Soldier Of The Queen

"
Former British soldier Bernard O'Mahoney served in Northern Ireland during the H-Block Hunger Strike. Now, he has written a book about the reality of army life for a typical squaddie - a reality where ideas of decency, fairness and the rule of law were often left behind . . . The army of which O'Mahoney writes bears scant resemblance to the heroic body of men depicted in the writings of Andy McNab and other Boys' Own-style adventures. Instead, the antics of the author and his brother-in-arms are described unblinkingly, habitual violence and the harassment of the civilian population apparently central to military life . . .
Soldier of the Queen
is recommended reading."
Hot Press

"
The camp was full of posters of Bobby Sands with slogans like "Slimmer of the Year" cut from newspapers and pasted onto them. Bernard admits however that this bravado covered an undercurrent of fear of relatiations."
Sunday Independent

"
This is the sometimes-shocking true story of one man's determination to get home again alive and how civilised values come to be the victim in this struggle. While it will be found by some to be distasteful the strength of this account lies in its honesty and in how the author never tries to hide the truth of what he was, nor offer easy excuses. Its uniqueness also lies in the fact that most previous accounts of army life in Northern Ireland were written by members of elite or specialist units. This is the viewpoint of the ordinary "squaddie".
Garda Review

"
This is a rarity: a book written by a foot soldier rather than by members of the elite or specialist units - O'Mahoney tells it how it was. It is told in a squaddie's words and with unblinking, often distasteful honesty. But then a sanitised account of a dirty war would be rank cowardice."
Newcastle Upon Tyne Evening Chronicle

"
I generally have little time for the memoirs of British soldiers. They are either tales of "Wot Won the Empire" or a self-congratulatory spin on a "career" spent stiffing "wogs" as part of a civilising mission . . . but this book is a squaddie's story that every republican under 30 should read . . . This might set the standard for the ordinary soldier to tell how it was for him in Britain's senseless dirty war in Ireland."
An PhoblachtlRepublican News

"
O'Mahoney gives a no-holds-barred account of his activities and those of fellow squaddies during the North's most troubled years. He makes no excuses and although the revelations are often distasteful, he at least deserves credit for his brutal honesty . . .
Soldier of the Queen
is a complex, often disturbing read . . . (It) has no moral ending and provides no solutions but it is a highly powerful read."
Irish World

Bernard O'Mahoney travelled extensively after leaving the army, and in the early 1990s he worked providing security at nightclubs in London and Essex. He wrote about his experience of the violence, drugs and gang warfare associated with the nightclub culture in
Essex Boys

Mick McGovern worked on Fleet Street before joining Thames Television's
This Week,
which he left to become a writer. His first book as co-author was
Killing Rage,
the autobiography of former IRA supergrass Eamon Collins. He work has been published in the
Observer
and
New Statesman.

Soldier of the Queen

The only wealth in this world is our children. I dedicate this book to my children, Adrian, Vinney and Karis; my brothers children, Adam, Amy, Finn and Natalie. To your children and our children's children. They are our future, give them love and hope; we can only reap what we sow.

BERNARD O'MAHONEY

with MICK McGOVERN

SOLDIER OF THE QUEEN

A Brandon Paperback

First published in 2000 by Brandon This paperback edition published in 2001 by Brandon an imprint of Mount Eagle Publications Dingle, Co. Kerry, Ireland

Copyright © Bernard O'Mahoney 2000

The author has asserted his moral rights.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available for this book.

ISBN 0 86322 278 1 10 987654321

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or

otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Cover design: PCC, Dublin and id communications, Tralee, Co. Kerry Front cover photograph: Michael Abrahams, Network Photographers Typesetting: Red Barn Publishing, Skeagh, Skibbereen Printed by The Guernsey Press, Channel Islands

The portakabin door crashed open and the lights flashed on. A voice shouted: "QRF! QRF! Heli-pad now!"

Bunk-beds creaked in unison as I and the other uniformed soldiers sprang to life from our half-sleep. As part of that night's QRF - Quick Reaction Force — we had to be on the helicopter and away within three minutes of getting the call. We rarely knew where we were going until we were airborne. All we ever knew for sure was that someone somewhere urgently needed our help. And in Northern Ireland's so-called Bandit Country with republican prisoners dying on hunger strike we always expected the worst - a mortar attack, a riot, a bloodied body dumped at the side of a road.

I grabbed my Self-Loading Rifle and used its strap to lash it to my wrist. That was something all of us did to stop people snatching weapons from our grasp and turning them against us in the pell-mell of our frequent violent confrontations. It was the early hours of 9 July 1981 at our base on a disused airfield near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. Another IRA hunger striker, Joe McDonnell, had died the previous day after 61 days of fasting. He had been the fifth to die. Our local Member of Parliament, Bobby Sands, had been the first. His death two months earlier had caused much celebration at the base - exaggerated, I felt, by the need to hide the fear of what might be coming our way in revenge. Pictures of Sands still festooned the camp: juxtaposed mockingly beside them were adverts for slimming products and headlines from articles celebrating the achievements of Weight Watchers ("I lost four stone in three months"). The most popular headline was: "Slimmer of the Year".

