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by COMDT CONOR O'SHEA, SO JOC/OFFICE OF THE SRSG, MONUSCO HQ
T
he Irish Army's deployment to the Congo from 1960 to 1964 remains probably the organisation's most
iconic to date, when viewed within the Defence Forces and also by the general public. the word 'ba-
luba' is commonly used in our day-to-day language and locations such as niemba and Jadotville are as
recognised in Ireland as they are in current day Congo, where these former colonial names have long since
been replaced by Swahili ones.
In a time when foreign travel was rare in Ireland, more than 6,000 Irish troops completed tours of duty, 26
of whom died serving in this vast jungle country in the centre of Africa.
Since the withdrawal in 1964 there has been little, if any, connection with this former area of deployment.
Currently, however, the Defence Forces contributes four officers to MONUSCO, the UN's peacekeeping mission
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are Comdt Conor O'Shea, Capt David Foley, Capt Damian Cawley
and Capt Derek McGourty, and are pictured below.
Following the reconfiguration of the force headquarters from Kinshasa in the west of the country 2,000km
east to Goma, and some good fortune, these four officers were afforded the opportunity to visit Katanga prov-
ince, the location for the deployment of the Irish soldiers in the 1960s.
As the 54th anniversary of the Niemba ambush approached we visited the site of three of the most forma-
tive episodes in the history of the Irish Defence Forces.
