1st Battalion
The Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders
Province Reserve Battalion
1997 to 1999
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1st Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
Province Reserve Battalion 1997 to 1999 |
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All photographs are the property of RHQ Argylls and may not be reproduced or copied without permission from RHQ Argylls.
The battalion to took over its new role as Province Reserve Battalion for Northern Ireland, during February 1997. The role gave the Jocks the best of all worlds with very little "sanger bashing" (guard duty) and the maximum use of helicopters to provide a fast moving operational reserve for the permanently deployed battalions. One advantage of the role was that the battalion was very firmly separated from the Scotland public duties commitments, whilst still being supported and administered by HQ Scotland and 52 Lowland Brigade and living in Edinburgh. The Jocks had the professional satisfaction of a really worthwhile job while at the same time having adequate leave between deployments and a chance to get on with their home life and to see their wives and girlfriends. The Battalion had up to three companies deployed at any one time, usually for six weeks, with the whole Battalion deployed for the marching season.
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The summer 1997 marching season in Northern Ireland started as expected with the battalion deployed for public order operations in support of 3 Brigade with the continuing high terrorist threat. At the beginning of July all four companies and battalion headquarters were deployed to Portadown as one of the three incremental battalions for the Drumcree march. After a period of intense public order training we all felt well prepared and confident for whatever might follow and were a little disappointed to be allocated the role of maintaining clear routes for movement throughout the 3 Brigade area. However, as expected, and as always, the plans changed and twenty-four hours before the Orange March was due to take place the battalion were retasked to secure the northern end of the Garvaghy Road in support of the RUC for whatever decision, march or no march, was to take place. The actual decision to allow the march to go ahead was only taken after a great deal of last minute negotiations at government level and so after a hasty battalion '0' group at 2300 hours, the companies deployed at 0300 hours to secure the Ballyoran Estate and northern Garvaghy Road. The Jocks, and in particular A Company, were met by a stream of bricks, bottles, petrol bombs, acid bombs and a crowd of over one hundred international press. After a few interesting moments the situation settled down and the Jocks soon demonstrated that they were the right men for the job by their sensible and down to earth attitude to the local population and to the job in hand. In fact while A Company and the RUC were receiving abuse on the Garvaghy Road itself, Support Company were receiving fried breakfasts in the Ballyoran Estate. After a long wait for the Orange march to take place the actual event only lasted fifteen minutes and this was followed by a rapid and successful break clean in which half the battalion returned to Portadown and two companies moved immediately to Armagh to secure the city centre in case of Nationalist rioting in support of the Garvaghy Residents' Association. For the next week Battalion Headquarters, with D and Support Company, carried out successful operations to secure the Armagh city centre from nationalist attempts to demonstrate their anger. On the first evening one of the Support Company multiples under Captain Neil McKay was engaged by terrorists with two automatic weapons and a certain amount of adrenalin flowed as the bullets passed between the Jocks and struck the ground at their feet, no casualties resulted from this incident. The situation in Armagh gradually settled down and the battalion returned to Edinburgh after a very successful three week deployment. The declaration of a cease-fire by the Provisional IRA on 20th July and the decision to re-route or cancel a number of Orange Marches took the heat out of the remainder of the marching season and although the battalion were on short notice standby for the Apprentice Boys' March in Londonderry in August it was not deployed. Since then operations in Northern Ireland settled down with only one company deployed for the last four months of the year.
1998
The year began with one company deployed to Bessbrook as the operations company of the Armagh Roulement Battalion, working for the King's Own Scottish Borderers. In May a second company was deployed for a period working in Portadown for 3 Infantry Brigade in both 3 Royal Irish and 8 Royal Irish areas and the KOSB handed over to the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment. This was coupled with the busy period of training in Public Order operations, with each of the companies training at Ballykinler and in barracks, and included the provision of demonstration troops for the Headquarters Northern Ireland Public Order "Train the Trainers" course at Lydd. Again the whole Battalion deployed for Drumcree, five days earlier this year than last because of the new mechanism by which the Parades Commission announces its decision on whether a march should go ahead or not five days before the event. After three days of preparation in Ireland the Battalion deployed as the forward left battalion for the re-routed Drumcree March. This involved holding the sectarian interfaces where the new and old routes of the march converge at Charles Street in Portadown (A Company), holding the area of the Dungannon Road roundabout and the junction between the Garvaghy Road and the route of the march as agreed by the Parades Commission, and constructing the left hand side of the wire obstacle designed to prevent the march progressing down the banned route (Sp Company), and constructing and holding the left centre part of the main obstacle at Drumcree and looking after the Garvaghy Park Estate (B Company). D Company was the Brigade Commander's reserve based in Bessbrook. The march went ahead to Drumcree Church as expected and there then followed six days of confrontation across the wire obstacle. The scene at the obstacle was like something from the First World War with belts of barbed wire covering a depth of 30 or 40 metres and huge water filled ditches. The confrontation itself was more like something from the middle ages, the primary weapons being catapults, crossbows, and fireworks but with a healthy sprinkling of blast bombs and lasers! The Battalion returned to Redford from Drumcree after a four-week deployment. The Omagh bombing had a profound effect on the whole of Ireland and as a direct result of that atrocity the Province was very quiet for the deployed companies. The continuing protest at Drumcree which saw a weekly, and sometimes nightly, attempt by a small group of hardcore Orangemen to march down the Garvaghy Road, provided the focus for our operational activities.
1999
The end of the battalion's role as Province Reserve Battalion for Northern Ireland was a very quiet period, with no major incidents which gave the battalion time to prepare for public duties which it took over the day after it finished it’s Northern Ireland Province Reserve.
Updated: 11 October 2014