Lebanon was a 6 month pi55 up when i was there. $1  pints. Always struck me the way soldiers talk about Lebanon vrs reality

I don't agree with the analysis on this, during the cold war, the UK had many soldiers doing a full career who had never been on an operational deployment, and those that did were generally NI or UN Cyprus and their careers were fulfilling both in training and promotions. You don't need a war to to have a military career.

The Leabhar Breac, St Clement and the Question of Irish Defence ( Bearing witness?)
The Leabhar Breac — the Speckled Book — represents a distinctly Irish record of Christianity, preserving the lives of saints and the religious imagination of medieval Ireland. Its importance should not be reduced simply because it is not an authorised doctrinal book of either the modern Church of Ireland or the Roman Catholic Church.
There is also an important historical distinction between the two traditions in Ireland. The Church of Ireland emerged from the Reformation and developed its own institutional relationship with Ireland's earlier Christian inheritance, while Catholic Ireland retained a direct sacramental and devotional continuity with the medieval Catholic world. Yet both traditions inherited — and in different ways interpreted — the older Irish Christian manuscript tradition.
That makes the story of St Clement, associated with the Black Sea and remembered as a Christian martyr, particularly interesting. It demonstrates that medieval Irish Christianity was not intellectually or geographically isolated: Ireland's manuscripts could preserve traditions reaching from the Atlantic world to the Black Sea.
This should also form part of any serious discussion about Irish defence and national identity.
Ireland's recruitment problem should not be blamed on the religion or ethnicity of individual recruits. The evidence points to wider problems of pay, retention, competing employment opportunities and the attractiveness of military service. The Permanent Defence Force fell from 9,480 personnel in 2010 to 7,557 in 2024, although recruitment has since begun to improve.
But there is a legitimate question about what cultural memory we expect a national defence force to understand and defend.
If Ireland's military is to defend the island as a neutral state, its personnel should know the depth of the civilisation they are serving — from the Irish saints and manuscripts to Ireland's maritime geography and its connections with the wider Christian world.
The answer is not religious exclusion. It is historical literacy.
A modern Irish soldier does not have to be Catholic, Protestant or religious to understand why the martyrdom of an early Christian bishop or pope could have mattered enormously to medieval Ireland. But a state that forgets the historical imagination of its own people risks producing a defence policy disconnected from the culture, geography and history it is supposed to protect.
Neutrality requires defence. Defence requires people. And people defend something more effectively when they understand what it is.

What quality of volunteer will a government who does not believe in the sovereignty of the nation attract.

The timing is interesting. "Israel" is bringing the world into chaos.

A little warm up for no neutrality

Don't forget we're neutral and most want to stay that way.....

We need our troops in Ireland,

When you see a headline like this from Really The Establishment (RTE) you can bet your bottom dollar it's a public opinion campaign to bend reality until it fits a moral justification so they can slide the governments agenda right through with as little friction as possible. Yes RTE exists to LUBE UP THE GOV AGENDA. You're doin great work journalists. NOT

I.e. sell your soul 👿 for thirty pieces of silver.

"Rubbleized,  as in, turned to rubble" - Cathal, grandmaster Irish military genius hahahahhah

Who is the gentleman speaking.  He has beautiful diction.

remove the triple lock

Retention crisis, bit like your seat and failed Seanad run )

Cathal Berry is a compromised individual

Send them to West belfast

Former member here, the defence forces is beyond repair.

Little by little. There just preparing us.   Go on the RTE propaganda machine.   We are not a war.  We are a Neutral Country

Gotta love all these Ex officers that keep their mouth shut until the pension and bonus are secure and then suddenly they are the mouth piece for the lads when outside. Cheers

When we consider neither the uk france or Germany can defend themselves with annual defence spending of circa e70 -100 billion.
How much should Ireland spend?  Its a fair question isnt it?   And from which budget should it be taken? Health? Welfare?.