Is the Irish Defence Forces Developing the Necessary Capability to Meet the Operational Requirements of its UN CIMIC Roles? A Case Study of CIMIC Operations in Lebanon

This article examines the Irish Defence Forces’ (DF) approach to contemporary Civil Military Co-operation (CIMIC) operations in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), seeking to discover whether or not the DF is developing the necessary capability to meet the operational requirements of its UN CIMIC roles. The paper focuses on the manner in which the DF selects and trains personnel for this operational task, and the degree to which this enables the organisation to meet UN requirements. The article explores international military best practice relating to pre-deployment training and examines Irish policy and practice, presenting the results of interviews conducted with relevant Irish personnel. The research demonstrates that, while there is no doubt that the DF is meeting the operational requirements of its UN CIMIC tasks, this may be the result of its soldiers’ collective attitudes and behaviour rather than by design. This suggests that Irish soldiers make good peacekeepers, but that this may not be closely connected to any pre-deployment training relating to CIMIC.

Promoting Reflexivity in Masters Research: Reflections on a 20-Year Teaching Partnership between Maynooth University and the Irish Defence Forces

This paper serves as an introduction to this second edition of the Journal of Military History and Defence Studies. It explains the origin and nature of the educational partnership that exists between the Irish Defence Forces and Maynooth University. In particular, it focuses on the MA in Leadership, Management and Defence Studies (LMDS), a masters level postgraduate qualification embedded into the Joint Command and Staff Course. It discusses the philosophy that underpins the programme, emphasising the ways in which it seeks to enhance the students' capacity for reflexivity and criticality, before introducing each contribution in this edition, all of which are based on research undertaken as part of the MA in LMDS.

Motherhood and the Military, Apposing Forces? A Female Perspective.

Becoming a mother is a life altering experience on its own. When women who serve in the military become mothers for the first time their cover as conceptual men is broken. Motherhood ultimately alters the playing field. This article explores the challenges of motherhood within the military. It investigates how women serving in the Irish Defence Forces navigate work life balance in a male dominated organisation as they undertake the most female role of all motherhood. It explores issues that arise before during and after pregnancy and how the Defence Forces responds. The White Paper on Defence published in 2015, made a commitment to continue to progress work life balance initiatives for all members of the organisation (Department of Defence, 2015).This paper provides a valuable opportunity to generate narratives that have not been heard in the organisation before in response to this commitment. This study confirmed that women re-evaluate their future careers when children arrive and based on current requirements for career progression within the Defence Forces are self-selecting not to progress. It also confirmed that the current career obstacles for many to overcome require a clear choice between family and work. This research drew attention to the fact that women are disadvantaged by common practices of performance appraisal when absent for maternity leave. This research has also demonstrated that women are highly committed to the Defence Forces and deeply appreciated of the statutory entitlements they receive. The article argues that, for the Irish Defence Forces to recruit, retain, promote and increase the number of women within the organisation, it is essential for it to acknowledge that the current practices do not fit with the way that women work. Failure to do so will continue to result in a loss of capability which the Defence Forces cannot afford.

"Strengthen the Nation": Exploring the Motivating Factors Leading to Irish Defence Forces Recruitment

Responding to a dearth of literature on the subject, this paper explores and examines what motivates people to join the Irish Defence Forces. In addition, it examines recruitment strategy and policy within the Defence Forces, in order to assess the degree to which this is appropriate to meet current needs. The paper explores the difficulties and challenges that all militaries currently face in attracting, enlisting, and retaining the required numbers of new recruits, with reference to current scholarship and to ideas relating to motivational theory. Analysis of the Irish case is based on a qualitative research design situated within an interpretive paradigm. Utilising a mixed methods methodology, data was collected through the use of focus groups, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Findings from this research indicate that themes such as pride, challenge and self- improvement appear to be strong motivating factors for recruitment. On the basis of this, a number of recommendations are suggested including key policy changes and resource investment that will assist the Defence Forces in addressing both the challenges of military recruitment both now and in the future.

Promoting Reflexivity in Masters Research: Reflections on a 20-Year Teaching Partnership between Maynooth University and the Irish Defence Forces

This paper serves as an introduction to this second edition of the Journal of Military History and Defence Studies. It explains the origin and nature of the educational partnership that exists between the Irish Defence Forces and Maynooth University. In particular, it focuses on the MA in Leadership, Management and Defence Studies (LMDS), a masters level postgraduate qualification embedded into the Joint Command and Staff Course. It discusses the philosophy that underpins the programme, emphasising the ways in which it seeks to enhance the students' capacity for reflexivity and criticality, before introducing each contribution in this edition, all of which are based on research undertaken as part of the MA in LMDS.

Oral History: Utilising the Experience of Others

The Irish Defence Forces Leadership Doctrine emphasises the need for lifelong study and experiential learning, and the Defence Forces have considerable experience in managing oral history projects, including the Bureau of Military History and the Military Archives Oral History Projects. However, Irish doctrine does not outline any formal method to capture these experiences as a leadership development tool or to enhance organisational memory. The aim of this paper is to examine the value of utilising oral history for leadership development and organisational memory. It demonstrates that there is a risk to organisational memory unless a formal methodology is in place to capture the experiences of Defence Forces members and connected personnel. The use of tacit knowledge, which has facilitated the handover of information to date, is not sufficient nor is the written record alone. This paper shows that a combination of multiple primary sources, including the written record and oral history, provides an opportunity to enhance leadership development. It also demonstrates that the use of oral history provides an opportunity to capture the social and human aspect of Defence Forces activities to not only enhance organisational memory but to understand the context within which decisions were made.

