THE CHIEF OF Staff of the Irish Defence Forces has said he will miss his current role as he prepares to leave in the coming weeks to take up a new post as chair of the EU’s Military Committee (EUMC) – essentially, Europe’s top military job. 

Sean Clancy will start in his new role in June and will bring a team of Irish military personnel with him to lead the committee.

Clancy accompanied Defence Minister Simon Harris on a visit to Ireland’s Camp Shamrock in the hills of South Lebanon yesterday – likely his last such visit in his current role. 

At the EUMC, he’ll be the general to act as the point of contact between the European Union’s 27 military leaders and will be tasked with reporting their consensus advice to the EU’s civilian leadership.

Speaking in South Lebanon, Clancy said that he will miss his interactions with Irish troops. 

“What they give me, in terms of sustainment in doing my job, is knowing that we’re doing the right thing, I could never repay that and I’m very privileged to be a part of that,” he said. 

“We’ll see what the next chapter is,” he added -  “I’m moving away, not going away.” 

The area around the Irish camp has been devastated due to bombing and heavy fighting. Thousands were killed in the course of the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and there were mass displacements of people throughout the area.

Irish officers yesterday told The Journal how they had been assisting the Lebanese army and local humanitarian groups on missions as they recover the dead in the rubble of bombed out villages.

The remnants of unexploded ordnance have meant that soldiers are in grave danger from serious injury as they patrol. A Finnish soldier serving in South Lebanon with UNIFIL is understood to have lost a foot in a mine explosion while searching a weapons cache recently.

Tánaiste Simon Harris and Seán Clancy meeting the Irish peacekeepers in Camp Shamrock yesterday. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Despite that, Irish Defence Forces personnel have told Clancy and the Tánaiste that the area is beginning to stabilise. Clancy confirmed that and said that the Irish are now able to move more freely.

“It’s very clear that the scenario has changed here in southern Lebanon. I mean, that’s very evident to all.”

He said Irish troops had been doing “extraordinary work” to rebuild connections with locals. 

As the relatives of those killed returned to the area in recent months, some turned on the United Nations. Sources who spoke to us in the area this week said the Lebanese blame the UN for not stopping the fighting.

The issue is that the Irish troops and the rest of the 10,000 soldiers in the multi-national United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are bound by a stringent set of conditions in the original peacekeeping resolution from 1978.

Lieutenant Colonel Shane Rockett, who leads Ireland’s 125th Infantry Battalion, said the troops had been working to spread the message locally that the Irish and the UN ”did not leave … If we had left, the destruction would have been a lot worse and probably the casualties a lot worse”.

Clancy said the battalion was now carrying out essential work in supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces and the civil community “in every way it can, in monitoring, observing and reporting back, which is their primary tasks as part of the UN mandate”.