Irish (?) contract No4 rifles

The Irish contract No4 rifles.

I know that there's always been some doubt about this subject and especially the sheer....., not just sheer, but VAST quantities of the supposed contract. Nobody doubts that the Irish Defence Force did indeed purchase sufficient quantities of weaponry, .... Anyway....

What follows is my own opinion, based on nothing more than facts based on intelligence sources I have gleaned over the past years and what I call, the bleedin’ obvious.

Firstly, my jaundiced view of this so call contract is well known. However, whatever the size of the Irish Army, a small Defence Force, a larger effective Army or a huge Army lies at the core. For however spectacular, well trained, disciplined and many other things they are, the average, educated, erudite, sage person couldn’t really call it a large one. Even their heroic role as UN peacekeepers don’t alter the fact that it is, in world Army terms, small (see Janes World Armies). One answer for this small size is answered in the next paragraph. But it COULD be of course, in the parlous – or even perilous – or even penniless - state of that nations finances, especially in the period we’re looking at

So the question I most reasonably ask is this? Why would a neutral don’t forget, island Nation, surrounded by sea, (except for a reasonably friendly and tolerant North and a friendly Britain across the sea) purchase in the mid 50’s enough rifles and machine guns to equip 70 full Infantry Battalions*. Just read that again if you please…….. 70 *equivalent UK sized Infantry Battalions……. It’s just mind boggling. Just to put things into perspective or to elaborate on belief stupidity, according to your point of view of course, that was LARGER than the equivalent size of the national service fed British Army of the period. Yep……., that’s the one stationed all over the globe as far as the eye could see, and with a HUGE standing NATO Army defending the eastern flank in Europe.

It might be that the nations coffers had suddenly been swelled by a gold rush or a new found agricultural policy or a….., well, something else. Or maybe, the nation that suddenly rushed to re-equip its small Defence Force with soon-to-be obsolescent bolt action rifles knew something we didn’t know. That’s another point too. Every other Western looking nation was in the process or - or certainly looking with one eye – to re-arming with the new NATO standard caliber and a semi automatic rifle.

But there’s more…….. Those who have been to Afghanistan recently will have seen, heard of or read the intelligence supplements and on these, you’ll have read and seen lists of small arms, captured, seized, found, caches located etc etc etc. The reasons for these lists, quantities and serial numbers will be obvious to those who need to know and evaluate this type of stuff of which I will say no more. Now whether you know this or not, I don’t think there is any secret whatsoever, that Britain, among other nations, supplied vast Arms shipments to the factions fighting the Soviet backed Afghan Army and Russian supporting Army years earlier.

Britain supplied the Mujahadeen with thousands of new .303” No4 rifles from obsolete stockpiles, only to find that when the time came, these rifles were (badly) stored and used against us. You’ve guessed what happened next can’t you? Yep, these PF, A, UF and other serial numbered Enfield leapt out at you from the lists. And lo and behold, hundreds of these serial number blocks fall right into the blocks allocated to ‘The Irish Contract’. Now, whatever Eire is, it’s not a warlike nation but Neutral one and it is highly unlikely that that peace loving people handed out some of their warlike stockpiles to help their brotherly Mujahadeen brethren. Of course it MIGHT, but I very much doubt it.

This previously withheld information has been known to some forumers for some time but I don’t think that it is breeching any confidences now that the Country has been freed.

Now there’s the question that has been troubling or causing some head scratching for some time….. Some No4 rifles, including one this very week, plus a 1985 converted L59 DP rifle which prompted this short article are in the hands of owners and are clearly marked with UK Military markings such as School CCF or local Army Cadet Force tags and unit markings such as the UIN details in paint, on the butt. And THESE are also within the serial number ranges of rifles earmarked as ‘Irish Contract’

Irish Contract? Or an exercise in whatever you like to call it. But even so, they might have bought a lot..... but 70 Battalions worth…..!!!!! You're havin' a laugh! I know I’m the eternal cynic, but I ain’t stupid!

• That figure is based on hurried back of an envelope maths so don’t quibble about the absolutes

Century Arms International in PQ, Canada and VT, USA, (at that time), was the primary importer along with Val Forgett of Navy Arms, Co. in NJ, USA. The term "Irish Contract" was used specifically in their adverts at the time and the simple answer is it just stuck. Good marketing approach I reckon! Since the late 1980's everyone who puts their NIW No.4Mk2 up for sale, (except me of course!), uses the term "Irish Contract". According to Skip Stratton's book, the only serial number range for Irish contract No.4Mk.2 rifles is PF309348-PF359347. That's 50,000 rifles so they were obviously never delivered as Peter states. I've had many of the freshly unwrapped and new in the wrap rifles and many are no where close to that serial number range although I had a half dozen used Mk.2's complete with numbered No.9Mk.1 bayonets that were definitely in the so called "Irish contract" serial range. My uneducated guess is that there were huge stores of these new rifles that were never delivered. Not just rifles supposedly destined for for the IDF. I think Peter has mentioned RAF contract rifles too in past threads. When the MoD sold them off for export ONLY in the 1980's, they were all taken to Donnington and disposed of, that is if they weren't already there in storage. Maybe Peter can answer that question. All I can say is: "Thank God they didn't get out the gas axe!!". It's amazing to find a 60 year old Lee Enfield service rifle, new in the factory wrapper! I got silly and sold my last few to Arundel Classic Guns in the UK several years ago. I exported a ton of them back via ACG in years past. Some of you gents in Blighty reading this are probably holding them! I've since acquired another one for my little No.4 collection and there it will reside for a long time. I won't unwrap it either!

It's kind of like the NIW M1 Garand rifles that the CMP recently disposed of. They were the end of the contracts as the US was getting ready to start up production of the M14 rifles. The last Garands were given/loaned/sold to US allies. After 2000, a nice lot of them were returned from Greek Air Force surplus stocks, and most were 1955 manufacture. Brand new unfired rifles, produced during a time of transition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian Dick

According to Skip Stratton's book, the only serial number range for Irish contract No.4Mk.2 rifles is PF309348-PF359347. That's 50,000 rifles so they were obviously never delivered as Peter states.

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You are quite right, PF320778, all matching including the magazine sits in my collection in "as new" condition. I bought it at least ten years ago.

Just a side note.
It is Craig Whitsey Gunmakers in Arundel.
They are the company that make the 5.56 / 223 convertion for the No 4.
So I see why they wanted some NEW No 4s.

5.56 No. 4

The Craggy Island Defence Force certainly got some. Their reserves continued to use them until quite recently.

http://michaelotoole.biz/wp-content/...esBray0001.jpg


http://michaelotoole.biz/wp-content/...9/GOH_055a.jpg


Some serial numbers in the so-called 'Irish' range were also sold through the [British] NRA.

Gentlemen, thank you for your insightful and helpful explanations of this "end of the line" of the glorious British Lee Enfield story. Very enlightening.

I found another post on another board that gives details that help clarify the serial numbers and contracts with which countries and the dates of the contracts. It adds more dimensionality to Peter and Brian's insights. Suggest you take a look at post #3 & #21 on:
Enfield No.4 MK2 (F) questions

read6737, No Sir, Craig Whitsey Gunmakers have no relation to Arundel Classic Guns. The rifles sent to him were sold as shooter/collectables. I think the majority if not all were sent to proof in Birmingham so were unwrapped which is a shame.

Capt Laidlerhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif,

I am very glad to have you finally put down on paper your reasons for doubting the general quantity of rifles acquired by the Irish. I have wondered for some years what that information was that you had regarding this.

That notwithstanding, I have done some research, as have others more favorably situated and this research has involved direct communications with the defense archives at Dublin. Here is a summary of what information I have on the topic:

1) The need for 50,000 rifles.

In 1945 the Irish army had the following stock of long arms, distributed between the regular forces and the local defense volunteers:

Rifle Total serviceable
SMLE MK I*** rifles ~9,000 Under 4,500
No 1 MKIII/III* ~32,500 31,000 plus
P14 T 112 112
US Model 1917 19,987 ~19,765

Total: ~61,599 ~54,877

So at the end of the emergency, they had an assorted pile of rifles, or two different calibers, one of which was by no means plentiful (.300). Of those rifles none had been obtained after 1926 (parts were), and many, more than half of the SMLE MK I*** rifles were worn out or lacked forends.

By 1953 the only additions had been some quantity of No1 MKIII .22 cal conversions, partly purchased directly from UK stocks, the remainder converted by parker-hale in 1951/1952 from worn out Irish No1 MKIII rifles. In short they needed new guns and considering the tensions that existed right after the Korean war it was by no means out of the question that if they could get a good price they would not replace the entire rifle stock.

2) Obsolete pattern:

While very apparent now that the Bolt action was obsolete, in 1953 it was not so apparent. The EM2 which had been adopted by the UK in 1949 was still not in production and while 1954 would see the FAL be adopted, in 1953 the only common self-loading rifle used was the M1https://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif. As a neutral state Ireland could not get them, only NATO countries were supplied by the US at that time, perhaps in part due to the fact that the UK did not want Ireland out of their orbit, and had communicated that to the US of A. The No 4 was still the rifle of issue to the UK army and would be until the fall of 1956. Indeed it was not until late in 1961 that the Irish suddenly made purchases of the FAL after some peacekeeper problems in the Congo.

3) Records on Irish Purchase

Ireland did purchase a total of 50,000 No 4 MK II rifles. This is verified by the letter sent to Graham Priest, of which he was nice enough to share a copy of the letter with me, dated 11 April 2000. In the letter a Colonel of the Irish army verifies that a total quantity of 50,000were purchased. He lists the following serial number ranges. The rifles were distributed in these ranges, by no means were they complete through all the ranges :

PF301548 to PF354999
PF360000 to PF 405415
UF55A 152 to UF55 A21266


In separate correspondence regarding the Irish adoption of the Carl Gustav M45 submachine gun, a mention is made that at the same time of those trials (1953) a quantity of 500 No4 MK II rifles were obtained directly from the Britishhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif MOD for Irish trials. These rifles would have to lie outside of the regular number sequence, as they can have been purchased no later than the October of 1953, and as such predate the known start of the Irish contract (November of 1953 production start, first regular shipments to Ireland no earlier than late April/May 1954, with the issue to the army occurring in October of 1954).

4) Disposal of The Irish Contract:

Between 1991 and 1997 Ireland sold a total of No 4 MK II rifles. Here are the sales records as published by the Irish ministry of defense, in response to an inquiry made to them regarding sales between 1988 and 2000:

1991 5,889 including .22 cal rifles (either 989 or 889 .22 cal rifles)
1993 20,000
1994 8,000
1996/1997 16,000

The following quantities of arms were still in storage as late 2003, In Irish stocks. At that time one of the No4 MK I T rifles had been de-watted for display in a museum. Once gain these records obtained from the Irish ministry of defense.

No 4 MK 2 740
No 4 MK 2 with PH5C sights 100
No 4 MK I (T) 50

Now from the above you will note a missing figure of either 140 or 240 rifles. This is explained by a former soldier of the Irish reserves who explained at the time of the final disposal in 1997 all of the drill rifles were destroyed. He even sent me a picture of an armory with one in a rack from 1993, with a single white band on the buttstock.

In collecting various accounts from soldiers in the FSC, individuals involved in the packing for delivery of the rifles were found, who verified the inventory and packing of the 1993 and 1997 lot. In the case of the 1997 lot, all were like new and the soldier posting on this indicated they unpacked the rifles from boxes, with 5 rifles each, each packed along with an unmarked No 9 Mk I bayonet still in grease. Each serial number had to be verified and so they made a slit in the packing paper over the action body to verify each and every serial number. Which is commonly seen on a lot of the rifles….

So from various sources the full quantity of 50,000 rifles and their disposal are explained.

5) Explanation of the serial numbers and why they are seen in other places other than Ireland:

That will have to wait until tomorrow night as it would take a lot of time to explain what info has come to light, and this post is long enough.

Frederick (known as Fritz on Gunboards)

---------- Post added at 12:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 AM ----------

Poo, the formating is messed up.

Thanks for the corection Brian.
Always thought they were one and the same.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

I don’t think there is any secret whatsoever, that Britain, among other nations, supplied vast Arms shipments to the factions fighting the Soviet backed Afghan Army and Russian supporting Army years earlier.

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Not much a secret Peter, its just a fact no one wants to accept ..... and regarding the other nations I would of said "along with some other Big Nations"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

Frederick (known as Fritz on Gunboards)

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Thanks Frederick/Fritz. It's great to have data/evidence based on detailed research. Thanks for taking the time to dig into the historical record -- it really helps unscramble fact from speculation. Looking forward to your next post.

Reading between the lines, the Brits, who, at the time, were less than trusting of the Irish (and vice versus), figured they could sell the Irish shed load of soon to be obsolete rifles and keep the production lines at Fazakerley running and the union happy. Obviously it required MoD to approve the sale, which made political and economic sense as well. MoD was probably quite aware of the phase-out/phase-in schedule for the new NATO rifles -- something the Irish were not aware of.

Guess we are now the beneficiaries of such tom-foolery. Strange how events of the past take on a life of their own.

Seaspriter.

Methinks that Capt. Laidler’s point is the official history and the actual one may be different. I find it kind of hard to believe given what has been dug up from official sources, but at the same time I find it hard to doubt Captain Laidler, who is one of the best primary sources we have and is as close to the internal working of Commonwealth ordnance would not be in possession of the “real story”.

Quite confusing, but then again I have a hard time understanding how a train could be late when the schedule clearly says it will be in the Bahnhof at 2:15 and yet at 2:17 the train has not arrived.

So Great Britian made rifles 25 years before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and placed them in storage waiting to send them to the Mujahadeen. Talk about foresight.

I would think an order for 50000 rifles would show up in the arsenal command histories for that period.


Rick

In the 1970s I was posted to Canadian National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. One of my friends was also posted there in the small arms shop. He had access to small arms inventories. He had noted that several thousands ( tens of thousands) of LB No4s had been removed from inventory from the Depot in Montreal. Based on some inquiries he stated that these had been taken from stock, by a few selected personnel on a weekend. There was also a request for a million rounds of .303. There were not enough rounds in inventory so, as the tail continues, additional ammunition was purchased from Canadian Tire. The suspicion was that the buyer was the CIA.
I would be interested to know if a number of rifles captured in Afghanistan were LBs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RCEMERalf

In the 1970s I was posted to Canadian National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. One of my friends was also posted there in the small arms shop. He had access to small arms inventories. He had noted that several thousands ( tens of thousands) of LB No4s had been removed from inventory from the Depot in Montreal. Based on some inquiries he stated that these had been taken from stock, by a few selected personnel on a weekend. There was also a request for a million rounds of .303. There were not enough rounds in inventory so, as the tail continues, additional ammunition was purchased from Canadian Tire. The suspicion was that the buyer was the CIA.
I would be interested to know if a number of rifles captured in Afghanistan were LBs.

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I have some buddies who went to Afghanistan (one was a weapons tech) and they said they saw some Long Branch Lee Enfields there (there one of there jobs was to cut up the rifles they captured). So at least some of the rifles over there were LBs not sure how many as I wasn't there personally but I know at least some are.

There was military contract "white box" Mk.7z ammo produced in the late 70's and early 80's by Winchester that was rumored to be for the CIA and export to Afghanistan. People forget that the cold war was still in full swing in those days. The NATO countries were arming anyone deemed fit to help stop the communist threat world wide. Much of that work was done clandestinely.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian Dick

There was military contract "white box" Mk.7z ammo produced in the late 70's and early 80's by Winchester that was rumored to be for the CIA and export to Afghanistan. People forget that the cold war was still in full swing in those days. The NATO countries were arming anyone deemed fit to help stop the communist threat world wide. Much of that work was done clandestinely.

