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IN JULY 1960, in response to a request from newly independent Congo, Ireland sent its first contingent on a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission, inaugurating 50-years of courageous, and professional service to the international body. That mission would last four years, involving 6,000 Irish soldiers and the tragic loss of 26 lives, nine of them in one action in Niemba on November 8th, 1960. To date, 86 members of the Defence Forces have lost their lives on UN service.

At yesterday’s commemoration at Baldonnel to mark the Congo deployment Taoiseach Brian Cowen rightly paid a warm tribute to the legacy of the mission, in many ways a coming-of-age for the Defence Forces.