An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir March 2017 www.dfmagazine.ie 26 | by LT COL DAN HARVEY I n the Zulu language the word 'Zulu' means 'Heaven', but for the suddenly surrounded, hopelessly outnumbered, highly exposed, tiny british military garrison at Rorke's Drift in 1879, the warriors of the amaZulu (the people of Heaven) were more like a horde from Hell. In what was to become a famous clash in the Anglo-Zulu War, thousands of bold, blood-hungry Zulu warriors hurled themselves head- long in a deadly onslaught against the hastily defended, barely barricaded, one-time trading station of Rorke's Drift. This action was immortalised in the 1964 film Zulu, directed by Cy Endfield, produced by Stanley Baker, and in which a young, unknown actor, Michael Caine, was to make his break- through. The film epically depicts the Battle of Rorke's Drift, at which 150 British soldiers, some of whom were sick and wounded, successfully held off repeated attacks by a force of 4,000 Zulu warriors. While there were a number of historical inaccuracies in the film, it does not suffer as a result. The defence of Rorke's Drift was an extraordinary event; an epic encounter and an exceptional piece of soldiering. Bravery is the management of fear, in that you must first feel fear to be courageous and this narrative of bravery in adversity endures. Its tale of daring against impossible odds continues to enthral and excite, to transfix and fascinate. The little known part played by the Irishmen present is no less absorbing a story, and is all the more intriguing for its inherent, and largely, up to now, unheralded heroism. The de- fiance of the defenders was so strong because the resilience of the Irish present was so fierce. On January 22nd 1879, not long after the officially unsanc- tioned invasion of Zululand initiated by the British High Commissioner in South Africa, Sir Henry Frere, a professional British military force with state-of-the-art weaponry suffered an unimagined, crushing defeat at Isandlwana. The British force was swept aside and its soldiers slaughtered by a seem- ingly unstoppable mass of 20,000 Zulu warriors. A portion of this huge Zulu impi, 4,000 warriors of its reserve, peeled off and later that same day attacked the tiny garrison manning the improvised supply depot at Rorke's Drift on the Natal side of the Buffalo River. In an action lasting twelve hours, through the night and into the dawn of the following day, the Zulu warriors frenetically tried to 'wash their spears in the blood of the red soldiers'. At the strategic level the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 was an unwanted war; at the operational level it was an unnecessary The Irish at Rorke's Drift The defence of Rorke's Drift, painted by Alphonse de Neuville (1880)

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