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I thought the Egyptians made ammo for the CIA. The problem I see it is the principal of plauseable deniability. Using a rifle and caliber from Western power pretty much tells you who is arming them. I thought the CIA was running AK's into Afghanistan.

I'm sure the CIA and other intelligence organizations purchased ammo from many different sources and ran all sorts of weapons into Afghanistan. Logistics was hugely problematic too from what I've read about the Russian invasion days. Lees played a big part because the indigenous folks had been using them for years. Plus they were cheap and available.

Great thread all around! Been waiting for this one for a while. :thup:

I recall the sudden disappearance of 303 surplus around December of 1979. Prior to that you could buy surplus, at most gun shops. A firm called Paragon had it by the case, still in the 288 round chests. By late 1981 it was hard to get. By 1984 to 1985, I recall going to a store in an out of the way place to pick over their loss Interams .303 which had the 174 grain bullets pulled and replaced with 150 grain soft points from Finland. That all changed in the late 1980s, right around late 1988 when suddenly it appeared on the market again.


That said, back to the Irish connection: Where if anyplace doe the official documents provided by the Irish archives go wrong? I for one would like to know. None of the disposition records of the Irish Army support a sales date for any No4 MK II rifles prior to 1991. The Russians pulled out in 1989 if my memory serves me right. If a direct answer is not forthcoming, well I will have to respectfully disagree with Capt. Laidler’ assertions regarding the 50,000 order not being completed.

This story is getting better every day. It's starting to explain the Lee Enfield's role in the cold war. All we need now is a little Ian Fleming and some good 007 Bond music. A couple of questions:
1) Why didn't the CIA:
- get the Greek HXP 303 ammo that we are now buying for surplus ( or maybe they got most of it. All my HXP is dated '69 and '75. Maybe the CIA got all the production from all except those years)
- buy the Irish surplus rifles?
- buy stocks of Ishapore Enfields that were in abundance and nearby in India?

2) Were Interarmco and/or Century Arms working as front for the CIA? (Buying large stocks of surplus, then diverting some of it to hot spots?)

Interested in small tid-bits that can be pieced together as well as "big stories.

"My uneducated guess is that there were huge stores of these new rifles that were never delivered. Not just rifles supposedly destined for for the IDF."

Not only that batch, I had some notes somewhere showing how No4s in made in 1955 got to stores in December and then were sold out within a few months (Jan/Feb) to Parker Hale and rifle associations. I also have one gun that has sold out of service marks but has a serial number in an unknown range. I have also read about "make work" for the Faz plant so I just wonder if all these batches being done for "african nations" etc was make believe, simply odne to justify keeping the plant going?

---------- Post added at 06:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:13 PM ----------

Fredrick, it maybe that many were done, just that the irish never ordered that many, it was make work, see my comment above.

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:15 PM ----------

Oh and I have what I think is an Irish gun PF320178 converted to sporting spec awaiting me restoring it but the metalwork looks "as new" hence its worth it. It had been stored in a guy's dad's safe for 35 years and not used and not much before that. So sold off piece meal springs to mind.

SSJ, re-read my first post on this thread. The Irish Army says:

1) They bought 50,000 (1953 to 1955)


2) They sold ~49,000 (between 1991 and 1997)

3) They still had (as of late 2003) 840 plus 50 snipers

4) DP rifles were never sold, they were dumped at sea (between 140 and 240 rifles)

First 3 came from Irish Army records. Last point not from official Army letter but individual in FCA.

If Captain Laidler is correct, the records are................altered

In spite of these 'records' - that no one else seems to have had sight of, yet, you STILL havent managed to give even a slightest sniff of a reason why long prior to these 'recorded' dates, large batches of these 'Irish' rifles turned up in (presumably.....) 80's British Ordnance supplied stocks in the hands of Afg hands. And why they STILL turn up on ex British Army marked rifles, recently sold off into the US, as I explained.

I appreciate that the Irish issue is being clouded by some of the red-herring respondents here so far, but the simple facts thus far just seem to speak for themselves.
Why would a neutral state with (and let's not mix words here.....) with a tiny Defence Force and financial budget* to boot want more rifles and MG's than the British Army of the same era?
Why have these rifles turned up elsewhere.

* Their Def Fce budget was so small that they couldn't afford to buy 250 Sterling SMG's in 1956 and Sterling couldn't lower the already cut-to-the-bone price

( amended: Para 2, line 4 not worded right but you get the point)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seaspriter

This story is getting better every day. It's starting to explain the Lee Enfield's role in the cold war. All we need now is a little Ian Fleming and some good 007 Bond music. A couple of questions:
1) Why didn't the CIA:
- get the Greek HXP 303 ammo that we are now buying for surplus ( or maybe they got most of it. All my HXP is dated '69 and '75. Maybe the CIA got all the production from all except those years)
- buy the Irish surplus rifles?
- buy stocks of Ishapore Enfields that were in abundance and nearby in India?

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Why buy from India (a neutral power during the Cold War, they weren't exactly with us, but they weren't against us either) when Canada, the U.K. and potentially other allies have a large stockpile of NIB rifles just ready to go (and depending on the circumstances might not have even had to buy the rifles as sometimes these things were given away if it was a 'good' cause).

I also imagine for the Greek HXP it was more the fact that everyone else had surplus ammo rather than just Greece (like we are seeing now).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Why would a neutral state with (and let's not mix words here.....) with a tiny Defence Force and financial budget* to boot want more rifles and MG's than the British Army of the same era?

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Peter, what I'm going to postulate here is PURE SPECULATION, but it is based on some knowledge of the Irish-English antagonism that dates from the 1600s and only in the last twenty years has begun to wane, ever since the Good Friday accords of 1998 (the day was quite symbolic).

If we bear in mind that the Irish have a long memory of English antagonism (I personally understand this being of Irish-English heritage); and the Irish considered themselves enslaved by the British (every "real Irishman" can cite the Battle of the Boyne -1690, or the Potato Famine -1849-52, or the Bloody Sunday Massacre -1920 as defining moments in their history), then what I'm speculating has some relevance. Ireland saw itself as a divided country, with 1/6th of its land mass still partitioned off as Northern Ireland, a part of Great Britain. In Irish eyes, Northern Ireland sat as the site of an alien occupational force.

In 1949 Ireland was finally declared a Republic, receiving full autonomy of rule from England. Sinn Fein and the IRA were still very active (many of us still recall the IRA bombings in London only a few decades ago).

It is fully possible (although I have never seen documentation on this, and if there is any, it would be in the heads of the IRA) that Ireland was thinking about arming a citizen militia (much like colonial America did) to reclaim Northern Ireland with a citizen's force (lead by the IRA) marching on Belfast -- a liberation from the evil oppressor and a unification of the country.

Now this might seem far-fetched in today's world, but, as an amateur historian, I can say it would not be outside the realm of possibility in 1953-4. Obviously it didn't happen, and saner minds prevailed. But given the history of Sinn Fein and the IRA between 1949 and 1998, a "free Northern Ireland" initiative cannot be ruled out, and there are still scattered efforts for unification to this day.

Peter, this may explain your very astute and reasonable speculation.

Mmmmm......... Some, but not me you understand, with a view to a sympathetic market place might wish to capitalise on the sympathies associated with this enslavement, the British tyranny, heavy yoke of oppression and the sympathies that go with our tryrannical past might argue that the feisty Irish connection was a good selling point. But not me you understand.......

Captain Laidler:


Regarding no one else seeing the records:


Fair comment but prior to this no one has asked. So I will send you the 11 April 2000 letter to Graham Priest, whom I am pretty sure you know. That establishes the purchase quantity and remaining quantity of arms on hand as of early 2000. As this research belongs to him, I am not posting it on this site, but I am sure he would not mind if you had a copy. Please see your private Email.


With regards to that letter, it also establishes a method by which a rifle and bayonet combination can reasonably be assigned as being Irish issue. More on that in another post.


Also in all future posts I will also provide the source material for each and every assertion.


Regards

Frederick303

After reading some of Hansard's record of House of Commons debates I think I understand it. They rearmed the Irish government so it would be able to control the IRA and stop attacks along the border with Northern Ireland. Giving them Lee Enfields makes sense. It arms them but not strong enough to be a threat if the government should fall.

Commons Sittings in the 20th century (Hansard)

And by the way.

Lord TREFGARNE HL Deb 24 June 1980 vol 410 cc1475-7

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord is disappointed about the Minister who is answering his Question today. His Question is, however, tabled to the Government and I answer for the Government, as do all other Ministers from this Box. As for military aid to the insurgents, which the noble Lord was suggesting, the Afghan opposition to the Soviet Union appears 1476 to be sustained without external assistance. The main source of weapons for the insurgents seems to have been those obtained from Afghans defecting from the Afghan army and also those that they have captured from the Russians. I should like to make it quite clear that the United Kingdom have not supplied arms to the insurgents, as has been suggested. Indeed, the suggestions that we and various other nations instigated the fighting in Afghanistan by supplying the arms are of course quite untrue.

Rick

Captain Laidlerhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif,

Prior to going over the serial number issue you have raised, I would like to make the case that the Irish Army would have considered purchasing 50,000 rifles, which is one of your primary arguments as to why they did not purchase 50,000, they had no reason to. As this involves figures, let me list the primary sources for each assertion prior to putting out the data itself:

For quantity of Arms held by the Irish army in 1945:

“The Irish Sword” Journal of Irish military history, “the Emergency Army” pages: 36 to page 39
And:
A History of the Irish Army, John p. Duggan, Gill and MacMillian 1991


For the size of Irish Army in WWII and the post war period up to 1961 (establishing their need for arms)

A History of the Irish Army, John p. Duggan, Gill and MacMillian 1991
And
Irish Army Orders of Battle, 1923-2004, A. J. English, Tiger Lily books, division of General Data LLC 2008


For the quantity of No1 MK III rifles left in Irish hands as of between 1961 and 1987

Small Arms Today, Edward Ezell, 2nd edition, 1988
And
Email communications with Nick Price, Helston Gunsmiths, Cornwall UK.


Best on-line source that covers the WWII era and is the source of all WWII LDF arms counts (also has the regular army stocks listed) is:

The War Room - Irish Defense Forces 1939-1945



Now to the numbers of SMLE/Rifles/army size/FCA size/etc:

As previously stated here were the stocks of small arms held by Ireland in 1945:

Enfields, SMLEMKI*** and SMLE MK III/III* ~42,413
P14 sniper rifles 112
M1917 .300 cal rifles ~19,985
Total: 62,510

So the Irish Army held over 60,000 rifles in May of 1945, of which no less than around 55,000 were serviceable (according to best estimates).


Strength of Irish Army:

Here are the official figures on the Irish defense forces and FCA as of the dates listed:

Regular Army

April 1940 Total strength, officers and ranks, 17,156
March 1943 Total strength, officers and ranks, 38,394
March 1944 Total strength, officers and ranks, 36,211
March 1945 Total strength, officers and ranks, 32,115

To this must be added the local defense forces (LDF):

March 1941 Total strength, officers and ranks, 88,035
March 1942 Total strength, officers and ranks, 98,439
March 1943 Total strength, officers and ranks, 103,530
March 1944 Total strength, officers and ranks, 96,152
March 1945 Total strength, officers and ranks, 84,449

Not all the LDF were armed; here are their issued arms as of various dates. Rifles include both SMLE and M1917 rifles, with the M1917 figure being around 19,960 of the total.

March 1942 Rifles 21,589, Shotguns 11370 total long arms: 32,959
March 1943 Rifles 27,689, shotguns 11365 total long arms: 39,054
March 1944 Rifles 27,009, shotguns 11944 total long arms: 38,953
March 1945 Rifles 27,298, shotguns 08218 total long arms: 35,516


So by the end of the war they had muster strengths, between the army and LDF of between 116,000 and 139,000, with around 62,000 rifles and 11,000 shotguns or 73,000 long arms. At that there were shortages of long arms throughout the war; you only see the numbers of shotguns issued declining in 1945 when the shotgun issue strength drops to 8,200 from a high of 11,944 in March of 1944.

So I think my case is made right here, in the mobilized state the Irish army could justify at least 60,000 rifles being on hand. But being the through engineering chap I am, let’s look at the post war plans, strengths to see if the post war period could justify 50,000 rifles, let alone the total figure I would assert, which is ~61,000 Serviceable bolt action Enfield Rifleshttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif (of all types) held between 1961 and 1987. Mind you the first major Irish sale of arms occurred to Interarms in 1961 so between 1956 and 1961 the peak holding of the Irish army exceeded 105,000 rifles of Enfield or M1917 pattern, with 5,000 + unserviceable arms that would eventually be dumped at sea between 1961 and 1966.

Post war strengths between 1946 and 1961:

After WWII both the regular defense forces and the LDF saw rapid declines:

In Feb 1945 the parliament approved a peace time defense force of 12.740 ranks and officers, with the army strength authorized at 10,900. For the entire period from 1946 to 1961 the strength of the Army declined from ~9000 men at the end of 1945 to ~8000 men in 1961

March of 1947 the strength was down to 8,803
March of 1948 the strength was down to 8,539
March of 1952 the strength was down to ~8,400
March of 1956 the strength was down to ~8,230
March of 1960 the strength was down to ~8,249

The formal Army reserves (not LDF or FCA) numbered around 5,750 during this entire period.

So in that regard Capt. Laidler is very much correct, the strength of the regular army was very low with an establishment of no more than 9 Infantry Battalions on paper, with most of them at less than full strength. On mobilization, (Full WWII style) the Army had plans to expand to 2 divisions + independent units, a hopeless task as it would have required something like 45,000 men considering the regulars and reserves forces.

But that leaves out the LDF, or after 1946 the FCA.

In 1946 the plan was laid down to have 99 battalions, with 6 of the urban battalions to be equipped on par with the regular army (at full strength). The rest of the battalions were required to have at least 150 effective volunteers (effectively companies). FCA battalions were to have Enfield rifles (no automatics) and each battalion would have no less than 6 or 12 (full strength battalion) .22 cal conversions which would be used for training, as most FCA units had no ranges to use, other than local small bore ranges.

So the 1946 requirements for the FCA were as follows:
6 battalions 700 rifles 4,200 rifles
93 battalions x ~350 rifles. 32,550 rifles (the highest anticipated strength being ½ TOE)
105 x 6 .22 cal conversions 630 rifles

Or a total requirement for 37,380 Enfield rifles

If you consider most units struggles to meet the 150 minimum requirement; or say 175 on average being closer to the real count, the numbers needed were far less. That is a total requirement for 21,105 Enfield rifles

Now as to actual strengths:

In March 1946 25,776 remained in LDF when it became the FCA
At the end of 1946 only 21,784 remained.

So the above analysis is not far off.

Exact figures are not published after the above date, but it would seem, reading between the lines that between 1946 and 1956 the FCA remained at strength of between 19,000 and 24,000 total (estimates). After Integration in 1957/58 the numbers went up (figure not found) only to decline again after 1962 when mandatory age limits took effect and the permanent defense forces were once again reequipped with modern arms such as the FN-FAL and FN-MAG. It would seem from 1963 to 1988 when the FCA was re-equipped with retired FAL rifles the FCA strength was always declining and units consolidating. This occurs just about the time of a young Britishhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif soldier joining the British army as an armourer apprentice, and so would have been the underlying current of his time in service.

But the purchase of the No4 MK II rifles dates from the period of 1953 through 1955. What matters is the thinking then. At that period, a decade after WWII the Irish defense forces were still thinking in terms of WWII style mobilization and once again making a sizable defense force.

The regular Army was first equipped with No4 MK II rifles in October of 1954
The FCA was equipped with No 4 MK II rifles starting in 1956.

