Me & Bernard Jackman with my daughters Ireland U20s gersey in Malahide RFC last night.

Hezbollh has shot two French UNIFIL soldiers.

Today in 1980, two young Irish soldiers, Thomas Barrett (24, from Ballinamore, Leitrim) and Derek Smallhorne (21, from Dublins North inner city) were doing their duty in south Lebanon keeping the peace in their blue UNIFIL helmets. They were stopped at a checkpoint, but instead of the friendly greeting they expected they were abducted, cruelly beaten and tortured, and shot cold blood. A third soldier, John O'Mahony (26, from Cork) was also attacked, shot, and left for dead, though he would live to tell the tale. One name associated with the cowardly ambush surfaced again and again, a local militia figure called Mahmoud Bazzi. Investigators and local informants horrified at the murder of the irishmen, placed Mahmoud Bazzi at the checkpoint that day. But war has a way of swallowing evidence, and Lebanon in 1980 was no different. Decades past then unexpectedly, the story resurfaced, not in Beirut or Tyre, but in the United States. In 2019, Bazzi was arrested for immigration fraud. The past had not caught up with him fully, but he'd been flushed out by a bit of unrelated bureaucracy. Now in his seventies, Mahmoud Bazzi was living an ordinary life away from the war something he'd denied to Barrett and Smallhorne and almost O'Mahony. Because he was using a false identity he was deported from the US in 2015 to Lebanon. Following a tireless campaign for justice by the victims' families and the Irish government and the survivor O'Mahony himself, who courageously gave courtroom testimony, Mahmoud Bazzi was eventually convicted by a Lebanese military tribunal in 2020 for the murders of Irish soldiers Thomas Barrett and Derek Smallhorne. While he initially received a 15 year sentence, he was released early in August 2023 due to Lebanese sentencing rules and health factors, having served only about eight and a half years in total. In the first picture below: Mahmoud Bazz (top left), Thomas Barrett (bottom left) and Derek Smallhorne (bottom right) and John O’Mahony (top right). In the second is the injured Private John O'Mahony arriving back at Dublin Airport in 1980. Third is Mahmoud Bazz Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublintime…

Captain's Run at Dexcom Stadium.

Did ye ever hear the legend of “Lackendarra Jim” the hermit who lived alone in the Comeragh Mountains above Coumshingaun Lough for over forty years. Oh and he was secretly a war hero, likely dealing with PTSD. This mysterious veteran known locally as “Lackendarra Jim” his real name was Jim Fitzgerald. He was born in 1891 in the townland of Castlereagh near Lackendarra in County Waterford. His parents left for the United States in search of work, leaving the boy to be raised by his grandparents. When the First World War broke out in 1914 thousands of Irishmen enlisted in the British Army. Jim Fitzgerald was one of them. He joined the Royal Irish Regiment before being transferred to the Connaught Rangers. In 1916 he was sent east with the 1st Battalion to the Mesopotamian campaign, a brutal and often forgotten theatre along the rivers of what is now Iraq. There Irish soldiers endured blistering heat, disease, and terrible military leadership. Battles were fought in mud and desert alike and understandibly something in that hellscape broke young Fitzgerald. By 1918 he was discharged from the army with a diagnosis recorded simply as “melancholia.” Likely what they eventually called shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder. Soldiers returned from the trenches trembling, sleepless shadows of their former selves, haunted by memories that refused to fade. And in the case of the Irish, often shunned. Fitzgerald arrived home to Waterford in 1919 carrying those invisible wounds to find his country was sliding into revolution. Veterans of the British Army often found themselves in an awkward or even hostile atmosphere. Many kept quiet about their service. Some emigrated. Fitzgerald exiled himself into the mountains and became Lackendarra Jim. High above the valley of the River Mahon, beneath the dark cliffs that loom over Coumshingaun Lough, he found a small natural cave. With stones, bits of driftwood, canvas and old grain sacks he turned it into a shelter against the wind. For more than four decades Lackendarra Jim lived alone in that place, little more than a hollow in the rock. Every couple of weeks he would descend the mountain, walking roughly eight kilometres to the villages of Clonea Power or Kilmacthomas. Collecting the few shillings from his British Army pension he bought tea, bread, and the barest necessities. Then he climbed back to the silence. Locals sometimes glimpsed him moving along the ridges, thin as a scarecrow, his coat flapping in the Atlantic wind. Children whispered about him that he had tamed a wild fox that followed him everywhere. The people of the district knew who he was an had sympathy for his solitude and what pain he must be carrying. Locals who bumped in to him in town would pass him a cup of tea, or slip him an extra loaf of bread. So the years passed. Ireland became independent (almost). Governments rose and fell. But Jim Fitzgerald remained in his cave above the lake. In the winter of 1959 the mountains turned crueller than usual. The winds came hard off the Atlantic and the cold settled deep in the valleys. Locals realised Lackendarra Jim had not been seen for some time. When they climbed up to check on him they found him gravely ill with pneumonia. He was taken down from the cliffs and brought to hospital. On 25 February 1959 "Lackendarra Jim" Fitzgerald died at the age of 68. After 40 years of solitude he was laid to rest in Knockboy Cemetery in County Waterford. Hopefully for him the war was then truly over. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublintime…