I ran to the helicopter pad where a Lynx was waiting, rotors spinning, ready to fly us into the unknown. Fear and excitement mingled within me as I jumped in. The pilot's face looked tense as he glanced back at us. A few others had got there before me; the rest jumped in behind me. The Lynx lifted off, its nose dipping before banking away into the darkness. I was close to the pilot, who was shouting into his headset above the roar of the rotors, telling our section commander where we were going and why. I could make out that soldiers at a vehicle checkpoint (VCP) had had contact with a gunman and had radioed for assistance. I heard the words "Cassidy's Cross" and knew where we were heading. Earlier in the week our regiment had built a permanent checkpoint at a crossroads near Kinawley on the road to

Enniskillen. It consisted of four bunkers, three made from concrete and one from sandbags. However, slap in the middle was the family home of Mr and Mrs Cassidy and their two young children. The control point was in the centre, directly in front of the house; a security gate had been installed next to it to slow traffic travelling towards the nearby border with the Irish Republic. Not surprisingly, the family had not stopped complaining since our regiment's arrival: they felt they were prisoners in their own home and also feared finding themselves in the crossfire during an IRA attack. They had hardly got any sleep since we had become their unwelcome neighbours. Their days and nights were filled with the noise of soldiers shouting and car doors slamming. Disgruntled drivers added to the cacophony by complaining loudly about their treatment and sounding their horns in anger. The obvious place to site the checkpoint had been further up the road near a customs caravan in a lay-by. But customs officers had told the army to get lost: they weren't prepared to work alongside us in case they too became targets. Customs had clout, whereas the Cassidys had none. Senior officers had expressed regret to Mr Cassidy about the inconvenience. But my friends, the squaddies on the ground, had told him he could fuck off if he didn't like it. We thought that people who complained about us were certainly IRA sympathisers and quite possibly active terrorists. We would punish their Fenian cheek by using our talent for malicious mischief to upset them whenever possible.

The pilot passed on more information. A soldier in one of the bunkers had claimed he had seen a man with a gun on the hilltop facing the VCP. Soldiers had fired flares to illuminate the gunman's position; sniffer dogs were on their way. The

Lynx dipped down and landed in a field next to the VCP. We jumped out and took up defensive positions. The Lynx hovered momentarily and flew off as we set off apprehensively towards the checkpoint. As soon as we got there we knew we had nothing to fear. The squaddies were relaxed and smirking. I said to one: "This is a fucking get up, isn't it?" He smiled and nodded towards the house. He said the Cassidy children had not seen fireworks before, so they'd decided to treat them. I said: "You bastards! I was kipping." I looked up and saw the Cassidy family watching us from a bedroom window, fear on their faces. Another helicopter thundered overhead, its searchlight illuminating them as it sought the imaginary gunman. The sniffer dogs arrived, yapping and barking as they dragged their handlers up the hill looking for the same. After an hour of pointless activity the area was declared safe and the Lynx descended to take us back to base.

Three days later I found myself running towards the Lynx and heading off once again with the Quick Reaction Force to Cassidy's Cross. Earlier in the day - the twelfth of July - the large Ulster Protestant contingent in our regiment - the first of the British Army's so-called Irish regiments to be sent to Northern Ireland during the Troubles - had been celebrating their ancestors' victory over the Catholics at the battle of the Boyne in 1690, an event that seemed fresh in their minds despite the passage of the centuries. By this time the VCP had become a regimental joke. Soldiers would say to one another: "Cassidy's Cross. He's very, very cross." We were relaxed and thought we were just responding to another bit of mischief for the Cassidy family. It was after 11 p.m. and as the helicopter approached the YCP I could see a large number of headlights there. As the Lynx hovered before landing I saw a crowd of people standing in the road. My instinct for imminent violence told me there was going to be trouble. We jumped out and moved swiftly to the VCP. About 30 soldiers and policemen faced a crowd of about 150 people. I asked a squaddie what was happening. He said they had delayed one driver because they hadn't liked his attitude; then two other drivers had abandoned their cars in protest at this harassment. Suddenly about 50 other cars had come from all directions. Their drivers and passengers had all got out, blocking the road. Now they all stood staring at us with sullen hatred. The squaddie I was talking to said: "If they try to rush us I'm just gonna start shooting the fuckers."

The crowd became noisier as people started shouting insults. There had been a huge build-up of resentment at the siting of the checkpoint. Usually motorists kept their mouths shut when stopped at checkpoints. But a lot of the locals had made a point of complaining about what we were putting the Cassidys through. Such expressions of neighbourly concern usually led to the perpetrators being delayed while squaddies inspected their cars' every nut and bolt. This procedure would be done in a leisurely manner calculated to leave Her Majesty's reluctant citizens stewing with rage.

A few known republicans were spotted among the increasingly animated and vocal crowd. I had the feeling that every second was taking us closer towards violence. It just needed a spark for everything to go boom - and that was not long in coming. Our senior officer asked the police to remove the first three cars. We stood behind the police as they moved forward, backing them up. As the police approached the cars and tried to open their doors, a cry went up from the crowd. People surged towards us, shouting and screaming, expressing a

rage that had been building for some time. The police had their batons out and began battering all round them. I felt that familiar adrenaline rush as I prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect myself. We began whacking everyone and anyone with batons, boots, fists and rifle butts. A long-haired man in his twenties was urging the crowd on. I heard him shouting: "Kill the fucking Brits!" To me he was a rabble-rousing bastard and I wanted to get him: I had spent months living in fear of an unseen enemy, but now in that moment I could see him. I abandoned all restraint as I moved towards him: I headbutted a face that loomed up at me and punched another before I got to my target. I grabbed him by his long hair and swung him round with such force that he fell to the ground. Another soldier kicked him in the face, while another smashed his rifle butt into the back of his head. He lay stationary on the ground, blood pouring down his face and neck.