After re-equipment and trials in 1957 the FCA was integrated into existing units with the regular starting in 1958. Between 1958 and 1960 there was an increase in enrollment and use, along with the Border troubles. The highest estimate I have seen for enrolled FCA soldiers in this period was on the order of 27,000 in the 1957 to 1959 time frame. It might have been lower but in that crucial time of the rifle purchases the Irish defense forces were thinking about a larger FCA force, not a declining one.

So if you add up the authorized strength of the total defense forces ( 12,740), Authorized Army reserve (5,750) and theoretical FCA full bore requirement (36,7500) you get : 55,240 rifles , but bear in mind that not every single soldier needs a rifle so 50,000 might do handy.

I think this makes the point as well, on paper there could be a requirement for 50,000 rifles.

One last note: If we go by official figures, even after the great big Interarms sales in 1961 of over 44,000 rifles (see the FF rifle sticky on Gunboards under Fritz for my write up on that), the facts indicate that 10,000 SMLE MK III rifles were retained, along with 500 No 1 MKIII barreled actions.

That they existed is testified by the 1966 film the Blue Max, filmed in Ireland. You will note in that film the Germanhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif infantry is equipped with Brand new No4 MK II rifles, No 9 bayonets and Vickers M29 helmets, while the Brits seem to be equipped with SMLE MKIII rifles. All the equipment for the ground forces in that film came from Irish army/FCA stocks.

In any case the held SMLE MKIII rifles were not sold off until late 1987. So the Irish army kept a stock of 60,000 Enfield rifles on hand (plus the .22 trainers), if the letter from the Irish army archives is to be believed. Which is very much in line with the what they had on hand at the end of WWII.

Which brings us back to the final issue you raised, the serial number ranges: I have some what of an answer to that, but rather than write it up, once I have found a way to send you the letter from the Irish army and you have reviewed it and you have read the above I ask for the following:

Do you agree that the above addresses the possibility that the Irish army would have seen a requirement for 50,000 rifles?

I see no further reason to go on until the acceptance of A) sources and B) reason that they might want that many rifles is resolved. Once in agreement on that, I will then present the evidence I have researched regarding the serial number range and how to identify a rifles as being from Ireland. A great part of that was tracing down when the guns were sold, where they went, ETC.

If you do disagree, lets resolve the above before proceeding. I recognize I could be wrong on this but I am laying all the data I have on the table for you to see. I would ask you do to the same, subject to any data that must be held in confidence. I would love to see tables of serial numbers found in the middel east, it woudl help refine my estimates.

With much respect

Frederick

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rickv100

After reading some of Hansard's record of House of Commons debates I think I understand it. They rearmed the Irish government so it would be able to control the IRA and stop attacks along the border with Northern Ireland. Giving them Lee Enfields makes sense. It arms them but not strong enough to be a threat if the government should fall.

Commons Sittings in the 20th century (Hansard)

And by the way.

Lord TREFGARNE HL Deb 24 June 1980 vol 410 cc1475-7

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord is disappointed about the Minister who is answering his Question today. His Question is, however, tabled to the Government and I answer for the Government, as do all other Ministers from this Box. As for military aid to the insurgents, which the noble Lord was suggesting, the Afghan opposition to the Soviet Union appears 1476 to be sustained without external assistance. The main source of weapons for the insurgents seems to have been those obtained from Afghans defecting from the Afghan army and also those that they have captured from the Russians. I should like to make it quite clear that the United Kingdom have not supplied arms to the insurgents, as has been suggested. Indeed, the suggestions that we and various other nations instigated the fighting in Afghanistan by supplying the arms are of course quite untrue.

Rick

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Most probably true Rick (if you can ever believe anything that is said in the house of commons), but they would of supplied arms to a third party who would of supplied them probably through another party till they reached the Destination, basic money laundering with rifles.....

I cannot comment on the Irish contract as I do NOT have access to the source materials. However when we look at what happened to stores of 'Surplus' rifles we have to remember that regulations on private arms deals were a lot looser in the 50s and 60s than they are today.
We also have to remember that the Soviet Afghan war lasted quite a long time. 1979 to 1985 see.
Soviet war in Afghanistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For a good explanation of the 'Groupings' in the war. Russia was backing India at the time. So the Pakistanis turned to the Chinese for some stuff such as aircraft as the USA could not supply because of the Israeli situation etc. In the early stages all the arms for the rebels came over the Pakistan border. Lee Enfields were deniable and shipping more in to Pakistan was relatively easy.

Now whether they went from Canada or the UK direct to Pakistan is the first question. Who paid for them is second question. Who shipped them is the third question and so on. Much of it was financed by Saudi Arabia. Most of it was controlled by the Pakistan Secret Service which at the time had a growing fundamentalist section which was to come back and haunt us in the shape of their support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

As the war ramped up it became clear that the Mujhadeen needed better equipment and so 'Acquired' stocks of AK47s went in plus mines plus anti aircraft rockets inc the famous Stingers. Why? A mixture of reasons. The USA getting it's own back on the Soviets for their support of the North Vietnamese & VC in Vietnam. The U.K. to keep on side with the Chinese over the Hong Kong negotiations. The Saudis as they thought the Russians were 'Infidels' AND needed to counter Iran in the 'Leadership of the Muslim world' stakes.

This has now developed into the Shia Sunni war being fought in Iraq and Syria which is a 'Proxy War' between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In the next few years it will be interesting to see if the west shifts from supporting the Saudis to the Iranians. It will be interesting to see if Iran becomes more 'Liberal' as Saudi Arabia becomes more 'Fundamentalist'. The international arms trade has always been a fascinating one to watch over the last 70 years.

Fred, got all your messages and will respond but good lord, it's not a complete epistle that's needed as in thread 31. You could precis that thread relevant to my original doubts (of about 1980 or so) by giving the strength of the tiny Ir Def Force c.1954/5 and the order/contract for the collosal amount 'needed' at the time

Backed up by a one line answer of just why so many of this so called Irish order have turned up, from UK Military stocks, delivered via Pakistan, in Afghanistan. And that's in just a couple of Int briefings/summaries/reports. Now multiply that over 10 years(?) worth of same that I never saw. And just why and how have these same batch/serial numbers turned up on UK mil weapons and as we now learn from the thread (that's in great danger of being diverted) that many from these Irish batches were in private hands too.

I ain't convinced

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

On the reason for Ireland buying 50,000 enfields.

---

Frederick, as an amateur historian, I deeply appreciate the hard work it takes to dig up the facts, do the calculations, and put your engineering mind to work. And while it is a rather long post, I read every word and find the sharing of this very data intriguing, enlightening, thought provoking, and highly beneficial. You are clearly trying to sort fact from opinion.

What we find when we do research on controversial subjects is that quite often there are:
1) anomalies in the data (which Captain Laidler is pointing out),
2) politicians say one thing, but it is a smokescreen for exactly the opposite (which Rickyv100 is quoting from Lord TREFGARNE), and
3) rather than solve all controversies, facts often raise a new level of questions (which is what's happening now.)
All these can ultimately lead to the truth ( which may not be what we expected when we started the search).

In examining history it's often not a black or white, either/or, one way or t'other, rather its often the confluence of many interactive forces/interests pulling and tugging the issue in multiple directions.

There is the distinct possibility that both Frederick and Captain Laidler are both right to some extent. The important thing here is not to turn a debate into a black and white, one side is right, the other wrong wrangle. Instead, lets look carefully at what the evidence is telling us and at this stage let the anomalies speak with the same veracity as the facts.

For example:
1) The Irish may have, indeed, needed to replenish their old stock of rifles, and, like the neutral Swiss may have wanted to fully arm a large civil defense force -- Britain has its CCF program, US has its CMP program, etc. -- and in 1954 there was a deep concern the Russians would try to pick off any non-NATO country to control Europe.
2)There may have also been a small, silent contingent that wanted to have an civilian force that could storm the ramparts of Northern Ireland to liberate the oppressor and reunite the country.
3) Over in Britain, keeping the Faz plant operational during the post-war rebuilding effort made economic and military sense, even if the rifles were "make work" and not sold at a profit, it beat putting skilled labourers into the ranks of the unemployed collecting benefits.
4) And the evidence also leads us to believe the CIA, which was deathly afraid of both Chinese and Russian world domination, may have picked up a sizeable portion of the Fazakerley production run (the stray serial numbers, perhaps ~15,000) and diverted them to other parts of the world to arm anti-communist insurgents.

All these factors could have been at play simultaneously and that is what is making this debate fascinating and revealing, and not solved by an either/or answer. This may be a conundrum for our engineering minds that naturally search a simple explanation, but history is often cluttered with multiple forces, illogical decisions, and ambiguities of memory.

Let's keep this set of revelations going, as others are chiming in with pieces of information from their war experiences that may lead us to some fascinating conclusions or more logical explanations of what really happened. Truth may be still hidden in the nooks and crannies of fragmented facts and foggy memories being reactivated.

Capt Laidler,

I await your review on the letter from V Laing, OIC of the Military records, once you get it. If need be I will mail you a copy, it is up to you. That is a definitive record. You will note in that letter that the range of serial numbers provides at least a basic answer to why you would see a lot of the so called Irish contract in other areas; the rifles sent included a much larger range of serial numbers than has previously been understood As detailed responses with sources do not seem to be of interest I will drop the subject with that letter.

Regards

FRS


Seaspriter,

Thanks for your kind words, but I think I am beating a dead horse on this topic of little interest to most folks on the forum. By the bye, do you know a Richard Gloyd down in the Naples/Fort Meyer area?

Regards

FRS

There is, as far as I know, only one precedent for a small nation purchasing a disproportionate quantity of rifles.
After the Jameson Raid (1895) the Transvaal Republic correctly deduced that they would be soon targeted by the British Empire. They imported first, enough Martini Henrys (in .577/.450 cal) to equip every adult male citizen. And then a couple of years later they imported 37,000 7mm Mausers, enough to arm everyone all over again, with rifles to spare for their sister republic, the Orange Free State who had somewhat under-ordered from Mauser. And the Transvaal imported 50 million rounds of 7x57 Mauser ammo. And the best artillery pieces which France and Germany could supply. But, this was fuelled by an entirely realistic fear of impending attack.
In all ignorance I need to ask: What was the mood of fear in Eire in 1955 which fuelled the purchase of 50,000 No4 Mk 2s? Did they import millions of rounds of .303 ammo? Did they import artillery and fighting vehicles?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

I think I am beating a dead horse on this topic of little interest to most folks on the forum.

---

Frederick, don't be dismayed.

In the 4 days this thread has been running we are closing in on nearly 1000 views, which means there may be a lot of silent observers who are keenly interested but don't have a substantive contribution. They are like "readers" and "observers" of the unfolding of a piece of history that has been heretofore poorly understood.

Please keep the debate alive -- as I said in my earlier post: the answer we find "may not be what we expected when we started the search." That's what makes history so fascinating. Not everyone will be convinced by the very same evidence -- we all come from many different backgrounds and points of view. As long as the debate is strong, fair, and not personally demeaning, it will be lively, revealing, and ultimately enlightening. Frederick, you've put your considerable evidence squarely in front of a global audience, you've been generous, objective, and extremely considerate of the people involved. Give us time to thrash it around, pull and tug on it, see it from many perspectives, thrive on the healthy exchange, and maybe derive some new data that lifts up to a truly new level of understanding.

I think there is a lot more to this story than meets the eye, and I'm curious what was really going on behind the scenes. It may take "reading between the lines" -- what's not said or what was implied or what was really intended in all those letters that explains the anomalies.

Seaspriter,

I was not disturbed or “taking my marbles and going home”, so to speak. Rather I was observing that Capt. Laidler for whatever reason was not really willing to go into the details that went into forming his opinion. Now it has been my observation that Capt. Laidler is a very through researcher, thorugh engineer and any opinion he has is well worth considering. Prior to dismissing what he says one had better be pretty sure of oneself. His book on the No 32 optics/No4 T is pretty much the book to read and his book on the Sterling is a very well researched volume, my copy is well worn, (though it really needs to be signed). In this case he has given a glimpse but nothing more on to some of the reasons for his opinion. Given the nature of the topic there may well be a reason for that so I was simply not belaboring the point. I had not noticed the numbers reading the thread and as not many had chimed in I though the topic was pretty esoteric and not of great interest to most folks.

If you get up to Easton, drop me a line and we can get a bite to eat or discuss rifles. I always enjoy that.

RobD,

I have some stuff on other Army purchases that may help illustrate the mind of the Irish army in the 1952 to 1959 time frame., I will try to write it up this evening. Now it is off to the range for a bit.

Regards

Frederick Salberta

They did take some other steps to modernise the Irish Defence Forces around this time. Some 25-pndrs were purchased from England to replace the 18-pndrs they had been given in 1922, which were looking a bit long in the tooth by this time, and some Comet tanks as well. Some Panhard armoured cars, which turned out to be mechanically rather unreliable, were purchased from France.

Although I don't have any facts to offer, I, for one, am enjoying the read. I hope to see it continue. I do have a 6/53 Mk.2 PF 309129 that falls in the N/K batch.

RobDD

Not to get back into it, but since you ask directly:

Here is a list of the significant purchases of ground equipment and the dates: All from the previous listed sources, except the .22 cal rifle purchase. Dates approximate, some reflect order date, so reflect delivery date.

1948: 4 Churchill Tanks
1949: 16 MKII/1 25 pounders .
1949: 6 6 pounders.
1950/52: ~990 SMLE MKIII .22 cal. conversions, partially from excess RAF stock sand partially from rifles rebuilt by Parker hale.
1951~52 12 17 pounders.
1952/53: 8 Rebuilt 25 pounders.
1953: Karl Gustave sub machine guns, Quantity unknown but over 600, based on Military archives (most likely a lot more, if TOE is to be believed no less than 2,300.
1954: 18 Bofers L60 AA guns
1954 to 1956: a certain quantity of No 4 MK II rifles.
1954 to 1955: 24 MK III 25 pounders
1954~1957: 72 Brandt 120 mm mortars.
1958: two radar controlled 40 mm Bofers L70 AA guns and associated kit. (Free?)
1958~59: 8 Comet tanks.


The data above does not exactly cover the plans of the Irish army, For example on the 25 Pounders the requirement for replacement of the 75 mm (12), 18 pounders (37) and 3.7 inch Howitzers (4) was formulated in 1948. The First 16 were purchased around 1949. In 1952/53 an additional 8 rebuilt 25 pounders were received.

Now that gave the Irish army 24 25 pounder in 1953 with 4,800 rounds of ammunition. That same year the formal mobilization plans of the Irish army showed a requirement for 192 guns (~3 division supply of 64 guns each) and ~200,000 rounds of ammunition. The British offered to sell in 53/54 35,500 rounds of 25 Pounder shell ammunition with an older pattern fuse. That older fuse was a matter of some dispute, the exact issue not contained in the Info I have.

In any case the final figure of 25 Pounders obtained by 1959 was 48, of three patterns (MK II/1, MKIII/1 and MKIV/1, all on the MK I carriage.

Because that was insufficient for the total mobilization needs, the ancient 18 pounders remained in service until at least the late 1960s, (perhaps only on paper) with something like 36 remaining on the books between various forts and units. The 3.7, 75mm and 60 pounders were all sold to interarms in 1959.

Why such a small force (~8000 regulars) needed 48 25 pounders, 36 18 pounders and 72 120 mm Mortars unless they had plans to expand in time of war is something worth considering. Similar the reference found to the staff requirement for 192 25 pounders and 200,000 rounds of ammunition for them is also indicative of the mind set at the time the No4 MK II rifles were purchased.

