but due to the economic situation at the time, there had been a moratorium on recruitment for a number of years.

“Then when recruitment had finally reopened, there were several thousand applications for just a few hundred positions,” he adds.

Domhnall, the regimental mascot for the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, parades past the crowd during the annual Trooping the Colour Ceremony in London.

At the same time, John used to watch ‘in awe’ at television documentaries of the escalating war in Afghanistan – and he also knew that he didn’t just want to be a soldier for the sake of it; he wanted to go to war and fight.

That left him with two options – the British Army or the French Foreign Legion.

“I initially considered the foreign legion, but after researching into it, I found the possibilities of going home to Ireland on leave to be very restrictive, especially during the first few years.

“I love my home town, and the thought of being away from it for too long proved too much to bear. That’s when I started to look into the British Army, and in particular, the Irish Guards. They guaranteed six weeks leave a year, and crucially, the chance to go to Afghanistan,” he says.

Another Galwegian, Joe, joined the Irish Guards in October 2015 – mainly because he had friends ‘in the Micks’ who spoke glowingly of the battalion and the camaraderie.

As a drummer in the Irish Guards, his career path has taken a different route.

“So far in my career with the Mick guards, I have had time spent working as a guardsman on the box in Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle, on exercise firing General Purpose Machine Guns with the drums and pipes then progressing from an infantry soldier/Guardsman into the rank of Drummer with a six-month course in Edinburgh qualifying me in music theory and in practical drum playing,” he says.

The Irish Guards was formed by order of Queen Victoria on April 1 1900 to commemorate the bravery of Irish Regiments in South Africa. On formation as a regiment of Foot Guards the Irish Guards adopted a blue plume to wear on their bearskins. The colour is said to have come through the quick thinking of Lady Settrington the wife of the Aide-de-Camp to Lord Roberts VC the first Colonel of the Irish Guards.

With green plumes already worn by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and therefore unsuitable, Lady Settrington dipped her husband’s white Grenadier plume into an ink well to produce a blue plume for the new Irish Regiment.

The Irish Guards have served with distinction through the two World Wars and in the period since then in Hong Kong, Belize, Aden, Germany, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Irish Guards are dual role soldiers, which means they carry out both ceremonial duties and normal ‘green’ soldiering.

In recent years the Irish Guards have deployed on exercise to Kenya, Oman, Latvia and Belize and will be deploying to both the Falkland Islands and Thailand in the coming year.

Galway native John is among those shortly set for a three-month deployment to the Falkland Islands, which will mean he’s on the other side of the Atlantic over the New Year.

But, though separated from relatives and friends through the holiday season, he has comrades of all backgrounds as his military family to fall back on.

“What is probably most unique about the Micks, in my opinion, is the many different and diverse groups of people who, albeit from very different backgrounds, work together and go on to become very good friends. A man from an obscure Caribbean Island may be best friends with a Donegal spud farmer!” he jokes.

“The characters that inhabit the Micks are without doubt some of the most colourful, funny, and eccentric collection of individuals you will find in any work force anywhere, from all over Ireland to Liverpool, Birmingham, the Caribbean or Fiji!

Joe also points to the social side of life in the Irish Guards.

“In my spare time I enjoy training hard with Naomh Padraigh GAA Club which is the name of the Irish Guards GAA team,” he says.

“We are preparing to play teams in Ireland such as the Gardaí, PSNI and Irish Army then on to a week in New York to play the NYPD Gaelic football team.

“After our success at establishing new connections with GAA teams afar, we will go on pre-deployment exercise in Wales to prepare us for deployment to Thailand in the near future,” he adds.