It's still a long way from Tipperary

The Royal Irish Regiment is regarded as one of the finest fighting units in the British army, and it also boasts the only trad band to have played in Iraq's Green Zone, writes Tom Clonan.

Fort George is a spectacular if somewhat menacing fortification located just outside Inverness at the mouth of Loch Ness, with commanding views of the Moray Firth. Built after the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the fort is today home to the First Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment (RIR). Despite being in the very heartland of the Scottish Highlands, on entering Fort George - a potent and still functioning symbol of British military power - one is immediately struck by the universal and unmistakable cadence of Irish accents throughout the base.

Within this British military edifice, one is also struck by the seeming contradiction posed by the ubiquitous presence of Irish cultural symbols, from the shamrock insignia worn on all combat uniforms, to the Irish harps on plaques and cap badges - right through to Brian Boru, the Irish wolfhound that roams at will through the fort.

The commanding officer of the RIR is Lieut Col Michael McGovern (44), a Catholic from a nationalist background in north Belfast. Educated in St Malachy's College on the Antrim Road by Dr Patrick Walshe - later to become Bishop of Down and Connor - Lieut Col McGovern is proud of the Irish identity of this "most distinctly Irish unit of the British army". As an experienced combat commander, with service in Iraq and elsewhere, McGovern is of the view that "the Irish are particularly good at war fighting . . . In my experience, the Irish, particularly those from the Republic, are man for man, better professional soldiers and war fighters than many of their counterparts in the British army." He believes that this is in part due to the fact that "soldiers from the Republic have taken a path less travelled in opting for a career in the British army and have had to overcome a certain amount of cultural resistance to the idea of service in the crown forces. As such, they tend to be more highly motivated than the average soldier and have a momentum within them that propels them through the ranks towards positions of leadership."

Lieut Col McGovern points out that, as a result, many of the RIR's sergeant majors and officers are from the Republic. Indeed, in one company alone, the entire staff of platoon commanders and sergeants is from south of the Border. This point is echoed by one of McGovern's staff officers, Capt Ian Nellins, who comments that soldiers from the Republic tend to be "better educated, more rounded and more highly motivated" than other entrants to the unit.

Capt Nellins is also proud of his Irish heritage and plays a leading role in the Brewery Boys, the RIR's traditional Irish music group. Having recently deployed to Iraq on two occasions, the RIR's band have had some unusual gigs. According to Capt Nellins: "As far as I'm aware, the Brewery Boys are the only traditional Irish music group to have played in the Green Zone." He says the band "is highly popular with other British army units, who are very jealous of our ability to entertain ourselves and, of course, extremely popular with US units, because of their Irish heritage and fascination with all things Irish".

Capt Nellins is most proud, however, of their performances for ordinary Iraqis. "With all of the chaos in Iraq, when we played our ballads and jigs, I think because music is an international language, we were able to connect with the Iraqis. Some of the Iraqis, many of whom would have quite fundamentalist Islamic views, were so taken by the Irish music, that they'd almost always get up and have a bit of a dance to it. It was like a very helpful secret weapon of sorts."

SINCE THE INVASION OF Iraq, the RIR has served two tours of duty there, with Irish troops deployed in both Basra and Baghdad. Its last tour of duty in Iraq culminated in January 2006 with no fatalities from either deployment. Then, in April 2006, the RIR was sent on its first deployment to Afghanistan. By September, four members of the regiment had been killed in action in Helmand province with a further 16 seriously injured in the heavy fighting there.

Elements of the RIR were deployed to two particularly hostile locations within Helmand province, to forward operational bases at the villages of Musa Qaleh and Sangin - both locations were under constant attack from large numbers of Taliban forces.

Sgt Patrick Brangan (32), from Kilcullen in Co Kildare, was deployed to the base at Musa Qaleh. Educated at St Brigid's National School, Kilcullen and by the Christian Brothers in Naas, Sgt Brangan emigrated to London in 1995 with the intention of training to be a psychiatric nurse. Instead, he joined the British army and was posted to the Royal Irish. Having served in Iraq previously, he immediately found Afghanistan to be a very different operational scenario.

According to Sgt Brangan: "Afghanistan was very different to Iraq. The Taliban, unlike the insurgents in Iraq, are well able to fight in a coordinated and organised way. You'd be very foolish not to respect their ability and willingness to fight. And their willingness to die. As an enemy, they were always trying out new ways of bringing the fight to us." Whilst Sgt Brangan was in Musa Qaleh, he and his fellow Irishmen in the RIR were attacked more than 100 times over a six-week period in August and September 2006.