Regards

Fredrick

One last request to anyone who might also be on Gunboards: I have not been able to get on that board for some time. My log on was “Fritz” on that site and I did a few Irish rifle write ups for that site. In any case I lost my password and changed my Email address twice since. Since then I cannot get a response from the administrators to find a way to get back on as” Fritz”, I presume because I need to access the site form my old email that no longer exists. Could anyone who is on that site Email the admin for me? I was never in trouble with any admin, nor was I thrown off. Not sure how else to get the Admin attention, as they have ignored all my emails from outside of the system.

Thanks to anyone who can help, private email for needed details.

Frederick, do you know what happened to the hundreds of millions of rounds of .303 ammo that would have been needed to feed the rifles?
Are we yet to see it emerge onto the open market, or was it the WW2-dated stuff which we have been shooting for decades - with increasingly click-bang results?

I seem to recall that Winchester made it for them. They were supposedly still set up to make it some years back when HBSA was looking at getting some made.

Fredrick I have an Irish contract sportster the seller got it off his dad in the early 1980s, and it sat in his safe until 2 year ago with the 20 rounds of ammo (6 used) and held by him until I bought it, ergo some guns must have been sold earlier than 1991.

rickv100, slight of hand maybe, Eire is not the United Kingdom.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RobD

Frederick, do you know what happened to the hundreds of millions of rounds of .303 ammo that would have been needed to feed the rifles?
Are we yet to see it emerge onto the open market, or was it the WW2-dated stuff which we have been shooting for decades - with increasingly click-bang results?

---

There is always this plain jane stuff that has been a bit of a mystery [ATTACH]61816[/

Can anyone date this box of .303?

And there is all the unmarked POF .303 that is showing up a lot lately on the market.

Military Surplus Ammo 303 British 174 Grain Full Metal Jacket Berdan


Just a thought not expert.

Since Folks seem to be interested I will continue with info until folks say “oh please….just shut up!”, as I confess some years ago I spent a lot of time researching Irish rifles.


Regarding Irish ammunition stocks ammunition, I know very little. I do know that the Irish army in WWII was dependent on the British supplying stocks if they were actually invaded by the Germans.

Here is the data I have on the Irish army stocks at the beginning of WWII and the supplies they received from the UK during the war, according to official records:

Stocks on hand: 31 March 1940

MK VII Ball, clipped or boxed: 13,919,995
MKVIIZ, ball (old WWI ammo): 365,550
MKVII, belted for MG: 13,709,968
Tracer (belted and boxed): 93,301
AP, (packing unknown): 12,328
Aero proofed 9for synchronized guns): 215,998

Total on hand: 28,317,140

If you consider the numbers of rifles and boxed or clipped ammo, they only had 337 rounds per rifle, though once the proof expired the aero ammo could have been utilized in rifles (or MGs).

During the course of the war the following quantities of ammunition were received:

.303 belted and boxed (no clipped ammo on record): 620,208
Aero proofed tracer: 354,184
Aero proofed ball: 579,792

.300, for M1917 rifles: 5,000,000

From the above you can see they had barely any training ammunition at all. The 250 rounds per M1917 allowed very little ammunition for training and combat “units of fire”, the most I have ever heard of LDF troops firing a M1917 rifle in training was 15 rounds per man.

Given the 620,208 .303 rounds had to be split between rifles (~37,500 serviceable by end of war) Vickers (508), Hotchkiss (268), Lewis ground guns (803), Bren guns (253), that left very little ammunition for training per gun or per man. Basically it comes out to ~15 rounds per gun or 14.7 rounds per man

Part of this was made up by impressing of the .22 cal rifles, both farm guns (for vermin control) and from the small bore clubs, such as they existed. No figures on total rifles impressed have come to light, it seems in the case of the FCA most of the rifles were borrowed/donated and did not exist on official roles. In so far as the published records show, there were no .22 cal SMLE conversions in use during WWII.

On 31 March 1940 the army had a stock of 2,344,832 rounds of .22 cal ammunition impressed from all sources. To this were added and additional 4,576,500 rounds between 1940 and 1945. So there were a total number of 6,921,332 .22 cal rounds available between 1940 and 1945 with the last 100,000 rounds being delivered in 1945. A total of ~56,000 men went through the regular defense forces, of which something over 42,000 would have been expected to have some knowledge of shooting. In the FCA the total number of men that went through was in excess of 100,000, but the numbers of men who would have been issued an arm would be something around 42,000 (other than men equipped with shotguns, who provided their own), the total number of men who might need to train with a .22 would be on the order of 85,000 men, or about 81.4 rounds per man. Not a lot, but more than the 15 rounds allowed for each FCA fellow issued a M1917 rifle.

So the reality was the Irish Army did not have large stocks of ammunition to start with. The training disposition records are not to be found in any source I have access to.

In the post war period I have read very little that I have notes on but what I recall (which is subject to the 50 year old brain limitations):

In the post war period 1948 to 1958 the yearly Army induction varied from between 2,463 and 4,591 new soldiers. Assuming each one had to go through a musketry course, and the minimum musketry course I have read of in commonwealth requires about 250 rounds, the yearly basic training allotment, exclusive of LMG and MG, would be between 615,750 and 1,147,750 rounds of full bore ammunition. This ignores the FCA, which had about 2.5 times the personnel. With the only arms issued to the FCA through 1956 being the SMLE and grenade launching rifle, the training requirements even in an abbreviated shooting schedule would require some considerable stocks of .303 full bore ammunition.

The acquisition of .22 cal SMLE conversions in the 1950 to 1952 time frame may have reduced this requirement somewhat. To what extent I know not, but the TOE of .22 cal SMLE rifles in a full strength FCA battalion was 12 guns, anything less than half strength down to 150 men being 6 guns. I have never run across the allotment, if any, to the regular forces of .22 cal rifles but assume it was of a similar if not higher figure.


I should also mention that the 99 FCA battalion scheme was abandoned in 1958 when the FAC was changed to a 17 Infantry battalion and 3 artillery regiment set up, with the combination of many understrength company scale units and a greater emphasis on training. With reductions in the FCA in the post 1962 time period, (as a result with the higher time requirements and mandatory age retirements), the force declined to something in the 17,000 to 18,000 range by 1964. In any case, in the 1 October 1959 Defense summary of changes with the new integrated FCA, it was stated that existing stocks of ammunition would not allow for more than a few days of combat before all army stocks would be expended. In any case in what limited figures I have indicate accumulating stocks of shells/SAA for war reserves was a real issue and costly, which meant there were not hundreds of millions of rounds sitting around in war reserve, at least through 1950s and into the 1960s.

Starting in late 1961~62 the ideas of having an integrated FCA force sort of went to pot when the regular army was re-equipped with FN-FAL and FN-MAG along with other modern small arms. Meanwhile the FCA artillery units would retain the 18 pounder (12 per regiment) until at least 1966. The FCA went from being considered a viable defense force to one dedicated to internal security directed primarily against IRA and other activities (such as guarding the border with Ulster). Under such circumstances the requirement for training ammunition and small arms competency dropped, while muster times increased.

What ammunition that was ordered in this period (up to 1968) seems to have been ordered from the UK. That is based not on any book but conversations from folks were disposing of the old stocks of time expired ammunition in the late 1980s and folks in the FCA training with Brens in the 1990s.

On that point it was indicated to me that the Irish army followed UK practice on ammunition and proof of same. I may have the numbers not quite right as I am writing from memory but in this period (~1967) MK VII ball was considered in “proof” until 12 years, after which every 2 years a sample of the ammunition had to be tested until age 18 years, after which a sample was supposed to be reproved (tested) until age 21 years. At that point the ammunition was supposed to downgrade for training purposes only. If lots failed proof, ( the criteria for which I do not recall but do note hang-fires were a part of that reproof test) then the lot was scrapped. Exactly what that meant in the real world I do not know, as I have no idea if the regulations in place in 1967 were still followed in 1980.

In any case the WCC 1981 MK VIIZ ammunition that many have bought up was at least in part done for the Irish. There exist cans of the WCC 81 .303 ammunition with Irish army markings stenciled on the US pattern .50 cal. cans. In so far as I know, these were the only lots post 1968 that were bought by the Irish that were not sourced from the UK, though it is quite possible 1970s FN lots were purchased as well, I simply have not researched this. The WCC 81 lot is well known and some portion of this ammunition was sold commercially.

The No4 MK II rifles were phased out of FCA service in 1988. The first sales, as recorded earlier were, (according to official record) in 1991, with the final major lot sold in 1996/97. As of 2004 840 remained plus 50 snipers. In recent years some of the No 32 scopes have been sourced out of Northern Ireland, any sale of the other rifles does not seem to be recorded. Regardless the requirement for rifle use of the .303 ended in 1988.

However the FCA retained their MKII/MKIII Bren guns from 1989 to sometime between 2004 and 2006, by which time they were finally replaced. According to the soldiers that have put down their experiences, even in this 1989-2004 period they were using ammunition that was packed in 32 round boxes, or in 10 round cut cloth strips from Vickers belts. So it is apparent any remaining stocks of .303 MK VII non Z type were most likely expended in the Brens during this 15 to 17 year period. Many of these cartridges would have been out of date code as according to British records, the last lot of MK VII (with cordite) was loaded by Kynoch in the 1968/69 period (though somebody has found a 1970 marked VII case on a military range and so noted it).

Now with regards to the discontinuing of the .303 and what was done with old lots that failed proof or were ultimately so old as they were to have considered to be proof expired: When I was researching the dumping of arms into the Irish sea one of the fellows I corresponded with recalled dumping old 1940s dated lots of .303 still in the cases in the mid to late 1980s. He did not recall the exact date of when this occurred or what the date code were, he simply recalled the can dates were in the 1940s and that the ammo was packed in metal tins that contained two wooden boxes each, with either 250 belted or 288 rounds per box. The dates were on the outside of the metal case and were apparently British, though he recalled none of the markings or what factories they came from.


So the idea the Irish are sitting on large lots of .303 are likely…………….not true. That said my knowledge on Irish ammunition is sparse and so it is quite possible I have missed something, but this is the best information I have.

SSJ,

There were sales of SMLE rifles prior; if you go to Gunboards I have a lot of that data written up there.

For that very informative post, many thanks to Frederick (who also identified my Irish SMLE on an earlier occasion).

The Irish at some point - 1980s? - ordered a large quantity of .303" MkVIIz ammunition (Boxer case) from MEN in Germany. As far as i know, they are still holding stocks of this ammunition.

I am going to meander a bit from the original thread here, but I find the info on the artillery of the Irish Army quite interesting. I work for the RCA museum, and recently organized and shelved two triwalls of 25 pdr parts the Irish Army gave us a few years ago. We of course paid the shipping.

There were probably some 400 line items to go through, and after the sorting and matching with the various 25 pdr manuals was done, I was left with a small pile of unidentified. One of the problems I ran into was that the Irish applied their own part numbers to both the repair parts, the accessories, and the tooling.

While many of their index cards referred to the original British numbers, everything was done on the very old system of manual supply cards, so errors did exist. I would often have to remove "in the grease" parts and with a magnifying glass try and find the original part numbers. In other cases, the numbers referred to British NSNs, which were not so bad to cross refer to.

The final pile included some tooling and gauges for the 2 pounder, the 18 pounders and their limbers, the 3.7 guns, and even replacement parts for the Martin Perry conversions of the 18 pdrs to rubber tyres from the old carriage wheels.

All in all, it took around 10 days to get it all organized, but now I can go into the shelves (instead of various piles) and find the required spare parts in seconds vice the hours spent trying to match up the Irish descriptions and part numbers.

Sten collector PM me if you want a few odd copies of 1939/40 Irish artillery orders.(appologies interupting this interesting thread)

As an aside anyone thinking of contacting the Irish Military Archives with their own questions or inquiries had better forget it.
In my research (not rifle related) your only option realisticly is to go over there.Even 8 years ago there estimated reply time was about 2 years !......and it hasn't got any better.

ATB KG

well judging by the counter, folks are still interested in this, so here are some we-writes of some old posts I put up on Gunboards back in the August 2013 time frame. The following is the amalgamation of the data collected to 4 April 2015 on the Irish Army and their use of the Enfield rifle.



The Irish SMLE story, part 1, 1919 to 1925
By Frederick R Salberta



The Free State army was organized on 16 January 1922, after the signing of the peace treaty. “Independence” was formally declared on 3 May 1922. By independence Ireland, other than Ulster became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, with no representation in the UK parliament. At the same time they recognized the King as sovereign. The UK retained control over several treaty ports and the 6 counties of that made up Ulster or Northern Ireland.

As there were significant portions of the IRA that did not agree to the treaty, specifically the division of Ireland, being in the empire, the treaty ports and their fervent desire for a strictly republican form of government, it seemed war was imminent between two factions of the IRA. The pro treaty people went on to become the Free State army, while the opposition remained the IRA. Because the UK wanted no part of the conflict but wanted the IRA put down, they agreed to supply arms to the newly formed Irish free state army.

The first 100 SMLE MK III rifles were sent to Ireland provisional troops in early February of 1922. Shipments halted briefly in March due to IRA seizure of English supplied arms, to be resumed after April 16th. There was also the suspicion (subsequently verified) that Michael Collins was supplying IRA units in Northern Ireland with U.K. supplied arms to use against the RUC and Ulster “Specials”. The UK took a dim view of this. It was after this break that the supplied rifles have new unique serial numbers applied and the old serial numbers lined out. This work was all done, in so far as examination of rifles markings allow, at Enfield Lock. This is verified by the appearance of a additional examiners mark not seen on rifles that doe not go through the facility.

The rifles supplied form from stocks on hand and as such LSA, BSA, SSA, Enfield and even the occasional pre 1918 Lithgow and Ishapore rifle show up with the Enfield examiners marks and the new serial numbers applied (more on the new numbers later in the article). A lot of SSA rifles and an occasional NRF rifle make their appearance as well.

Between January 16 and June of 1922 England provided the Irish Free State with 11,900 rifles, 4200 revolvers and 79 machine guns.

By June of 1922 the opposing IRA forces had only 6,780 rifles and a small number of machineguns, the remaining arms being made up of shotguns (between 3,000 and 6,000). Of the rifles, only a subset were Enfield rifles, a few Model 71 Mausers and many 98 Mausers being among the arms used by the IRA (as well as Mauser model 95 rifles, Gras and lebel rifles and pretty much anything that the IRA could smuggle in). A sizeable quantity of GEW 1898 rifles were imported into Waterford in March of 1922. It is likely that there were at 1500 to 2000 Gew 98 rifles based on that incident and arms brought in by returning soldiers from WWI. The source of ant-treaty IRA SMLE rifles were three fold, some were smuggled in between 1918 and 1922, about 3,000 were taken off of retreating British troops (which were told not to provoke any incident) or taken off of newly created free state forces that did not resist in Cork county. The last source was those rifles captured in fighting from either the RIC or the other British forces during the war of independence. The exact numbers of Enfields in the above figures of 6,780 is unknown, but it is likely on the order of 3,500~to just under 4,000 rifles. Of that no more than 385 were RIC pattern. In nay case the IRA forces were badly outnumbered and outgunned.

Interestingly in the period before the conflict broke out between the two sides, the Free State troops did an interesting weapons swap with the IRA. Because other than the first few hundred guns supplied to the Free State forces all Enfields supplied had a unique serial number applied. As such Michal Collins could not supply these arms to IRA forces operating in Ulster without the UK knowing. In fact though he was ready to combat his fellow countrymen in the south to see the treaty stick, at the same time he had not abandoned the idea of bring Ulster back into the Irish free state and was actively supporting the IRA in the north. So to get sterile arms to supply to those forces, the Irish Free State army swapped their British supplied arms with the IRA at the Dublin court house before June of 1922. The best guess is this occurred in May and that he number of arms exchanged was between 400 and 500 rifles. During this period between April of 1922 to June 28 1922 there was a lot of pre-positioning and small scale theft of arms by the two opposing forces. A careful reading of the IRA activities in Ulster in the 1922 to 1925 time period tends to indicate that any RIC carbines that Michael Collins had were set up north.

