2 R IRISH to Cyprus following Turkish invasions.

2 R IRISH guard a key installation at the Retained Site, RAF Troodos on a snowy Mount Olympus, Cyprus 1975.

Following the coup that removed the Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios III and installed Nikos Sampson, there was considerable unrest both internally and externally as old rivals Greece and Turkey, both controlled by military junta governments, failed to influence the situation internally or restore the status quo in Cyprus. The Turkish invasion and occupation of Cyprus was first launched on 20 July 1974 with a second post-junta invasion on 14-16 August 1974. Turkey and Greece were both a NATO 'partner' thus placing the UK government in a sensitive situation. However, by 1975 there was considerable population displacement following (what would come to be described in later years as) acts of ethnic cleansing and allegations of genocide. Approximately 60,000 Turkish Cypriots were displaced from the south and they fled north while displaced Greek Cypriots fled south to areas outside the British Sovereign Bases. These bases and retained sites were sovereign territories which had remained under British jurisdiction by virtue of the 1960 Treaty of Establishment which had created the independent Republic of Cyprus.

Four weeks after the 2nd Battalion The Royal Irish Rangers arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany, as part of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) in mid-September 1974, the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel D G McCord MBE, announced that 2 R IRISH was to undertake a six month operational tour in Cyprus. The advance party departed Barrosa Barracks, Deilinghofen on 29 January 1975 and flew from RAF Gütersloh on a RAF Britannia to Cyprus and began taking over from 1 Royal Scots as the Internal Security (IS) Battalion. The first main body chalk arrived at RAF Akrotiri on 10 February to be piped onto the tarmac by a lone Royal Scots piper playing ‘Going Home’. Support Company arrived on 18 February to complete the 2 R IRISH deployment.

2 R IRISH moved into Salamanca Barracks, RAF Episkopi in the Western Sovereign Base Area (WSBA). The battalion’s mission was to defend the WSBA and other retained sites from all external and internal threats. 2 R IRISH also stood ready to safeguard other British interests island wide. Entry Control Points (ECPs) were manned on main routes into the WSBA, mobile patrols were mounted to conduct 24 hour surveillance and static guards were deployed to key installations at retained sites such as at RAF Troodos on Mount Olympus. The April Defence White Paper (Mason Review) had announced a reduction of force levels in Cyprus which made the tour length uncertain. However, on 27 May it was announced that the battalion would return to its mechanized role in BAOR between 1-10 July 1975.

In the early hours of Saturday 19 April, a patrol led by a Captain J T D McCarthy-Morrogh confronted five armed men who were attempting to steal vehicles from the area of a Turkish Refugee car dump. One of the arrested men then attempted to escape but was prevented from doing so by the judicious application of a non-lethal pick helve (handle). A second intruder fired four rounds from a pistol but was disarmed by the Captain, ably assisted by a Ranger. A second pistol, a hand grenade and a quantity of ammunition were seized and the intruders arrested.