Mission Command: An Exploration of its Issues in Multinational Units

This paper explores the application of mission command in binational and multinational units within the NATO context. It explores differences in understanding and application of mission command, amongst NATO members, and identifies the negative impact that these can have on the behaviour of tactical leaders, and on mission accomplishment, within a multinational context. The paper demonstrates that the understanding and therefore the application of mission command differs between the NATO members; that this influences the leadership style of superiors and their willingness to transfer trust and responsibility, and to assume risk; and, that differences in language, understanding and meaning of terms, and different contents of intents result in a negative influence, all of which are exacerbated by political influence. On the other hand, modern technology in binational or multinational units supports and promotes the application of mission command. The paper concludes with recommendations to mitigate these problems and to create the conditions where mission command can be employed successfully.

Ireland and the Waterloo Campaign of 1815

Ireland’s experience of the Waterloo campaign has been consistently under-explored, despite the degree of attention paid to the campaign by historians. This paper shows that that experience was far more significant and multi-faceted than has generally been recognised. Irish people played an important practical role in the events of 1815. Irish soldiers saw service in their thousands during the campaign, at every rank from private to general. These men represented a comprehensive cross-section of contemporary Ireland, coming from every county on the island and from every kind of socio-economic background. Some Irish soldiers and military units earned distinction for their actions on the battlefield and a number of participants from the country left valuable primary testimony. Civilian Irish women and children were also caught up in events in Belgium. Domestically, Ireland was a centre of activity as hostilities against Napoleon developed and analysis of contemporary media coverage and private correspondence makes it clear that ongoing events on the Continent had a keenly engaged Irish audience. Waterloo also left a distinctive legacy for Ireland and for Irish people. This paper explores all of these issues in detail, providing a thorough examination based on primary sources to address the impact of Waterloo on Ireland, and of the Irish on Waterloo.

The contribution of the Irish soldier to the British Army during the Peninsula campaign 1808 – 1814

The majority of the historiography concerning the Irish contribution to the British army during their campaign on the Iberian Peninsula (1808 -1814) has focused on the Irish regiments and their service with Wellington in Portugal, Spain and France. While the significance of research into these regiments is undeniable it has unintentionally resulted in an under appreciation of the true extent of the Irish soldier’s contribution. The purpose of this paper is to add to the existing historiography by examining the wider Irish contribution in order to arrive at an empirical based assessment as to the criticality of the Irish soldier to Wellington’s victory during the Peninsula war. The majority of Irish soldiers who served in the Peninsula did so in English and Scottish infantry regiments. Their abilities and crucially their integration into the British army were key success factors for Wellington during the Peninsula campaign. An examination of how this was achieved forms a key part of this paper which finds that the capabilities of the Irish soldier and the British army organisational structure and system mutually supported each other. Furthermore, the Irish officer’s contribution has only been assessed based on individual accounts and narratives in the absence of any in-depth evaluation of their actual numbers. With over 30 per cent of Wellington’s officers being Irish an analysis of their levels of command was undertaken to demonstrate their significance to the overall conduct and operation of the Peninsula army. To fully understand the Irish soldier’s contribution an assessment of their combat effectiveness building on the preceding quantitative findings and utilising modern concepts of combat motivation and behaviours was undertaken. The findings indicate that while the Irish soldier’s contribution was much wider and central to victory in 1814 than is generally appreciated or understood, the British army of the period recognised its importance and, despite popular misperceptions, did not at an institutional level seek to discriminate against the Irish soldier. The paper concludes that Irish soldiers were of critical importance to British victory not only in terms of their numbers but also due to their successful integration into the wider British army outside of Irish regiments, their presence in large numbers at all levels of command and their overall combat effectiveness. Without this contribution it can be argued that British victory would not have been achieved in the Peninsula.

Conceptually Ambitious, Hardly Novel, and Currently Failing: The Irish Army Reserve in the Single Force Concept

In 2013 the Irish Defence Forces went under significant reorganisation. Part of this organisation entailed integrating the Irish Army Reserve into the Defence Forces, as part of the ‘Single Force Concept’. Ostensibly, the Single Force Concept sought to provide a more reliable, fit for purpose, reserve force. However, this article argues that the concept has failed and that the Army Reserve is almost unusable. The article evaluates each service corps and provides an analysis of Reserve capabilities. This shows that the training of the force is suboptimal for augmenting the regular army in an emergency, and that a gap exists between what government policy wants the Reserve to do, and what it is actually capable of doing. This has resulted in an unusable reserve force with questionable utility. This article also highlights the difficulty of establishing the qualitative strength of the Army Reserve in the absence of appropriate means of defining what is meant by an ‘effective’ reservist, and explores the detrimental consequences of paltry financial investment in sustaining, developing, or enabling the Reserve as an effective force. It argues that the Single Force Concept has failed because it did not remedy the fundamental pre-existing flaws that plagued the various iterations of the Irish reserve land component prior to 2013, nor did it attempt to bring the Army Reserve into line with international best practice regarding reserve forces. The article concludes by arguing that the current Irish reserve model is unsustainable, and that fundamental changes are required in order to make the force usable to the State, and to prevent it from collapsing altogether.