Civil war broke out between the two sides on 28 June 1922 and with it an end to any further arms swaps. From the Start the Free Stte forces had the upper hand and to ensure this matter continued the UK continued to supply arms directly to the Free stat forces . Up to September of 1922 England provided The Irish Free State (pro treaty IRA) with 27,400 rifles, 6,606 revolvers and 249 machine guns.

By August of 1922 20,060 of the rifles were distributed to troops, the remainders were in stores. By the end of the 1922, most all stocks of rifles had been issued out. The Free State started asking for more rifles and supplies from the UK. At the same time the Irish Free State army, made up of young recruits for the most part, showed they could not keep much of the stock of arms they had in working order. As such the UK seems to have decided that the remaining arms to be supplied would be older less capable arms.

In between the fall of 1922 and the end of 1923 some quantity of arms were turned over to the Free State so it could fight the IRA in the civil war. Numbers of rifles delivered unknown but a review of the pictures of Free state troops, published figures of rifles stocks and serial number studies indicate that about 10,000 SMLE MK I*** rifles were delivered at this time, along with a small stock of SMLE MK III rifles (or the SMLE rifles had been supplied after September of 1922 and before the spring of 1923). All had new serial numbers applied. The deliveries did include 9-18 pounders and limited stocks of shells, as well as numbers of Morris armoured cars. It is most likely that Enfield rifles were in these shipments in or around mid 1923, June of 1923 being the best guess, based on the various parliamentary commentaries that have come to light. It would seem after this event that no further rifles were supplied by Great Britain, as it was seen that the Irish Free State was going to be able to subdue the Anti-treaty faction. By the end of 1923 this was largely the state of affairs in Ireland, even as the civil war became a bit more ugly with bombings, and reprisals between the Free State forces and the IRA getting ever uglier.

When the IRA went underground in 1924, they told their man to dump or stash their arms, as to be caught with arms by that time was a death sentence for the mere possession of un permitted arms. Free State army captured many of the arms used by the IRA by 1925, by digging them up or searching building, tip-offs on the location, as well as torture to procure the location. Most recovered arms were in poor condition. After the end of the Irish Civil war large quantities of captured arms were dumped in the Irish Sea. Documented arms were captured pistols and revolvers of non-standard pattern (not .455 cal). Though not documented, the lack of any sales records indicate Mauser rifles and other odd ball arms were destroyed at this time (other than a small numbers retained for various purposes). It would seem that the Irish Free State sought to only retain those arms that were SMLE pattern, though there were small stocks of CLLE and possibly Ross rifles retained.

Of the 27,500 renumbered SMLE rifles supplied to the Irish army, approximately 500 were supplied to the IRA in exchange for unmarked rifles by in July 1922. Of these 500 rifles ~200 to 300 were destroyed in the siege of the Dublin court house and subsequent fighting in Dublin between the two sides.

In 1925 the Irish Free State Army had 42,500 rifles on hand, of which only 8,000 were considered first line (serviceable). This number does not include all of the rifles turned in or captured by the army in the civil war, many of which were not Lee Enfield pattern rifles. It’s likely all of the non-standard arms were dumped at sea, as it is documented was done with the pistols but that evidence is not sure. Also supposedly used were limited numbers of Ross Mk III rifles, (as it is known that at least 21 were captured by the IRA between 1919 and 1921) though no pictures exist or any surplus sales record. A small number of CLLE rifles show up in stores in WWII, though where and how they came into the possession of the Free State remains unknown.

Given the known facts we can estimate the Irish Free states stock of arms in 1925, as follows:

SMLE MK III/III* with new added serial numbers ~26,700 to 27,200
SMLE MK III with existing serial numbers ~5,400 to 5,900
SMLE MK I***, second line condition: ~9,800 to 9,950
Ross rifles, RIC carbines, Mausers, retained ~100 rifles (??)
Total stocks ~42,500

Serial numbers: So now you are wondering, what about the newly applied serial numbers. What were they? Well here is the code, published first on Gun boards in August of 2013:

The new SMLE MK III serial numbers started with N1 , went to the N999, then to O1000 to O1999, then P2000 to P2999 and so on until you get to M25000. Now when they got to M25999, instead of using a new letter they just continued the series up to around M27500. The serial number sampled to date range from N17 to M27489, so there may be some numbers above that have not been found yet. That is the key to identifying an Irish SMLE MKIII or III* that was OFFICALLY supplied to the Irish free state by the British in 1921 to 1923 time frame. Not the FF stamp, which comes later. Some quantities of rifles, between 100 and most likely under 1000 were also supplied with the original serial numbers intact between February of 1921 and March of 1921.

Now the code for the SMLE MK I***: There are 3 serial ranges, ER, CR and G. ER rifles are in original SMLE MK I*** shape (many ex navy rifles) CR rifles have had the MK I*** forend inletted for the MK III rear handguard, have a MK III rear sight on the existing MK I rear sight base and have a MK III or MK I modified to MK II shape rear handguard. G refers to rifles that were wire wrapped for grenade launching use. Here the official records do not exist for how many were sent out but it would seem based on the current research that ~10,000 or just short of that were sent over around June of 1923. That is by no means exact, but the best guess working with the data that does exist.

The serial number ranges found to date in a sample size of 210 rifles is as follows:
ER rifles, ER 1 to 9600
CR rifles CR 1 to 4060
G rifles G1 to G2185 (supposedly seen up to G 3000, no actual samples documented)

Now an observant chap will note this adds up to more than 10,000 rifles. From taking the serial numbers and running them through a bit of statistical analysis, it would seem the serial numbers were run concurrent, rather than in separate sequence. That is the serial numbers started with 1 and run through 9600, with the CR and ER rifles being mixed in. It would seem the first 400 of the G rifles had only the G serial number applied, there was no lined out ER number as one finds post G538. So if this analysis is correct (and ultimately the larger the sample size gets the easier it will be to prove or disprove this hypothesis) the serial numbers run as follows:

1-9600 ER and CR prefixes, no over lapping numbers (less one or two mistakes, none seen to date). The numbers seem to run in blocks, such as there are very few low number CR rifles under CR 478, where as there are a lot of ER numbers in this range. The opposite pattern seems to exist between CR500 to about serial number 4060, after which no CR serial numbers show up. Between CR/ER 4060 and ER 9600 no CR number show up at all. There are a mix of ER numbers in the ER 39 through ER 4060 block. The G numbers run from G1 (which was actually a NRF MK III* rifle) to G377 with the possibility of this number running as high as G537. Where the rifles stopped being marked as G only and became reworked ER re-stamped as G rifles seems to occur between G 377 and G538. Between G538 and G2185 the rifles seem to have been reworked later as the ER numbers are canceled out and a new G number applied. Simply stated the data base of G marked rifles is only 33 in number, too few to allow a better estimation.

What is known about the non-re-numbered SMLE MKIII rifles is very vague. Presumably a small number were commercial models, as it is known in 1914 at the start of the war there were limited numbers of commercial models bought up by the volunteer movement (fellows that did the Easter uprising and then became the IRA). Around 3,000 to 3,500 of the rifles were likely arms take off of the British soldiers by the IRA when they pulled out of Ireland in the spring of 1922. Between 100 and 1000 of the first rifles provided to the Irish Free State had no new serial numbers applied. The remaining numbers were likely arms that were taken, captured or smuggled in during the fighting between 1919 and the end of 1923 when the IRA essentially folded.

The above is based on published sources and examination of rifles in the data base I have been building. As of today it includes over 1500 Irish linked arms, with 1461 of them being Enfields of one pattern or another. Of that figure, 161 are SMLE MK III, 210 are SMLE MK I*** and 102 are RIC carbines. Other than the theory about the SMLE MKI*** rifles serial number ranges and assignment everything above can be traced back to a written source and for the most part not conjecture but based on the best reading of the evidence to date.

The Irish SMLE, part 2, 1924 to 1939:

By Frederick R Salberta,

In 1924 at the end of the Irish civil war the material in the hands of the Irish Free State forces stood in very poor repair. The cause for this was multifold; first the Free State army raised in the 1921 to 1923 civil war period was primarily made up of young men with no military service during the Great War. This included many of the NCO’s. The fighting in the south and west of Ireland was in areas subject to frequent rain and high humidity. The army as set up in 1921 lacked a well thought out logistical system; during the civil war supplies were short in all regards. Oil, cleaning materials and other such material was improvised. The result was few of the rifles were cleaned or maintained as they should have been, with many barrels rusted out and warped or broken forends being a common problem.

For the arms captured from the IRA this was doubly true. Many of these arms had the bolts removed and discarded, or had been cached out of doors at the end of the war. These arms when recovered were for the most part, completely unserviceable.

As a result , of the ~42,500 rifles of .303 caliber held by the Irish free state army in the 1925 inventory, only 8,000 of these rifles were considered to be in serviceable shape. Many of the rifles remaining might well have been serviceable but required minor repairs, barrel scouring, etc. The remainder were either considered to be obsolete (captured RIC carbines, Ross rifles) or in need of serious repair. Ireland needed to refurbish its arms stock, as the immediate post war period had a formal requirement for a standing army and reserve forces of ~17,000 troops.

It would appear the first effort to rectify the arms shortage occurred in 1924, between January and June of that year when a number of arms were sent over to BSA for rebuild. The exact number is unknown but small, as only one arm with a barrel date from this period has come to light. The serial number on the one known sample falls in the Irish serial number range (see part one). This rifle has no FF marking on it but BSA proof marks indicating it had its barrel replaced in between July of 1923 and June of 1924.

After this initial rebuild by BSA, the British colonial office/War office likely took over relations and offered the Irish Free State army the option of sending these arms to Enfield lock to be rebuilt as needed. The Irish Free State was part of the commonwealth and had the same privileges as any other self-governing state of the realm. However, whereas most if not all of the previous military stores provided to Ireland during the civil war had been provided gratis, after the end of the war the Free State, as any other self-governing dominion, was expected to pay for the military stores it obtained from the British War office (BWO). The war in Ireland had destroyed a lot of material, including railroad stock and bridges, infrastructure projects that demanded much more attention that war damaged military stores.

In October of 1924 the Quarter master branch of the Irish Free State army established an ordnance sub section in Clancy barracks. This seems likely to be the first time at which a regular service was established for maintenance of ordnance stores, including rifles. It is known that in late 1924 all arms were classified, and those nonstandard arms such as lebels, Gew98s and such were dumped at sea. Other than small samples of nonstandard arms, only .303 cal SMLE MK I*** and MK III were retained for issue. Once created the handling maintenance and repair of the Irish army rifle stock was conducted at a high level of professionalism. Samples from this period show signs of wear and use, but not abuse.

Between June of 1924 and 1926 no FF marked or barrel dated samples have come to light, so what was done or not done with regard to refurbishment is unknown at this time. Prior to 1926 any barrel replaced would have caused the rifle serial number to be altered to the barrel number, but if such work was done it would be expected that the rifles font would be identical to the reworked rifles sent over in the 1921 to 1923 time frame, but with a barrel date later than 1922. No samples have come to light so no concrete statements can be made regarding what was done in this period, though a number of arms with Irish features have been examined that might actually be Free State issue, there are simply no markings that indicate they are Irish.

Starting in late 1925 contacts were issued to Enfield Locke to re-barrel rifles that had worn out bores. The first dated re-barreled rifles appear with 1926 dated barrels. Refurbishment of the rifles seems to have been limited to the barrel replacement. Now when the barrel was replaced, the new component was marked with an FF in a circle, for reasons that seem to be lost in the midst of time. It may well be that this was to indicate rifles that had new barrels, but in all cases the ordnance marks and proofs indicate the work was done at Enfield Locke. The most likely explanation is that an Irish or designated inspector made the mark, to indicate the barrel was changed and accepted. So the FF marking is not so much a property marking as a marking indicating the barrel was changed out, inspected and had to be paid for.

Furthermore the FF mark does not appear to be applied after re-blue, but prior. An examination of known Irish FF marked barreled actions that were not rebuilt into complete rifles shows all such rifles had the action and barrel blued as a last step, and the FF mark was applied prior to this operation. So the FF mark had to have been applied in the UK

So Irish rifles that have not gone back to the UK for re-barreling will not have the FF mark. On the rifles examined without the FF mark, but within the Irish issued serial number ranges, the barrel dates noted have ranged from 1916 to 1922, none later.

Because the SMLE MK I*** rifles used a different barrel, Enfield lock was not prepared to replace these barrels. No record exists that shows any barrel on any of the ER, CR or G barrels was replaced post 1915. As a result once a SMLE MK I*** rifle became worn it was not useful except as a source of parts to keep other SMLE MK I*** rifles in service. Pictures from the period do not show significant issue of these SMLE MK I*** rifles between the end of the civil war and late 1939.

Based on sampling of Irish serial range examples, contracts were issued that resulted in rifles with re-barrel dates of 1926, 1927, 1928 and 1930. Based on the Irish military archives it is known no contracts for Enfield Locke work were issued in 1929 and likely 1931, though in 1931 the first 33 sniper rifles P 14(T) were purchased from the UK. Also in September of 1931 the ordnance service formally split from the quartermaster branch, and was known as the Army Ordnance Service after that. Records from that period on relating to rifles become somewhat clearer, with the first contact issued by the army ordnance service to Enfield Locke for rifle rebuild occurring in 1932 for delivery in late 1932/1933.

By the fall of 1932 the ordnance stocks stood as follows:
Rifles: 42,500: of this quantity 17,600 had been refurbished since the close of the civil war in 1924. Not all refurbished rifles required barrel changes. The total stock of usable rifles was on the order of ~20,600 rifles (Inventory early 1935). This would indicate some number of the 8,000 rifles that were serviceable in 1925 went through refurbishment.

No record can be found for 1934. Through this period (1929 to 1935) the records indicate the Army was very short of funds and not in any way capable of funding all of the projects that were required to keep the armies stock of weapons in tip-top shape.

While not clear prior to 1932, it would seem likely by no later than 1935 that the rifles were not sent back to Enfield lock as complete assemblies, but as barreled actions alone. The work done by Enfield Locke seems to have been restricted, no later than 1934 to replacing the barrel. It is likely this state of affairs existed prior, but it cannot be ascertained with any degree of accuracy if complete rifles were rebuilt or not or what date prior the shift occurred. Certainly none of the reworked rifles examined seem to show any signs that the bolts were included with the re-barreling , as the bolts all seem to have been fitted to the barreled action at a later time, based on the very crude filing and re-marking of the serial numbers on the bolt body.

Based on manuals issued by the Irish Army Ordnance service in 1932, it would appear that the Irish army Ordnance service could do any of the work required of a typical base workshop. They could fit forends, fit bolts, repair stocks and pretty much all of the work required to refurbish a rifle other than barrel replacement. While not by any means sure, it would appear that the barrels were fitted in the UK only, as the rifles examined show Enfield lock inspectors post 1925 markings on the barrels and some actions. The evidence found to date indicates the Irish Ordnance service was very parsimonious, outsourcing the very minimum of work they could not accomplish and that had to be paid for.

No contract was issued in 1934 or 1936. 1935 and in 1937 saw additional contacts issued , though as with many of the other years the quantities seem to be small for 1935. Based on a perusal of the contract recorded published by Ian Skennerton, the likely sum of rifles re-barreled in 1935 by Enfield lock for the Irish Free State army was 200 with the contacts for 1937 totaling 1,280 rifles. Because the contacts as listed when issued and not when complete, issuing quantity does not necessarily indicate the quantity actually completed.

