VBCW Irish Army

[Count Winsky]

I am thinking about doing a 15mm VBCW Army and know the Irish wore the Vickers helmet (copy of WWI German helmet), but does anyone know where I can find a reference for Uniform color & helmet color of Irish troops, and what type of military equipment they would have had? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Count Winsky

[joroas]

Osprey has a book on the Irish Defence Force Since 1922 and a book on the earlier Irish Volunteer Soldier.  They actually wore a German WWI pattern helmet until WWII.

[Jakar Nilson]

Osprey has a bok on the Irish Defence Force Since 1922 and a book on the earlier Irish Volunteer Soldier.  They actually wore a German WWI pattern helmet until WWII.

It's a great book with plenty of beautiful pictures. Also has pictures of Irish armoured cars.

German Stahlhelms with deep green British WWI pattern uniforms and leather equipment and boots with a reddish hue.

[commissarmoody]

And make the Helmets black.

[Count Winsky]

Thank you all for the information thus far. :-)

[joroas]

The new Osprey on the Rolls Royce Armoured Car, also has a section on Ireland.

[Republicofalnwick]

There are different versions of the Osprey, with slightly different colour reproduction. It's hard to get them really accurate. There are a number of websites where there are photographs of actual uniforms. here is one link http://www.ebay.ie/itm/IRISH-NATIONAL-ARMY-FREE-STATE-UNIFORM-CAP-CIVIL-WAR-/400154990624

There is another famous poster here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OglaighNaHEireann_IrishArmy_PreEmergency_RecruitmentPoster_LOWRES.jpg

Neither looks like any version of the Osprey I have seen.

The helmets are nearly black, with a tiny hint of green mixed in.

In black and white photographs they look black, but the actual colour they specified was that included one some dark green. I can't find the link after a quick trawl to give you the exact proportion, but it was very slight 

[cowboy]

May be of some use.
http://www.militaryarchives.ie/home

[Klingsor]

The Irish army helmet I have is a deep and glossy green. I do wonder if it has been repainted as it looks too good.

[carlos marighela]

Given that in Eire the Second World War (AKA the big biffo against fascism) was officially described as  'The Emergency' I wonder what involvement in British Civil War would have been called. The 'vaguely pressing engagement'?  'A mildly inconvenient matter'? 'We're closed on Tuesday afternoons'?

No slur against the Irish people, thousands bravely and honourably served in the Hitler War, albeit against the explicit instructions of their own government.

Of course if you do the Irish for the period, you'll need to do Eoin O'Duffy and his band of heroes in blue shirts. The man and the movement of whom Brendan Behan so marvelously observed that more of them returned from fighting for Franco during the Spanish Civil War than set out in the first place.

[Arlequín]

More soldiers tend to return from wars than went, it was certainly true of the Falklands at least.

The Blue Shirts weren't missed on their early return to Eire either, the colloquial Spanish expression for 'chocolate tea pot' being often used in reference to them.

Anyway, there was a thread on the IFS on GWP some time ago; http://gwargamesp.fr.yuku.com/reply/73697/IFS-Soldier-uniform#reply-73697... if you haven't already found it. I'm sure there was another one, here or there, but I couldn't find it... I do recall it showing IFS soldiers unpacking Boys AT Rifles, while still wearing the 'Vickers Helmet' amongst other pics.

[Hildred Castaigne]

Given that in Eire the Second World War (AKA the big biffo against fascism) was officially described as  'The Emergency' I wonder what involvement in British Civil War would have been called. The 'vaguely pressing engagement'?  'A mildly inconvenient matter'? 'We're closed on Tuesday afternoons'?

No slur against the Irish people, thousands bravely and honourably served in the Hitler War, albeit against the explicit instructions of their own government.

Oh, very funny! 

It was called 'The Emergency' in honour of the Emergency Powers Act.

Here is the Act in full and the cure for insomnia.
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1939/en/act/pub/0028/print.html

[Plynkes]

Ted: I'm not a fascist, I'm a priest. Fascists go round dressing in black and telling people what to do. Whereas priests...


...


...More drink!

[Republicofalnwick]

We had a lot of discussion around Eire in VBCW at one point on GWP3, as you say.

The most interesting aspects of the situation were that the Prods in Northern Ireland were vehemently pro-Union, to the extent that they would unite in defence of The Link against all comers, but otherwise the Protestants have a much greater propensity to split than the nationalist community. Edward was very unpopular in Northern Ireland. When he appeared in newsreels audiences booed, and even walked out of the cinema, despite the fact that most Prods were staunchly monarchist. On the other hand Bertie was very popular, going back to a visit he had made in the Twenties. There was  profound silence when Edward abdicated, but a huge explosion of enthusiasm in the press when Bertie succeeded him. In the South the scars of the Civil war still lingered. There was little appetite for further conflict, but the defeated Republican elements, some of whom were in exile, still saw the freeing of the North as a sacred obligation. There was, in some quarters, a belief that they might find more radical support from the oppressed Catholic community in the North  than they had found in the South. Hugo MacNeill, the commander of the Irish 2nd Division during the Emergency was very anti-British, and (in 1940, but you could stretch a point) had dealings secretly with the German Embassy, and was ready, if not itching, to attack the Brits in the North. He was a colourful character, and drank rather too much.

It has to be said that what was put forward in public was very different from what was said in private. Dev actually did a deal with the Brits when it came to it, and it seemed that Germany might invade Eire, to allow the Brits to mount a counter-invasion. Even MacNeill subsequently worked with the Brits, who helped train his division, and gave some of his men commando training in the North.

This actually means that you can do pretty much anything you want in Ireland as far as VBCW is concerned. In Belfast there were only 14 members of the BUF, (all waiters from the city's Italian community) despite Mussolini describing the UVF as "natural Fascists". The UVF had in fact been an inspiration to both Mussolini and Hitler in setting up their own private armies.Of course the possibility of weapons from Italy might lead to an increase in membership. In 1913 there had been a massive injection of weapons on the Protestant side, including six heavy machine guns, but by 1938 these were pretty old. Of course most Protestants found it easy to get guns. For the IRA it was a different matter.  Ernie O'Malley talks of how few guns the IRA actually had, but there were a number of weapons which had been hidden away after the Civil War. The IRA were the first to use Thompsons in a war situation, having smuggled some in from America. The IRA had always been able to buy individual weapons from soldiers in the British Army, but the main conduit for weapons, from America, had pretty much dried up to a trickle once there was a vehemently anti-IRA Irish government in Dublin.

O'Duffy's Blueshirts were pretty inept on every level. They were originally a guard to prevent IRA supporters disrupting  political meetings, but they weren't even particularly good at that. When they went to Spain they suffered from some friendly fire, and went home in the huff.  (Well, pretty much).Lots of scope.