Search Results for 'United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon'

A commemorative plaque has been unveiled to honour a Galway soldier fatally wounded while serving on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon over 45 years ago. Mayor of the City of Galway, Cllr Mike Cubbard has joined members of the family of the late Private Stephen Griffin to unveil the stone plaque which has been erected adjacent to Bóthar Stiofáin, Rahoon, which is named in his honour.

Last Saturday morning, the world felt as though it tilted on its axis. In an age of instant communication and tightly wound global markets, conflict no longer erupts in isolation. It sends shockwaves. By lunchtime, energy traders had reacted. By evening, oil prices were climbing. By Monday, the consequences were knocking on doors in places far removed from the theatre of war — including here in Galway.

These detection arrays are part of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-projectile defence system against bombardment by Hezbollah and its affiliates. The missile system is designed to destroy incoming rockets and heavy artillery.

UNIFIL, the United Nations’ Interim Force in Lebanon, will finish next year, after the US vetoed its renewal in August.

Last week’s decision by the United Nations’ Security Council to wind down the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon by late 2026 signals the end of a long association between the Irish Defence Forces and the United Nations’ Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) mission.

Although beaming with pride, there was a chastened atmosphere amongst family and friends of soldiers of the 126th Infantry Battalion, on parade in Renmore Barracks last Friday, before deploying to Lebanon next week.

“Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy,” Henry Kissinger once said, and any objective reader of Signal, the magazine of the Irish Commissioned Officers Association, might find it hard to disagree.

Neale native Oliver Browne is to be honoured by a leading Irish community group in New Jersey, on the night before Mayo play New York in Gaelic Park, New York.