In 1938 a much larger contract was issued, for ~2,800 rifles. The barreled actions sent over this year seem to have had a large number of both the actions and the barrel replaced. In those cases where the action was replaced, the old serial number was added to the new action, and both the barrel and the action received the FF mark. In all cases it seems the FF marking was applied to the barrel and action body before re-bluing of same.

It would also appear that there may have been a number of the non-English supplied actions sent over, or new barreled actions were purchased, as in this year a number of serial numbered actions come to light that have non-standard serial numbers (that is out of the expected Irish serial number sequence) but have the FF marked barrels and actions. It is likely a lot of these actions might have been the rifles captured from the British during the rebellion, or smuggled in during the civil war.. Another possibility is that the Irish sent over actions that would not gauge correctly and as such those action bodies had to be replaced, which accounts for the non-Irish serial ranges. The exact reason for the large number of 1938 FF marked barrels and actions is unknown at this time. These details are not clear; no conclusion can be made on the assembled evidence to date

The year 1938 also saw the delivery of the 79 BSA reworked pattern 1914 sniper rifles with BSA scopes, giving the Irish army a full stock of 112 sniper rifles. These 79 rifles were marked with a FF marking on the rear sight base for the telescope sight. The previous 33 P14 rifles delivered in 1931 do not have this feature and also have the original optic (PPCo), not the BSA model copy. That observation is based on exactly one rifle which had a clear province from being sold by interarms in 1961, but lacking any Irish markings whatsoever.

By 1939 the world stage was heating up and the UK military facilities were not able to supply the Irish with any more workshop time. Ireland realized they were very short and attempted to purchase arms, with little luck. It appears that a small contact t was executed with BSA, as a number of Irish serial number sequenced rifles have come to light with BSA commercial proofs that indicate barrel replacement between June of 1939 and June of 1940. Given that the war started in September it is likely that these rifles were reworked between June of 1939 and the end of August 1939. After September 3 1939, no additional commercial contacts were allowed by the War office.

So in September of 1939 the Irish army found itself still with a stock of ~ 42,500 rifles, of which 112 were P14 sniper rifles and 24,700SMLE MKI*** and MKIII in serviceable shape. The remainder, ~17,688 was either cord worn, badly worn or otherwise unserviceable. Around 5000 of these weapons were SMLE MK I*** rifles. From indirect sources it seems some numbers of these arms were able to be brought back into service by minor repairs and classified as EY rifles. But that story really belongs to the WWII period, which is sufficiently long to require its own post.

The above is about as complete as I can be with the information at this time. Hopefully none of the above is grossly wrong. Be aware as in the past that when new documents come to light it may well change interpretation of the facts. As always make free use of this material, but please be good enough to render credit to author if you post it elsewhere. A lot of time has gone into this research, much of it frustrating. All rights reserved etc….

Note on above: When the phrase “appears” is used; this indicates that no documentation has come to light; the conclusions are based on examination of the rifles sampled to date. If the body of the text seems to be definitive; that means I have a document indicating what is written is the case. If the phrase “likely” is used, that means there is not a direct written source for the point being made, but the supporting data seems to indicate that the statement is the most likely interpretation of the evidence collected.

Final note: At this point there are 161 known or very likely Irish Enfield SMLE MK III rifles in the data base. Given the known imported numbers (~31,169) and the samples size of other Irish rifles of import quantity known rifles there seems to be a problem: The samples found are markedly smaller than the sample size should be. More on that in the next write up (The Irish SMLE, 1939 to 1945) and the implications.

Great stuff Frederick!


:clap::clap::clap:


More! More!

The Home Guard in England had the same issue with .300 rifles; not much practice ammo made available.
.303s (which had all been withdrawn from the Home Guard, [and Army static units] to be exchanged for .300s, and later Sten guns) had to be supplied in small numbers just for musketry training.

I believe the same conditions existed with regards to ammunition; the US supplied 250 rounds per M1917 rifle, at least on the first 500,000 supplied in June of 1940.

Not sure on the 250,000 supplied with the destroyer deal if any .300 SA was supplied.

I'm interested in the "Irish Contract", if only because it may shed some light on what happened to the several thousand 1956 No. 4 Mk. 2's that should still be out there somewhere.

I own one, I know another fellow who owns one, have seen a picture of a third, and Skennerton has an illustration in his book that shows a 1956 date. Those are the only ones I'm aware of.

According to the Irish archives, the very last dated rifle they accepted was UF55 A21266. All of the rifles in that serial range A15,xxx to A21266 seem to have been packed between June and August of 1955.

Early on when I was collecting serial numbers I came across the following UF 55 high end/ UF56 A serial numbers:

UF55 A 35444 Used, very good condition
UF55 A 38104 Used, excellent Fulton regulated, in UK
UF55 A 38859 Well used, replacement bolt (RAF issue) in UK

UF56 A 401xx
UF56 A 43413
UF56 A 44816

So it seems to indicate that the UF56 series starts north of 39,000 and before 40,1xx

Just seen over at Gunboards: UF 56 A40217

UF A26980 appears to have been sold straight to ParkerHale (it is so stamped, complete with SoS marks). I have some notes somewhere indicating a fair number of UF's were sold in early 56 to Gunsmiths and shooting clubs.

I will be adding a few more posts, as follows:

1) Irish SMLE 1939 to 1956.

2) The Irish .22 SMLE conversions, 1945 to 1991.

3) The M1917 in Irish service and disposal, 1940 to 1960

4) An analysis of the serials number ranges of the Irish No4 MkII: ranges seen and how to tell is a gun was likely send to Ireland.

5) Disposal of Irish weapons: Brief summary of when Ireland sold guns, to whom, where they went and what arms were dumped at sea. Not a complete record but all the data I have at this time.

It will be a few days as work heated up and I would prefer to put these posts out without some of the small typos the previous two ones had.

Some years ago I seem to recall some fairly precise figures in the public domain on exactly how many Lee-enfield rifles were supplied to the Afgans in the early 1980s when the Western powers were pursuing a policy of plausible deniability with supplying weapons to Afganistan. I believe that some obsolete Blowpipe SAM rockets were also supplied around this time which didn't work too well? I believe the figures quoted on various T.V. documentaries were in the tens of thousands. Does anyone have any further information on the numbers, please?

Lee Enfields.........? Why not just write in with a FoI request. But don't hold your breath........

When I asked the US ATF for the import figures of each type and serial numbers (exact ranges), referencing the exact importer and the year of each lot, I was told ....No. Under the ATF published guidelines the data seems to fall under a valid FOIA request, though they can charge for any work they have to do. Did not get to that, just got form letter telling me no, and that I could appeal if I wanted.

While you are requesting the UK FoI info, maybe you could ask why loads of these Irish rifles were seemingly supplied to our '.....one time allies' - from UK Ordnance and.......... But like I say, don't hold your breath

sounds like you dont like the Irish,

maybe they bought so many because it suited them. since they are not a war like nation, it seems they would not need new expensive semi or fully automatic weapons. being that as it may, those rifles came cheap having been brand new and almost instantly obsolete. Rifles like that often sold for pennies on the dollar and maybe they had to buy in bulk or a minimum quantity to get the discount price. Also, its not entirely unknown to buy in volume if rifles experience attrition. Just about every nation did and does that.

The Brithish were not the only country to supply weapons to the war in Ahganistan, Nor were they the only ones supplying enfields. The afgans preferred the enfields and the world was scoured to find them for this war. it was not until latter that the younger generation of freedom fighters entered the fray that AK's were the choice. Both AKs and ammo was in plenty supply from all over the world easier logistics but the long range capabilities of the LE kept the russians and thier AK's out of the range of the afgans. So they were still a tactical tool on the battle front , in fact so much so that , supposedly Winchester ramped up a production line to manufacture the 303 ammo.

why is it so hard to call them the Irish contract LE's.

why couldn't some of them ended up as training or cadet rifles.

And in scouring the world for rifles the afgans older generation prefer why does it seem so impossible that some came from Irish stocks.

all of these facts are easy to wrap your head around. if you try.

would we all feel better if , for the sake of some appeasment or social correctness they not be called "Irish". It seems like a lot of effort to cast doubt on a batch of 50k rifles just because they are Identified with the Irish. It s alost like they are tainted in some way or thier status should actually be deminished in some way because they are british rifles and yet in the hands of the irish.

I for one am Catholic and Irish. I own an Irish contract Mk4/2. and specifically sought it out because of that connection. Would the term Hibernian Contract or Eirie Contract rifles be more acceptable. The scathing comments about the Irish are becoming needlessly offensive. I think we all get the whole conflict scenario that has occured over the last 700 years. do we need to open that old wound again in this forum. is it nessessarry or apropriate to slip in some offensive remarks at the expense of the irish. It might actualy diminish the credability laying on the remarks so.

otherwise... without primary source documentation. its all speculation. Somebody needs to do some research, rather than just cast speculation and doubt a....about the rifles that is. And leave out the Irish, some of us are kind and generous. Some may not know or recall bt a few of the people who sighned the latest peace accord were Irish.

Dont get me started about the Irish hero's.

be nice

Your comment in line 1, para one and several times elsewhere was a bit harsh Mike. I've had a quick browse through the whole thread again - only a quick browse mind you, so stand to be corrected, - but can you point out to me anywhere where anyone has said, implied or suggested that they don't like the Irish.

Then cutting through all of the usual red herrings and other bumph that is always bandied around to cloud and obfuscate the primary issue, the whole argument in this thread has been to comment on the sheer, nay, vast amount of rifles SAID to have been supplied to the tiny Eire Defence Forces. And how come many of those rifles were subsequently, almost miraculously, supplied elsewhere from UK MIlitary stockpiles. Nothing to do with not liking anyone. Or are you perhaps being a tad sensitive?

Many of the terms used about these British small arms were American terms invented (by Sam Cummings?) in the 1950s/60s in order to sell more surplus guns to Americans. Some like "Jungle Carbine" have stuck whereas other such as "Tankers Model" for the Revolver No.2 Mk.1*/** have (mercifully) not. Most of the terms are not only made up but inaccurate (e.g Royal Enfield when referring to a rifle, rather than a motorbike.) and so I believe that those of us who take our history seriously should be researching this stuff and "showing it up" - as my mother would have said.

BTW, I am of Irish decent and I think I would have noticed if anyone had been offensive.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Beerhunter

Many of the terms used about these British small arms were American terms invented (by Sam Cummings?) in the 1950s/60s in order to sell more surplus guns to Americans. Some like "Jungle Carbine" have stuck whereas other such as "Tankers Model" for the Revolver No.2 Mk.1*/** have (mercifully) not. Most of the terms are not only made up but inaccurate (e.g Royal Enfield when referring to a rifle, rather than a motorbike.) and so I believe that those of us who take our history seriously should be researching this stuff and "showing it up" - as my mother would have said.

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Unfortunately in Canada the 'Tanker Model' is coming the norm, as dealers advertise it as that and so do some of the less educated (i.e. the same people that call a Lee Enfield or P14 a .303 no matter the variation or type).

The important thing about History is that it has to be as true and accurate as possible. Therefore it is worth checking the 'Credibility' of the research, which is all Peter has done, by asking why a relatively small country that was not exactly awash with money in the 1950s would want to buy such large nos of out of date rifles. The big problems today are:- 1) The deaths of so many, through old age, of those who actually knew what happened. 2) The destruction of so many old records before their value was realised or extracts were taken from them. 3) The rise of the internet for both the good and the bad as a source of information. SOURCE is the big word here. Far too many think that because they saw something on the net it is true. The net is a way of communicating / finding / helping / discussing all sorts of things, It is rarely a SOURCE or PRIMARY RECORD. Then you get Amateur Historians, at best they are good, they quote sources and give reasons, at worst they are conspiracy theorists / nutters who will twist anything to fit their crazy ideas. In the middle are the ignorant, just do not know any better, No4 SMLEs etc, those making money out of the ignorance 'Tanker Carbines' and the stupid. I will make no further comment on the stupid as I do not wish to start one of these silly 'Flame Wars'.

Mike 16.

If you read the entire thread, you will see some folks have done the primary research, including letters from the Irish ministry of defense archives. There is a paper trail on these rifles, both in terms of acquisition records and disposition records. The official published letters from the MOD say 50,000 were purchased. the disposition/sales records say 49,000 were sold between 1991 and 1996. Both sources are Irish army Archives.

What Capt. Laidler is saying, and considering that he has been at the heart of the British MOD system for something like 50 years when the good captain speaks most of us listen, is that this information is wrong. He has not elaborated on exactly why but has stated that serial number lists he has seen back up his contention..

Given that the number of Brens to rifles should be at a rate of ~10 to 1, and the Irish only bought ~ 2,000 Brens, and retained ~10,000 SMLE until circa 1984 to 1987, it does give one pause with regards to the official published 50,000 figure of No4 Mk II rifles procured. 2,000 Brens to 60,000 rifles seems kind of off.

In any case the final declaration of truth will come between 2021 and 2026, when the Irish archives will open the records on the sales and the serial number lists will then become available.

Is there any evidence that any of the No4 mk2 rifles that have turned up in Afganistan in recent years have ever been in the possession of the Irish Defence Force? If in the 1980s the C.I.A. was trying to obtain No4 rifles from the U.K. and Canada it would seem logical to me for them to try to source them from the Irish republic as well, being a possible source and friendly with the U.S.A..

The interesting words here could be 'Evidence' / 'Possession' / 'Irish Defence Force'. Other interesting words could be 'Payment ' / 'Location' / 'Transport' / 'Shipping' / 'Landing' / 'Storage' / 'Onward Transport' and PLUMBING as in No leaks by anyone trying to cause a bit of grief, earn a few bob, start a conspiracy theory. As a starter for 9 1/2 has anyone got a reliable figure for the number of Rifle No4 Mk 2s found in Afghanistan (All sides / tribes / bandits etc)? Now think about this and ask yourself who would have the best idea of the numbers? In my opinion it would be the Russians. They knew the opposition and how it developed both in numbers of men and equipment. So how many FOI request have been filed with them? Have the harbour authorities in Pakistan been asked about ships arriving from Eire? Have fun with the 'Research'

Getting off the subject again - I wish I didn't need to, believe me, but alluding to what Fred 303 says. It's also interesting to note that with 50,000 new No4 rifles (and I'll say that figure again.... FIFTY thousand, enough to equip at least 70 Infantry Battalions) would be enough rifles to fight the British Army to a standstill. But.............

Like the shortage of other heavy small arms/MG's and back-up, in the way of tanks, other armour, artillery, engineers that makes up an Infantry Brigade or Division and so on, then an Infantry Bde or Division without this 'teeth-arms' and the logistical/transport support is just a line of targets.

You still haven't come back and said where anyone said anything insulting or even remotely horrible about the Irish yet Mike.

Yeah I'm curious too Mike. You let off a fair bit of steam in that previous post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mike16

……. So they were still a tactical tool on the battle front , in fact so much so that , supposedly Winchester ramped up a production line to manufacture the 303 ammo………

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Yep. That’s a fact. I still have some of that white box .303 ammo the Virginia farm boys were giving it away.

One of the main reasons for supplying No4 Le-enfields to the Afghans in the early 1980s was because the U.K. and the US.A. were following a policy of "Plausible Deniability" which was no great secret at the time and still isn't. Mike, I don't think that any-one has, in any way, insulted the Irish by attaching Irish to certain words; I for one have only ever used the word for identification purposes so we know what rifles we are talking about. I think that others have done the same. I remember back in the early 1980s, in the Cadets, there being a total lack of any live .303 ammunition for a couple of years or so. I couldn't figure out at the time why.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vincent

Yep. That’s a fact. I still have some of that white box .303 ammo the Virginia farm boys were giving it away.

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Here some DOD Winchester Irish .303 for sale. It looks like it is from '81?

