‘You associate yourself with it’ – Mullingar veterans remember fallen soldier in Lebanon

Mullingar veterans who served with the United Nations remembered Pte Seán Rooney one year on from his killing on a peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.

Members of Post 20, the Mullingar branch of the Irish United Nations Veterans Association, attended at Ballyglass Cemetery on December 14 to mark the occasion. A wreath was laid, a flag was raised at half-mast and Pte Rooney’s name was inscribed on the memorial wall of soldiers who have died during overseas service.

It was the first time a name was inscribed on the wall in over a decade.

He joined 98 other soldiers on the list in Ballyglass, as well as three civilians and one garda sergeant who was killed abroad while serving with the UN.

Post 20 member Robert Archbold told the Westmeath Examiner that Pte Seán Rooney death resonated with him and other local veterans. “I served in Lebanon in 1978 in the 43rd battalion,” he said.

“There was quite a number of us from Mullingar there at that time – about 20. “You associate yourself with the place, you’ve gone through that and you know what they are going through over there now, particularly the members of his crew that had to serve on without him. Lads who would have shared tents with him, and all of the rest. It’s very sad as he was such a young life.”

Mr Archbold said there is a proud history in Mullingar of service on United Nations peacekeeping missions.

“There have been lots of members from Mullingar who have gone over,” he said. “If you go back through from 1960, when things started in the Congo, on every trip over since, we’ve had people from Mullingar going.

“It would be in the hundreds that have served with the UN and we have had a presence in Lebanon since the ‘70s.”

Mr Archbold said the veterans association was set up in the 1990s as a means of looking out for one another. “The original organisation was formed in Dublin in the early 1990s before our branch was established in 1998, he said.

“It came about because a soldier who served in the army and was overseas was found sleeping rough and died on the streets of Dublin. The organisation was born then to ensure that something like that would never happen again.

“We look after our own. Anyone that is in our organisation would have served overseas in the United Nations.”

Mr Archbold said the group has three key principles.

“Honouring, caring, and remembering – that is what we are about,” he said. “We honour those who have passed, we care for those who are still with us, and remember those who gave their lives in the cause of world peace.”

An annual memorial day for fallen soldiers is held by the Post 20 club in Ballyglass every July.