When can we expect the National Security Body to be established? @MichealMartinTD @SimonHarrisTD @CormacJOKeeffe in todays @irishexaminer 👇

Since you ask, it is a criminal offence to obstruct the highway. More important, it is a serious common law offence to organise or agree with others to obstruct the highway or to blockade access to ports and depots. It is the offence of conspiracy. An indictable offence at common law. There is no constitutional right to do so. The State and the Gardai are entitled to clear the highway. Obstructing them is also a criminal offence. Check it out if you doubt me.

RT @EastVeterans: Another fuel protesting group... Some of their members are dissident republicans charged with serious weapons offences.…

It’d be a good opportunity for Customs & Excise to start dipping fuel tanks, seeing how they’re all just lined up, going nowhere…

Remembering the late Anders Lassen on this anniversary, as well as Blair’s act of bravery that saved his comrades lives

A friend and shipmate Donie Goulding has suffered a terrible accident in Spain. He is in a coma in a critical condition. If anyone here would consider supporting his @naval_service comrades efforts to enable his family to be by his hospital bed please do: gofundme.com/f/support-donal…

We are not, and have never been, neutral. We sided with the Allies in WW2, and with NATO in the Cold War. Now, because this Govt won't fund the Defence Forces adequately, we rely on NATO even more. " Militarily non-aligned"? Open to question with secret deals done.

Regardless of illegality of war, the Islamic Republic Regime is vile, cruel and a curse upon Iran, the region and the world. Shame on all those who support the Regime and not the Iranian people.

RT @EastVeterans: Keep Palestine Out of Irish Security Matters.. We all know what the Pally Scarf represents, they'd be better off gettin…

For those who criticise the UN, and insult those who answer the call. This is why we did it, and continue to do it, regardless of the provocation or dangers.

Yes, I am ok with Search & Rescue aircraft... a lot better than the Russian tankers in the Shannon Estuary supplying the Russian war machine that you ignore.

Commentators, politicians and Irish voters need to understand that our lack of capacity to prevent violations of our neutrality are precisely why the Irish government MUST have MOUs with the British government that allow the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy access to Irish airspace and seas for the Defence of the British Realm, and with any other neighbours so threatened if they demand similar agreements. Were we to refuse such arrangements with Britain or any other nation (e.g. France) that can be potentially threatened by cruise missiles or drones launched from bombers in Irish airspace or from ships or submarines in Irish waters, we would be in further breach of our obligations as a neutral nation. Successive Irish governments over the past 80 years have chosen not to fund and staff an independent defence capable of preventing such violations of our neutrality, therefore we must permit the potentially threatened nations to violate our territory to defend themselves. That is the reality of those "secret agreements", which successive governments kept confidential until recently because they are politically embarrassing. @HMcEntee @MichealMartinTD @SimonHarrisTD @MHealyRae (FAO Coalition Independents)

“We’re extremely picky, for want of a better word,” the officer says. “The flag, the Defence Forces and the country’s reputation are sacrosanct. You cannot mess around with them or take them lightly because you affect people’s lives” irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/…

RT @EastVeterans: 🇮🇪 is soft on terrorism. 2x Security Services members have been stabbed by Jihadis in the last few years Here we have a…

RT @roy_kinsella: ‘A Ryanair turnover’: First Air Corps flight into Beirut spent only 30 minutes on tarmac ‘The first Air Corps flight eve…