Irish Contract .303 Ammo for "Irish Enfields" : Vintage Ammo at GunBroker.com

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

Given that the number of Brens to rifles should be at a rate of ~10 to 1,

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I would say that is a conservative estimate of the ratio; I would put it higher. That is to say a higher percentage of Brens to rifles. Based on the infantry requirement alone, in the 1950s, each infantry section (squad in US parlance) had one Bren, 6 rifles and a Sten. There would be more Brens higher up the battalion formation for local defence plus even more for, for example the Recce Platoon with one per vehicle. e.g. Dingo or the earlier marks of Ferret. (The later were still armed with L4s in my day.)

---------- Post added at 08:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 AM ----------

Quote:

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Originally Posted by therno

Here some DOD Winchester Irish .303 for sale. It looks like it is from '81?

Irish Contract .303 Ammo for "Irish Enfields" : Vintage Ammo at GunBroker.com

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I can understand that. One cannot imagine a Boston Irish shooter contaminating his rifle with English ammunition. :-)

It doesn't work on a straight numerical across-the-board basis like that Beery. Each regiment has a dusky red 'SCALES OF ISSUE' list issued to the QM and each regiment has a different ratio of weapons issued that accord with the ORDER OF BATTLE of that unit within the Brigade/Division/Army group. The only sure thing is that if the Regt/Unit has a paper total of, say, 650 men, then there will be 650+ a few weapons allocated. Then there's the other support units such as logistics etc etc might be nominally formed into sections and platoons but not in the same way as an Infantry fighting platoon who will have less LMG's and rifles but more SMG's.............. And on it goes.

Well folks have been debating this entire No4 Mk II Irish order for some time now so I suppose it is time to summarize the research data collected to date, the sample of rifles and conclusions reached.

Here are the primary sources and what Information is contained in them (summary form):

1) Letter from the Irish archives to Graham Priest in April 2000 confirming that they purchased 50,000 No4 Mk II rifles between 1954 and 1956 with the following serial ranges:

PF 301548 to PF 405415
UF55 A152 to 55A A21266 (some in this range, not every one)
PF309348 (official start of Irish range) was purchased by Irish Army, sold in 1994
None were supplied in the PF 35x,xxx range

2) In same letter confirmation on No 9 bayonets being used for Karl Gustav M45 submachine guns.

3) Letter from MOD to Irish researcher, shared with me that show the official sales and when they were made. The data is as follows:

1991 5,889 including .22 cal rifles
1993 20,000
1994 8,000
1996/1997 16,000
Total: 49,000 (~889 of the first sale were .22 cal Mk III conversions)

4) Response on request of arms held as of 2004 in Irish Army stocks: Email provided informal survey of arms held in museums in Ireland as well as what remained in army stores as of fall 2003 (including No4 T rifles, Mauser 1871 and SMLE rifles at various museums).

5) Reference in document on adoption of the Karl Gustav M45 submachine gun from 1954 referencing that in addition to the trial submachine guns, 500 No4 Mk II rifles were supplied, makes reference to Indent to Britishhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif MOD regarding supply of these 500 rifles in summer 1953.

6) Records published on Milsurps regarding MOD sales of No4 MK II rifles to the trade in 1956, which contained the record of one Irish range rifle being sold to Alex Martin in May 1956 (serial number PF 314512)


From importers and folks in the Gun trade

7) Several accounts from former FCA soldiers involved in inventorying and packing the No4 Mk II rifles from Irish stocks in late 1996 to the final shipment in 1997.

8) Verification form Century arms they did import arms directly from Ireland and also the final lot sold in 1996 being imported into Canadahttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif.

9) Information from Century arms on the countries they did, and did not import rifle from. Verification From Century employee that no Enfield’s were imported from Burma (reason for this will be clear later)

10) Email from Former FCA member as to marking of and use of DP No4 MK II rifles and their disposition (none were sold, all were dumped in Irish sea)

11) Discussion with Charles Stein of SARCO on the final sale of Irish guns from Century imports in 2002, lack of parts sales from Ireland, with the possible exception of No 4 MkII Forends.

12) Correspondence with agents in UK familiar with the initial offering of Irish No4 MK II rifles from 1989 to 1990. That confirmed how it came to be that Century got the entire order. Also continued information of the surplus sales coming out of Donnington in the 1989 to 1998 time period. Part of the problem with identifying a Irish No 4 Mk II rifles is that at the same time these arms were being sold off by the UK.

13) Information provided by German collectors on the 2 lots of Irish rifles that ended up at Franconia (one of SMLE and one of No 4 Mk II). These rifles show up in Germanyhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif and Austriahttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif as identified by proof marks.

14) Correspondence with fellows involved in the export of Irish rifles from Century purchased stocks to Australiahttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif in early mid 1990s. Explained why some of these rifles show up in New Zealand and Australia. As a side benefit an insight into the decline of Interarms in the early to mid 1990s

Collected Rifle Data summary:

As of 7 August 2015 a total of 930 No4 MK II rifles that fall in the suspected Irish lots are in the database, along with another 128 guns that fall near too, but are not likely to have been in that lot. All observations on identifying an actual Irish issued rifle are based on examination of these rifles and unique features they seem to have. ) Survey of all rifles coming up for sale in USAhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif, some overseas, posted on-line and seen at collector shows that Irish guns seem to come in 5 main blocks.

Here is the summary of Irish No4 MK II issue:

The Irish army sometime in 1953/54 obtained 500 No 4 MKII rifles from the British. Exactly what was done with them and from what serial number range is not published. In 1954 a large quantity of rifles were received, followed by another lot in post August 1955 or early 1956. The rifles were first issued to the Irish army in early 1956, followed by the FCA in either late 1956 or early 1957. The only combat use was in the Congo in 1960/61. The regular army started the transition to the Belgiumhttps://www.milsurps.com/autolinker/images/link6.gif made FAL in 1961, the FCA did not make the transition to the FAL until the regular army was re-equipped with the Steyr Aug in 1988/89. With the full replacement of the Enfield in 1989, the first lot of used rifles was set up for sale in 1990, Of the 5889 rifles, 5000 were likely No4 MK II and 889 (or 989) were of the .22 cal No 1 MK III conversions (AM marked).

The second sale of 20,000 in 1993 included both used and new rifles. Of this lot some rifles were sold/transferred to Franconia in Germany. Most of the 3rd lot in 1994 and all of the 1996/97 were still in New-In-Wrap.

The rifles still in wrap were packed as follows when examined by Irish soldiers doing the inventory in 1996. 5 rifles were packed to a wooden case, each one enclosed in a sealed paper wrap, along with a Enfield 1954 No 9 bayonet and scabbard. Metal parts were coated with grease. In the inventory, part of the process was to verify each and every one of the serial numbers. As such each rifle was pulled from its case and the paper slit open over the action body so the serial number could be verified.

The final 16,000 were sent to Canada in 1997. After 5 years most if not all were transferred to the US, where they were announced in 2002 as being for sale.

Serial Numbered Bayonets:

There have been some questions as to if the bayonets were serialed to the rifles in the UK or Ireland. Based on the evidence collected the answer is Ireland. The reasons are as follows:

1) The UK did not serial rifles to bayonets at that time.
2) The Irish most certainly did, as evidence by the serialed No9 bayonets that have Karl Gustav serial numbers applied, all of which are Enfield locke No9 bayonets from 1953 or 1954 (3 samples examined out of 600). The stamp lettering/numbers are identical to those that appear on the Irish rifles. FCA personnel confirmed the bayonets had rifle serial numbers.

3) A number of serial numbers rifles that look identical in wear to the known Irish contract but in other ranges show up with the exact same serial pattern marked Enfield 1953 and Enfield 1954 bayonets. In particular a number of these rifles fall in the Burma contract numbers, and yet have identical Century Arms import markings. Because of this folks have thought that the markings on the bayonets must have been done prior to shipment overseas. A source within Century verbally indicated to me that no imports of Burma No4 Mk II rifles occurred post 1968.

4) A small number of the bayonets seem to show up with later serialed numbers, which can be determined by the fact that the stamps are of a different model.

What were the Irish No4 MK II serial ranges?
From the Irish Ministry of defense:
PF 301548 to PF 405415
UF55 A152 to 55A A21266 (some in this range, not every example)
PF309348 (official start of Irish range) was purchased by Irish Army, sold in 1994
None were supplied in the PF 35x,xxx range

So from the Irish Archives we end up with a range of 93,867 serial numbers in the PF range and 21,114 serial numbers in the UF55 A range for a total range of 114,981 of which 50,000 were accepted out of this range. The question then becomes, can that range be narrowed down?

So starting a number of years ago I stated collecting serial numbers of rifles that fell in those ranges. After a bit of time a pattern appeared and the following ranges of serial numbers seemed to show up:

Serial start Serial stop Action dates Interval Sample size
PF 309113 PF 309210 6/53 97 5
PF 301548 PF 302637 8/53 1,089 6
PF309031 -- Bayonet only 1 1
PF 361698 PF 370458 9/53 to 10/53 8,760 44
PF 37209x PF 374366 10/53 to 11/53 2,275 7
PF 309348 PF 326296 11/53 to 3/54 16,948 203
PF376084 PF 377307 4/54 1223 3
PF309911 -- 5/54 1 1
PF 336425 -- 10/54 1 1
PF 405396 PF 405415 3/54 to 11/54 20 1
PF 326606 PF340900 11/54 to 1/55 14,294 215
UF55 A152 UF55 A21266 1955 21,114 443
Totals: 65,823 930

One of the primary means used to verify a rifle in a range was Irish issued was the presence of a serialed bayonet, as long as that bayonet had the same font and stamp type as all others. In a few examples, it was apparent someone had stamped the bayonet to the rifle with a different pattern stamp. Those samples were ignored.

In any case the above allows the 50,000 accepted block to be bracketed into a ~65,000 range. From the above date we can arrange the serial number blocks into 5 ranges (see table below). With 930 rifles from a returned base of 49,000 we have a 1.89% sample, more or less. That is a sufficiently large sample to be able to make some assumptions on the number of rifles from each block.

Serial range Number of rifles Samples found percentage
PF 3015498 to PF 302673 1089 6 0.55%
PF 361698 to PF 377307 12,258 54 0.44%
PF 309113 to PF 340900 31,339 426 1.36%
PF 405396 to PF 405415 20 1 5.0%
UF55 A152 to A 21266 21,114 443 2.1%
Overall sampling Figure (of 49,000 sold) 1.89%

The first thing that jumps out is the UF55A rifles seem to be over represented. This makes sense for a few reasons:

1) Century bought rifles of this same serial number range from Donnington

2) There is a thread on Gunboards devoted to these serials; over 100 of them in the range of interest have been posted.

3) Higher value guns show up on Gunbroker more, giving the very high price these like new guns achieve on gunbroker, they seem to be over represented.

4) This affects all the rifles, the more unissued ones in a range, the more likely it is to be put up on gunbroker rather than sold locally.

As such the UF55 A series was ignored and the analysis done on the other rifles. Based on that the general expected distribution looks like this:

Rifle serial range Expected # out of 50,000 Expected # of 49,000 % of 49,000
PF 3015498 to PF 302673 ~500 ~490 1.22%
PF 361698 to PF 377307 ~4,500 ~4,410 1.22%
PF 309348 to PF 340900 ~31,150 ~30,530 1.37%
PF 405396 to PF 405415 ~20 ~20 5.0%
UF55 A152 to A 21266 ~13,830 ~13,550 2.1%
Total expected figure 50,000 ~49,000 1.89%

There are limits to the above analysis and these must be born in mind: Between serial number PF309348 and serial number PF 340900 almost all of the rifles in this block were sent to Ireland. Of a sample size of 418 rifles, only 4 of them seem to have been not in Irish service. One was sent to India, 2 was worked over by Parker hale and did not leave the UK. One imported from UK by an importer other than Century. So of the 31,552 rifles that fall in this block, around something like 31,150 ended up in Ireland. But much more than that cannot be projected

Final note:

Based on the above, most collectors want to know if there rifle has been or is likely to have been sent to Ireland or not: here are a few signs that a rifles has almost certainly been to Ireland:

1) The rifle is used and has an attached bayonet that has the serial number of the rifle, including the prefix attached. The only caveat to that is the serial number must be of the correct stamping font, which the interested user can research on line by looking at PF marked bayonets.

2) If sealed in wrap, then the following is required:

1) There must be a cut over the action body so that the serial number can be read
2) There should be a D-54 No 9 bayonet in an identical wrap included in with the rifle.

The bayonet will be wrapped in grease in an identical manner. The blade will be bright, not parked. The packing date on the rifle will be no later than August 1955. The bayonet may well be missing, as the bayonets while packed with the rifles, were not attached to the wrapped rifles.

As such the most difficult rifle to make a positive ID as Irish is any of the UF55 A152 to A21266 rifles.


Anyway that is the relevant research and results to date on these rifles. There are a small number of anomalies that I do not know quite how to quantify, such as the PF 309031 to PF309210 rifles (at least one in this range was Irish). The serial numbers also contain some anomalies such as out of sequence dating and rifles that seem to have not been ever to Ireland based on work done to them. I have a bit more data on the rifles such as expected odds of being issued from any given range, but as this post is a wee bit unwieldy I thought I would leave it at that.

Cheers

Frederick

Anyone know how to get a table in or correct the formatting for columns?

Try taking a .jpg of the page using Scannit or a similar program, or scanning a paper page as a jpg.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

So at the end of the emergency

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what emergency?

I think only twice did the british sell enfields to the Irish.

First time was during thier civil war. Churchill was so enthusiastic about that that he wanted to sell them 18 pounders as well. he shared your view of the irish pete.

the other time was this 50 k rifle deal. wasn't Churchill Prime minister when that deal went through?
.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Seaspriter

Reading between the lines, the Brits, who, at the time, were less than trusting of the Irish (and vice versus), figured they could sell the Irish shed load of soon to be obsolete rifles and keep the production lines at Fazakerley running and the union happy. Obviously it required MoD to approve the sale, which made political and economic sense as well. MoD was probably quite aware of the phase-out/phase-in schedule for the new NATO rifles -- something the Irish were not aware of.

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the problem with reading between the lines is that it allows a very broad spectrum of interpretation that allows us to argue almost any point of view. The reality is that the british may not have trusted the Irish but there is no evidence that selling them "obsolete" rifles supports this. The Irish trusted the brtiish only as much as they needed to.and there is no indication on the diplomatic front to indicate ta lack of trust. After all the british sold them the rifles didnt they. Probably both the british and the irish considered the possibility that the rifles could be used against the british and it was laughed off as almost inconcievable. I think that in the flawed context that most people think of. it was more likely that british soldiers were likely to sell thier rifles to the IRA than the republic in the south issueing them to the IRA. What many fail to realise is that the IRA caused as many problems in the republic as they caused in the north. and it was a relatively quiet time during the 50's. very few, some, but few of these Irish contract rifles every went north in aid of the IRA.

You may remember that the british were also selling the same rifle converted to 308. The Irish could have bought those rifles but chose the 303 most likely because they had stocks of other rifles and bulk ammo in 303. Considering who thier most likely enemies ( not just single unwed mothers) could be, there was no need to upgrade and modernise. It made economic and logistical sense. and the same descision was made in the US before WWII and by the british them selves just befor WWI. so with the same considerations involved why wouldn't the Irish make the same choice.