Brangan's accounts of the attacks describe desperate close combat and daily "human wave" type attacks on their outposts in the villages of Musa Qaleh and Sangin. "They'd attack every day, usually between 9.30 and 10.30 in the morning or in the evenings at dusk. The attacks would begin with Chinese-manufactured rockets and missiles being fired directly at our post in the village. Then they would mortar us, very accurately for a while, probing our defences and trying to get mortar rounds right down on to us. Then, they'd come at us on foot, with RPGs [ rocket-propelled grenades], heavy machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, the lot." Sgt Brangan was at pains to point out that the attacks were well planned and that they were determined "to expel us, not just harass or disrupt us. They wanted to get right into the post and kill us and sometimes they'd get right up to the perimeter walls and start throwing hand grenades in at us. Then it was a case of resorting to our own hand grenades and point-blank firing with any weapons at hand. A case of do or die, us or them."

Sgt Brangan described in detail to The Irish Times desperate daily gun battles with the Taliban that lasted up to four hours at a time. "Each man on the post was firing thousands of rounds per attack at them. We'd usually stop them with sheer weight of fire about 40 metres out from our perimeter. They took very heavy casualties. In some after-action reports, local Afghan army commanders counted scores of corpses and blood trails." Sgt Brangan was present when the Taliban killed two of his colleagues, Ranger Anare Draiva and Corporal Paul Muirhead, in the Musa Qaleh outpost on September 1st, 2006. Sgt Brangan assisted with first aid when the two became casualties. Barely a week later, the regiment lost Lance Cpl Luke McCulloch to the Taliban at the Sangin outpost. When asked if he was ever fearful or afraid for his own life in such circumstances, Sgt Brangan replies without hesitation "only a fool wouldn't be afraid in the thick of that type of fighting".

Also in the Musa Qaleh compound at this time was Ranger Dominic Whitehouse (29), from Corrovorrin, Ennis, Co Clare. He describes the combat in Helmand as "hell on earth each day for six and a half weeks". Like Sgt Brangan, Ranger Whitehouse observes that the Taliban were very determined in pressing home their attacks. On September 14th, 2006, during one such attack, Ranger Whitehouse was injured by shrapnel to the lower limbs. He described it as "like being hit by a baseball bat, over and over, it knocked the legs out from under me. But I had to get up because my pal was hit in the throat and he was bleeding a lot. We stabilised him and then waited for the helicopter to medevac [ medically evacuate] him. We had to wait for nearly three hours though, as the Taliban kept firing missiles at the incoming Chinook helicopters."

RANGER WHITEHOUSE recovered from his wounds and returned to combat in Musa Qalehuntil October 17th, when the RIR rotated out of the area. The soldiers are philosophical about the experience. Sgt Maj Fran O'Connor (39), from Dublin's northside, remarks that "80 per cent of the world's heroin production comes from that area of Helmand and some of it ends up in Dublin, where it has done terrible damage in places like Finglas and Cabra. So, I suppose, in our own way, what we're doing out in Afghanistan is directly helping other Irish people in Dublin and elsewhere who've probably never even heard anything about us or what we're doing." Sgt Maj O'Connor expresses pride in the RIR's operations in Helmand. "Afghanistan isn't just about the War on Terror, it's not just about America's foreign-policy aims. Afghanistan is principally Europe's problem and at least we're doing something to help stabilise a country whose heroin and Islamic fundamentalism is being exported all over Europe."

In spring 2008, the Royal Irish Regiment will deploy to Afghanistan for a second tour of duty there. In the interim, it will conduct intensive training in Africa this autumn. As I leave Fort George, Lieut Stephen Swan (26), a DIT graduate from Howth in Co Dublin, who trained in Sandhurst at the same time as Prince Harry, says that he was initially apprehensive about being assigned to the RIR. "I had this perception that it might be quite Northern Irish in emphasis. But I found a unit where all shades of Irishness find expression, where Rangers and Celtic supporters bunk in the same rooms together, and where Irishmen, both Catholic and Protestant, fight for each other, not with each other, for a change." Perhaps the greatest seeming contradiction-in-terms at Fort George is that such disparate expressions of Irishness can find parity of esteem, respect and even mutual affection - as yet, not on the island of Ireland, but offshore within a unit of the British Army.

Dr Tom Clonan is The Irish Times' Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, DIT