An Cosantóir

14 'The shining hours are fading fast and need to be remembered' were the words used by Colonel J.M. Connolly – Officer Commanding Air Corps Group, in his greeting to past and present members during the Irish Air Corps 60th Anniversary Commemoration in 1982. They are fitting words for us today on the Centenary of the Irish Military Aviation and the eve of an uncertain but hopefully bright future with expectations of new CASA 295 MPA aircraft and the recent Commission on Defence recommendations in the midst of a new conflict in Europe. Of course, Colonel 'Jemmer' Connolly (Grandson of the 1916 Leader, and later General Officer Commanding the Air Corps) was referring to earlier decades of the service but 40 years later it is the exact same ideal. So, before endeavours fade (as much of what is written here is explored in greater detail by others in this spe- cial edition of An Cosantóir), it is time to remember and inform current and future generations of the history and Martinsyde Type A, Mk II biplane known as the 'Big Fella' at Baldonnell c. 1923 stories of Irish Military Aviation. It is the story of the Irish Air Corps, that service that belongs to them. All the stories within are a narrative that contains the same ba- sic threads – the human experience in endeavour. For a small island's history such as ours the Irish Air Corps will always be a part of the 20th Century's discourse among the nations of the Earth. The Beginning In the annals of Irish history, two events in the year before the outbreak of the Great War (1914-1918) stand out in the origins of military aviation in Ireland and Irish military aviation. While today's Defence Forces trace its ancestry back to a public meeting in the Rotunda Rink on 25th November 1913, which established the Irish Volunteers/ Oglaigh na hEireann, it was also the year that saw the first Royal Flying Corps military aircraft in Ireland to exercise with British troops in Limerick that September. No.1 Training Centre (trade school) had been established in 1914 and opened in 1915 in the Curragh by which time Ireland had already been committed to the war. 1916 saw the Proclamation and Rising in Ireland to break the link with British rule and the concurrent great battles of the Somme on the Western Front. In 1917 Captain Sholto Douglas, whose father was director of the National Art Gallery in Dublin, was despatched to Ireland while on convalescent leave to locate possible sites for the construction of avia- tion facilities. Britain was at war and quite close to the Western Front and Ireland offered a safe haven away from the British mainland and reach of German aircraft. He chose to do this initially by car, visiting them later by air, which was precarious in the immediate after- math of the Rising the previous year. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE IRISH AIR CORPS 1922-2022 By Cpl Michael J. Whelan, Irish Air Corps Museum

• Cover