Saturday, March 13, 2010
By Michael Moriarty, Mercier Press; €19.99
FROM the day he enrolled in the Ennis Battalion of the FCA in 1949, Michael Moriarty kept a diary of his life and times with the Irish army. As the source of An Irish Soldier’s Diaries, it is a remarkable record spanning four decades of engagement in UN peacekeeping missions. What gives this book greater relevance is that this is the first account of its kind by a senior officer. Drawn from his personal diaries, it is a rich tapestry of the minutiae of military life.
His first rifle was a single shot, bolt action .303 Lee Enfield, a much-scarred relic of World War I. One can see his shiny size nine brown leather boots and over-sized beret. In those days, FCA recruits had to dip into their own pockets to buy Brasso, shoe polish and polishing cloths.
It has a strong whiff of frontline action and portrays the diversity of a soldier’s life at home and abroad. In the Golan Heights, for instance, there was a distinct sense of death in the air as he held his breath on hearing the sound of incoming Syrian mortars. From his days with the FCA, he never looked back and in 1950 joined the cadets, spending a two-year stint at the Curragh where, incidentally, he also joined the swimming club, opening the door to a lifetime of diving, the subject of Colonel Moriarty’s first book.
Penned in the limpid prose of a lifelong diarist, and bearing all the precision of a gunnery officer of the artillery corps, An Irish Soldier’s Diaries traces retired Colonel Moriarty’s career from the plains of Kildare to the jungles of Katanga after the Belgian Congo erupted into chaos. He later served in Cyprus and saw frontline action in the Golan Heights before serving in Jerusalem, the Lebanon and Angola.
This book would grace the shelves of those who served in the armed forces and give invaluable insights to anyone contemplating a career in the army.
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