Special visitor soaks up the Doonbeg jazz

DOONEG hosted a distinguished visitor last weekend when Defence Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Seán McCann was the guest at the opening night of the Doonbeg Jazz Festival.
Although it was the Cork-born army man’s first visit to West Clare for two decades, he professed himself impressed with both the jazz and the community spirit he encountered.
“I have links here in that my wife Frances’ mother [Nora Cleary] was from Coore near Miltown Malbay and Frances has a sister living in Kilkee,” Lieutenant General McCann explained.
“It’s a very vibrant village here. It is a very different place and the transformation is incredible since I was last here. I would have associated West Clare with traditional music but the local band here, Skazz, were playing last night and were very impressive and very entertaining,” he told The Clare Champion.
While not a fanatic of any particular musical genre, the Defence Force’s Chief of Staff says the Army Number 1 Band regularly adds to significant State occasions. 
“No, I wouldn’t have any great musical background. Although I mentioned last night about our own Army bands. Our bands were established in 1922 by General Richard Mulcahy. He not alone wanted them for military, ceremonial and State events but to bring music to the people. They’ve been going strong since then and they certainly add to any military occasion,” Lieutenant General McCann said.
“In fact, any military parade is all the poorer if you don’t have the bit of colour. They give a great lift. Of course, during the visit of Queen Elizabeth, they were central to the whole thing I must say, I was extremely proud of them and indeed of all the men and women of our Defence Forces for their performance during that particular visit,” he added.
While most of us associate the Irish Defence Forces with overseas peacekeeping, Lieutenant General McCann noted that the Defence Forces are involved in everyday activities, which he feels are of significance to the general populace.
“Personnel are the bedrock of our organisation and they perform in a very professional manner whether they are at home or overseas. Every time you take cash out of an ATM, the Defence Forces have escorted that. We did over 2,000 cash in transit escorts last year and we have a 100% record on it. If your child needs an urgent organ transplant our Air Corps will provide the Air Ambulance Service to facilitate that,” he pointed out.
“If you’re concerned with drugs on the street, our Naval Service over the last three or four years have intercepted about €1.7billion worth of drugs.
“If there’s something suspicious out under your car when you come out in the morning, our bomb disposal people will come to that. We did that about 230 times last year and about 60 of them would have been potentially viable. Even in the last fortnight, we had our Air Corps up in Donegal dealing with forest fires,” Lieutenant General McCann recalled.
Since the Defence Forces’s maiden overseas peacekeeping mission, thousands of men and women have served abroad.
“If you look at it from an overseas perspective, in many ways we’re the physical manifestation of Irish Foreign Policy.
“Since we started our overseas missions back in 1958, we’ve had over 63,000 individual tours of duty and we have protected some of the most vulnerable people on the planet in some of the most hostile environments.
“Currently, we’ve over 350 personnel abroad in about 14 different missions ranging from Afghanistan, the Congo, Western Sahara, the Balkans and the Middle East. Very recently, we deployed six personnel as observers to Syria where there’s a difficult situation ongoing at the moment,” the chief of staff commented. 
Unfortunately, some missions have resulted in loss of life.
“Over the period, we’ve lost about 86 personnel who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the cause of peace. We’re certainly as well trained, as well equipped and as well led as any comparable military force. It’s something I’d be very proud of,” he asserted.
In November 2013, the Defence Forces will mark its centenary, which will be three months after Lieutenant McCann retires.
“We were founded in 1913, The Irish Volunteers and since then, we’ve faced many different challenges ranging from the War of Independence, the Civil War, The Emergency, the subversive period and most recently, we had the expeditionary challenges overseas,” he said, before referring to one of the Defence Forces’ most recent overseas operations.
“We deployed to Chad in a place that was 2,500km from the nearest port. Chad is about twice the size of France and there’s only 300km of tarred roads there. So it was certainly a very challenging environment but our personnel deployed there and gave great assistance to internally displaced people and to refugees.
“We were then able to withdraw from Chad in an efficient and professional manner. We would be a very welcome addition to any peace-keeping mission because of our record.
“pWe’re very professional, well equipped and we don’t have any particular historical baggage. We don’t have a colonial background and we’re perceived as being an honest broker.
“I think the Irish soldier has a great way with him and has an ability to interact, respect local cultures and integrate well,” Lieutenant General McCann maintained, adding that military personnel undergo extensive training before embarking on any mission.
“Whatever location we are going into, we would have what we call a Mission Readiness Exercise, where the type of scenarios that they are going to come across are replicated here at home. So when they go out there, they’ll be already familiar with them,” he said.
The recession has impacted upon every aspect of Irish life but Lieutenant McCann feels the Defence Forces cannot concern itself with economic issues.
“We’ve had budget reductions but we’ve faced many challenges before. We’re facing an economic challenge at the moment but there can be no doubt but that the Defence Forces will continue to do its duty.
“We’ve been fortunate in the circumstances, although we have an annual loss of between 400 and 500 personnel every year, inclusive of retirements and people leaving, we continued to have limited recruitment.
“We have been reduced down to a figure of 9,500 personnel from a figure of 15,000 in 1981. More recently, we’ve been reduced from 10,000 to 9,500,” he said.
Lieutenant General  McCann predicted the Defensive Force’s role in Irish life will not find itself diminished, whatever way the economic tide flows.
“It’s something that we’re trained to do and the can-do attitude is what we pride ourselves on.
“Since the foundation of the State we’ve an outstanding record of service to the country both at home and overseas. We intend to continue with that,” the Chief of Staff stressed.