Home ⋅ Published Books ⋅ 'Ireland, the United Nations and the Congo: A Military and Diplomatic History, 1960-1'

'Ireland, the United Nations and the Congo: A Military and Diplomatic History, 1960-1'
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By: Michael Kennedy, Art Magennis
Publisher: Four Courts Press Ltd
Published: June 2014
Pages: 288
Categories: Humanities
Language: English
Available as: Hardback
On sale at:
ISBN-13: 9781846825231
ASIN: 1846825237

In 1961 Irish United Nations peacekeepers went into combat in the Congolese province of Katanga. It was the Irish Defence Forces’ first experience of active service since 1923. Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien headed the UN mission in Katanga. Former chief of staff of the defence forces, Lt-Gen. Seán MacEoin, was in overall command of UN troops in Congo. Irish units suffered casualties and men taken prisoner as the fighting in Katanga continued. The crisis now facing Taoiseach Seán Lemass became the most delicate and dangerous chapter in Ireland’s foreign relations since 1945. Based on a first-hand account of the fighting by an Irish cavalry officer, previously unseen UN archives and the papers of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, this book covers eighteen critical months from July 1960 to December 1961, which almost tore the UN apart and which brought the realities of UN membership to Ireland. A military and diplomatic history, this book is an Irish perspective on a defining moment in the history of the United Nations, the Cold War and modern Africa.

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