An Cosantóir

20 happened, survivor Tom Kenny told an RTE reporter in 1985: "I suffered a fractured skull, two arrows in my head, dislocated legs and a dislocated arm. About five o'clock in the morning I got up off the ground and decided to walk back to camp - now that's a hard thing to do with blood streaming out of your head. I got muck and I plastered my head with it and I plastered my arm with muck to stop the bleeding and away I went. It took me about 48 hours. I got halfway back but I doubt if I would have been able to make the other half of it. Fortunately for me there was a UN patrol in the district. They picked me up and I am here today thank God, 25 years after, to be able to talk about it." The bodies of the Irish dead were flown home to Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel where they lay in state. Lt. Kevin Gleeson's coffin was placed on a gun carriage while those of the rest were placed on army trucks. On 22nd November hundreds of thousands of citizens again lined the streets of Dublin, but in contrast to the excitement of the send-off this time in silent homage, as the huge cortege made its way slowly to Glasnevin Cemetery. In the Democratic Republic of Congo the conflict continued unabated into 1961. Lumumba was assassinated in January at Elizabethville Airport and in September Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, was killed in an unexplained air crash in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) while en route to secret negotiations with Tshombe. Also that month, the siege of Jadotville – where brave Irish troops were again involved - made international headlines. From 1960 to 1964, 12 Defence Forces units with almost 6,200 troops served with ONUC. In those four years, 26 Irish troops paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of peace. Even though most of these trailblazing peacekeepers have now retired or passed away, their memories of the Congo and places such as Elizabethville, Jadotville and Niemba, are still very strong within the Defence Forces as we continue to remember and honour them. On 3rd February 2018, Sgt Hugh Gaynor and his Niemba comrades were commemorated with the unveiling of a Irish Defence Forces personnel boarding a US Globemaster transport aircraft for the Congo, armed with the Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk 2 rifles, Bren light machine guns and Swedish Carl Gustaf m45 submachine guns A Cpl at a radio station in the Congo taking notes from an incoming message Irish Defence Forces personnel manning a bridge armed with a Vickers .303 British made heavy machine gun in the Congo A photo taken from a truck overlooking the ambush site NIEMBA AMBUSH 60 YEARS ON

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