I recently dug out my “Musketry” manual and although it has a pretty old-fashioned name it contained vocabulary, searching ground and fire control orders. The copy I have is dated 1946 and is stamped “Forsa Cosanta Aituil 30 Jan 1952, Carlow” in the old Irish script, the Clo Gaelach.
Read on for a discussion of military vocabulary and some of the phrases that drove us mad as privates and I am sure we used as we rose through the ranks!
I was talking to Kevin Connolly and Gerry Paley recently about taking a “Veteran’s Table” at the dinner next January and Kevin mentioned that veterans of most units always continue to wear their berets.
That got me thinking and now that the 21st is long gone and the 62nd is soon to follow, maybe we are free to use our old badges as we see fit. Why not start wearing a vets beret with the old Dwyer flash on. It would have the advantage of being easy to buy a black beret, sew on a piece of red material and re-use your shoulder flash which is probably on that old uniform that doesn’t fit you anymore. If I recall correctly we had to buy those flashes so they are ours to own. The cap badges are probably still current and so may give rise to “issues”.
Any thoughts?
This photo, posted by Tony Foley on the C Coy Facebook page shows Liam Quinn, Henry Kearns, Willie Dillon and Martin C. Murphy. I am re-posting it here in honour of “Movember”.
When posted on FB it prompted much hilarity with Seamus Fitzgerald explaining “This was a stash of ronnies discovered in an abandoned part of the Brugha that the 21st were put into one night. The ronnies were left there by the British army in the early 20s – sadly there were no boots discovered.”
David Flood commented he heard that when they were being phased out of the PDF in favour of the clean-cut Action Man look, like with the greatcoats they just issued one to everyone to get rid of them!
The final part of the History of B Coy. I got this from Aidan Teevan when I met him at the Annual Mass 2012. He also gave me some corrections for previous posts, but I think I will incorporate them into a complete history and post it here as a PDF file (Portable Document Format, not the other PDF!) for download in due course.
This is composite of 2 photos, so pay no attention to the bad blockwork in the background!
Back Row: Jimmy Geraghty;Liam Murphy;Terry Shortt;Barney Murphy;Pat Ferguson;Sam Irwin; Paddy Smith (Shankill); remainder unknown
Middle Row: Nicky Murphy; Christy Matthews; Dick Shortt; Yacht(Damien) Kavanagh; John Goode, remainder unknown
Front Row: Bernard O’Brien (Major’s son)
Thought to be an A Coy group from a Guard of Honour for the All Army FCA Shooting Competitions.
These are the appendices from Brian Hayden’s History. Among other items they list the serving and ex-Officers and NCOs of the Bn as well as the PDF cadre. I have included them as scanned pictures and not as text as it was very difficult to format the original type-written tables. Continue reading
This piece of Brian Hayden’s History includes the Introduction and “Promotions and Retirements”. Continue reading
A change of venue for annual camp always meant there were new cultural sites to explore. When we went to Tralee some people went to the northside of the bay and Fenit and others to the southside and Ashe’s of Camp.
Gerry Paley has given these pictures of members studying the life of St Brendan the Navigator and other historical figures of the region. The pictures are different combinations of Gerry Paley, Bernard Swan, Kevin Connolly and Tom Walsh.
Brian Hayden’s “A Bn Sgt Major retires”, from his Bn History 1984.
On Friday October 28th, 1983 there was a large gathering of members of the 21 Inf. Bn. F.C.A. in Rockbrae House, Bray, Headquarters of the 21 Inf. Bn. F.C.A., for a presentation to Sgt. Major Tom Byrne on the occasion of his retirement as Bn. Sgt. Major.
Final Coy section from Brian Hayden’s history of 21 Bn. There is obviously duplication between this and Aidan Teevan’s more comprehensive history which ran right up to the Bn stand down in 2005.