Did they keep the factory open to make this run of rifles? I dont know why I think this but It was my impression that the rifles were alresdy made and on the shelf the british were looking for customers. These rifles were made solely to keep people employed. there was never any ready made market for them and with so any weapons left over from WWII , America giving away modern rifles and new ones comming off the line. The irish had a vertually unlimited choice and yet they went with the 4/2's in 303. brand new rifles, well designed, in a caliber supported by thier logistics. at dirt cheap prices. the choice was clear, simple and correct.

the fact that the irish were not aware of the nato switch over to 308 is pretty much a myth. The 308 had been around commercially way before nato considered it. Several rounds were submitted to nato for consideration, not just the 308, the british and several other european countries submitted rounds for consideration. America;s submission was the 308. but at the time of the irish deal there had been no firm descision on a choice. Its safe to say that with the overwelming influence of the US the 308 was the clear choice. in retrospect but at the time there was no certainty. every member of nato knew this because it was such a big deal. many cried foul but caved in due to America's willingness to assist them in the conversion. The Irish themselves went over to both FAL's and 308 only a few years later and joined the UN, With America;s economic support, it made as much sense as the irish contract choice did a few years earlier. It impossible to view any of these descisions by them selves or in a vaaccuum.

It would be all but impossible to conceal this pending nato 308 choce from the irish. No. the nato round choice was actualy irrelevent to the Irish. The british were selling them a small quantity of existing rifles in a calible compatible with existing munition stocks.They sold them at almost give away prices and in an "obsolete " caliber. Considering Irelands foreign policy, it was unlikely they would be going to war with anybody anytime soon. Considering all the elements. the irish got the best deal. If those rifles were comming off the line in real time it would have made no difference weather they were 308 or 303. except to the irish with thier existing stocks of 303, No , the claim that the irish did not know...its a myth. They got a really good deal all around considering what was out there on the market.

is it so difficult to separate the "irish element" from the equasion and come to the conclusion that it was a wise and insitefull choice. Why is it that in every respect the Irish are characterised as idiots and all thier choices were mistakes. Military history suggests otherwise and yet we persist in the stereotype. Lets start with the supposition that every choice the irish made was in thier own best interest and not mistakes..... it make the choice to buy 4/2's in 303 all the wiser. Why are the Irish so foolish and gullible to by 50K rifles in 303 when the Indians continued to make the mkIII's in both 308 and 303 and FAL's.and the Pakastani's....OMG! they took existing tooling, dies and jigs and ramped up production of the same rifle when everybody was going to 308 and FAL's. and both the Indians and the Pakastani's continued production how long? how many addition DECADES? And yet its the Irish with thier paltry 50K rifle purchase are the idiots, the fools. the gullible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

who is one of the best primary sources we have and is as close to the internal working of Commonwealth ordnance would not be in possession of the “real story”.

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Was pete in the Irish army when the choice was made to purchase 50K rifles.

was it he, according to the minuts recorded in the Irish Parlement who argued the choice to purchase these 50 k rifles? The transcripts of those minutes confirm this?

in accordance with the deffinition of primary source, he is a primary source?

I bow in reverence.

I sure hope niether himself or anybody else is trying to rewrite history. Its no fun being the pupet master when sombody pulls back the curtain.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

If you read the entire thread, you will see some folks have done the primary research, including letters from the Irish ministry of defense archives. There is a paper trail on these rifles, both in terms of acquisition records and disposition records. The official published letters from the MOD say 50,000 were purchased. the disposition/sales records say 49,000 were sold between 1991 and 1996. Both sources are Irish army Archives.

What Capt. Laidler is saying, and considering that he has been at the heart of the British MOD system for something like 50 years when the good captain speaks most of us listen, is that this information is wrong. He has not elaborated on exactly why but has stated that serial number lists he has seen back up his contention..

Given that the number of Brens to rifles should be at a rate of ~10 to 1, and the Irish only bought ~ 2,000 Brens, and retained ~10,000 SMLE until circa 1984 to 1987, it does give one pause with regards to the official published 50,000 figure of No4 Mk II rifles procured. 2,000 Brens to 60,000 rifles seems kind of off.

In any case the final declaration of truth will come between 2021 and 2026, when the Irish archives will open the records on the sales and the serial number lists will then become available.

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I read the entire thread thank you. I dont dispute the existance of the irish contract. The record will show that I claim to own one of these rifles. I appriciate that there is sufficient documentation to confirm the contract exists. my concernis that it seems the sole source of confirmatio comes from one source and the excruciating details of the contract come from that same source. Primary.....maybe. Factual......maybe. Ill wait untill the documentation comes out.

Surely, at some point the Irish Dail discussed this matter and the munuts of thoses discusions and thier transcripts are a matter of public record. surely those transcript would support the facts. Those would be primary sources.

Mike, if I understand your last post correctly, you believe that you own one of the 50,000 "Irish contract" rifles? If so are you aware of any markings on the rifle that are peculiar to the Irish Defence Force that are not found on rifles that have seen service only with other armies? It has been suggested by others that sometimes Irish army equipment is marked, if I remember correctly, with an FF stamp??? Does the rifle have any broad arrow markings as well? Other than the serial number there seems to be very little to go on in trying to decide if a rifle has seen Irish service or not. Do any forum members living in the Irish republic know of any No4 mk2 Le-enfield rifles on public display in museums etc within the boundaries of the Irish republic? If so any-photos that can be put on this forum would be very welcome, please. What would be great is a picture of the entire rifle and a close up of the serial number and also the location of the museum, please.

mine has no markings to destinguish it as Irish property , other than the sn that falls inside the irish contract range of numbers. no broad arrow markings either.

The FF markings often refered to were stamped , by the Irish on rifles sold to them or left behind by the British when they pulled out,in 1923.

FF in a circle indicated Irish government property. Fianna Fail translates from the Gaelic into Army of destiny or Army of Ireland. Many FF marked rifles returned to England after Dunkirque. This information came from page 12 of an NRA publication British Enfield Rifles dated 2004.

Mine is a 4/2 and has no FF markings on it. I dont think any of the post war 4/2's had FF stamps on them. If they did its the first I ever heard of it.

wouln't some discuson of the purchase of these rifles have come up in the Dail or the Irish Parlement back when the purchase was considered? minuts of those discusions, are they a public record? Something must have been stated even if from an economic or financial context and as some aspect of the diplomatic dialoge and if not in the Irish parlement maybe the english parlement. The sale of these rifles may have showed up as very good news in the news papers around the same time consideing the employment/labor situation at the time. These sources need to be investigated too.

I 'm not understanding something here. Is it being claimed that the Irish contract never existed or that it was never completed and or that the rifles werenever delivered. or what exactly?

lots of people dont seem to realise that the FF marked rifles of 1923 and the later 1950's 4/2's deal were two different deals. Alot of people who dont know that also state other opinions as fact and confuse the issues. It is my understanding and that of many of us; that the "Irish contract" lee enfields refere only to the 4/2 deal in the 50's and not the 1923 deal. The 1923 deal included MkIII rifles, almost all of which were stamped FF in a circle. apples and oranges really

Just a few comments:

I am not sure why a letter from the Irish Army archives would not be considered a primary source, but checking the Irish Parliament debates might be worth while. That said on many of the WWII known Irish spares indents, the debate is over the sums of money, not each individual item on the desired procurement list.

As to special markings, the No4 Mk II rifles have no special markings. None are marked with the FF marking (to my knowledge). As stated above, the most likely indication of Irish service outside of the known contract range is a matching bayonet serialed to the rifle, in the correct font. As it would appear that virtually none of the UF55 A series were ever issued, only two rifles can be absolutely identified as being Irish that is Serial number A152 and serial number A21266.

In the list of rifles on display there is one No4 T rifle (deactivated) and one No 4 Mk II rifle at one museum, and one No 4 MK II was recently presented to I forget what organization ( I am away from home as I write this). As of the fall of 2003, the numbers of rifles left in stock were:

740 No4 MkII,
100 No4 MkII equipped with AJ parker TZ sights
49 No4 (T)

Since that time there is evidence at least some of the No 4 (T) rifles were broken up, as a number of the scopes have been put up for sale (~25) about 18 months ago.

In 2003 the Irish government had never sold any of the 1907 bayonets they had, some of which were rather rare models (all WWI pattern). I believe since then they were sold, but do not have confirmation on that.

At the time of the sale of the last sale of rifles in 1996, it was not legal for any center fire caliber above a .270 to be owned in the Irish republic on a firearm permit (not sure if they had a MOD permit). In any case the Irish soldiers involved in the inventory indicated in 1996 that none of the rifles were sold to soldiers who asked if they could purchase one.

In 2004 the Irish Free state allowed permitting of full bore rifles over .270 cal. If any of this remaining stock were sold after that to Irish I know not, but as Ireland is part of the UN arms treaty, the likelihood is rather suspect.

I hope to resolve a lot of the open issues on a trip to the archives this fall, and the results will be reported then. That is assuming the trip actually happens, as allowed by work schedule.

As regards the comments of Capt. Laidler: While the official records do not agree with his opinion, I do not disregard his opinion or say it is wrong. Far from it, I put down what records have turned up so he and others could poke holes in it. As stated previously, he has been at the center of the ordnance system since just after Lord Protector Cromwell, through the restoration, through the great fire of London in 1666, through the Napoleonic wars, through the Tower fire of 1839, The Sepoy rebellion, through all the rest since. He literally wrote the book on the Bren, the Sterling, The No4 T and the No 32 scope. To disregard his opinion would be very foolish indeed. He has forgotten more on these weapons than most of us will every know.

Correction: Capt. Laidler was an apprentice in 1963, not 1663. In any case the minor second digit error does not affect the validity of the argument.

a letter is indeed a primary source. if that letter exist and is authentic. yes it is a primary source.

a memory of what is written in a letter is not a primary source.

between bias, failed memory and paraphrasing the content of a letter.... none of those are considered primary sources

Often , you can get assistance from researchers who may be able to do your research for a fee,or help at least locate sources. They could do this for you prior to your arrival and make research go deeper or more smothly. College kids would love to do thisand you might benifit fro it because they know the system and the ins and outs of research. Maybe contact them prior to your arrival and yo could cover enourmous amounts of ground to vast depths in the resolutionof this issue. Either way It would be interesting no matter the outcome. Are you writting a book? I'd be very interested in that as well whenit comes out?

Kinda fun to find out the facts what ever the outcome. I am as concerned as anybody that the grey area's in this matter are bulked out with unsubstantiated speculation. It seems harmfull to control information to the point of distorting it simple to weild power as the pupet master. research is always more interesting and fun.

I have a copy of the letter. Mr. Graham was kind enough to send me a copy. His book, "The Spirit of the Pike" I very much like and strongly recommend.

I have a direct print out of the data from the Irish researcher on the disposal sales. I gave him the information on the Irish purchase, issue and disposal of the US M1917 for the LDF. On that topic I was able to find the US diplomatic letters regarding that sale. He also is a gentlemen. I have not posted his name as I only l know him by Email.

As Century Arms and the US ATF were very unhelpful on the US side, I have had to rely on folks in the business and their recollections. At times those recollections do not quite fit exactly. For example the UK rep. for the first sale recollection for the first tender does not exactly match the date put forward by the Irish Archives. Also taking to folks that were involved in the disposal on the Irish side seemed to indicate that the number of DP and part salvaged No4 Mk II rifles were more than 140 (likely) or 240 (unlikely), which is what the records indicate was the maximum number of rifles that could have been destroyed. So it is true that some of the statements made could very well be in error with this method or research. But the information put down was the most consistent with all of the inputs.

Now it is true that anything put out there by anyone asserting something should be picked apart. That is a good thing. But if you are going to do so you should do so on the basis of knowledge that indicates you see a mistake in someone work. Your assumptions and sarcasm are becoming downright rude. I am tempted to say "go do your own dammed research". Stop and ponder what you have written, it does not come across very well. That said if you have facts that indicate something put up here by anyone is wrong, please, by all means say so and provide your sources or reasons for doubt.

I am not so much planning a book as publishing this material as I find it. I have promised Badger a booklet as soon as some of the nagging issues that remain "Unbekannt" are resolved.

Kind regards

The beauty of the Frederick303 Capt Laidler discussion on this thread is that it has illustrated some good points about the problems of historical research. Documents v a 'Reality Check' which is always a good thing. In a lot of cases sensible people will have to realise that there is no 'Correct' / 'Proven' answer but two or three 'Possibles', with each 'Possible' having it's own set of evidence and it's own supporters and detractors. The reader then has to use their own judgement as to which 'Possible' they think is lkely. This is where it can get emotive or messy. If we have 3 'possibles' A/B/C and they all seem to have valid points we not only have to look at ther points but to see if there are any 'Motives' behind these points or those who support them. These motives can range from financial to political and from the very minor, bullshiiting a customer into paying extra for a rifle to the more serious, selling a 'Drill Purpose' dangerous rifle as a rare 'Dublin Police' issue rifle. Then we get the very serious such as the Cleveland Child abuse 'Scandal' started by a Dr looking for a £30,00 grant and a TV presenter whose contract had not been renewed and who was desperate for publicity. Other examples are the credible fgures for land mines that need to be dealt with and the use of 'Guestimate' figures. This, at it's worst, led to more being spent on high profile conferences than grants to clear land mines. A good historian will present their facts, sources, and above all REASONS for their conclusions. In my opinion both Frederick303 and Capt Laidler have put up either valid research or opinions and reasons, and have done so without being abusive. It may well be that we never get a 100% answer one way or the other.

Mike, I'm interested to see that you mention that the Irish Republic returned some rifles to the U.K. in 1940 after the fall of Dunkirque which is the first time I have ever heard it suggested but it does not surprise me. Does any-one have any further information on this matter or of any other weapons being returned to the U.K. in 1940? Although the Irish Republic was a neutral country in WW2 there are a number of instances of the Irish Republic being very helpful to the U.K. during WW2 such as turning a very blind eye to interned U.K. servicemen leaving internment camps to return home. Does any-one have any idea of the numbers of Irish Republic citizens who served in the U.K. armed forces in WW2? I'm guessing it's in the many thousands???

Mike 16,

first let me apologize for my intemperate post. I am sure you are trying to get at the truth. I hope you will accept the apology.

My issue was , you posted a number of, shall we say incorrect assumptions, such as the Irish No 1 MK III rifles almost all being FF marked (they were not, only rifles sent back to the UK for re-barreling or rectification were), while rather offhandly disregarding posted information that was from pretty good sources. That is while impugning others work you posted gross generalizations that were obviously wrong if you had read and digested all of the posts in this long thread.

For example your post from page 12 of a NRA reprint, which came out of a 1963/1964 article published in the American rifleman by Charles Yust. Charles Yust was a noted cartridge collector, not an expert on Irish rifles. He states in that article that the Irish provided arms to the UK for defense of the home country. His comment was ....wrong.... period. As in mistake. As in an incorrect assumption. The fact was in 1940 The Irish were begging the English for arms, not providing them arms. The English were not all that wild about supplying the Irish, not because they were anti-Irish but because they felt that in remaining neutral and in not allowing use of the former Irish treaty ports to be used for anti-sub patrols that Ireland was holding up their part of being a part of the commonwealth. That said the English did end up supplying sufficient arms for Ireland to have two effective divisions.

There is a wealth of writing(primary sources) on the Irish pleas for small arms in the June 1940 to September 1940 time frame. the issue was eventually settled in late 1940 with the US providing 20,000 M1917 rifle to the English along with 5 million rounds, which the English then transferred to the Irish. Why it went that way is a story in and of its own, but it had to do with the Irish making a play to align themselves with America rather than English and the decision of both the US and the English not to yield to that idea.

At the same time the English promised, though the colonial secretary to provide the Irish with 10,000 SMLE rifles when practical. There is no record of the English providing these rifles in the official lists of equipment provided to the Irish during WW II. That said there is evidence that the Irish either had some arms exchanged with the UK and that the Irish received supplies of spare parts that they used to refurbish some of the unserviceable rifles in their stocks. The indents for spare parts exist, and sure enough a lot of the parts indents such as forearms and safeties show up on Irish SMLE rifles. By late 1941 there is an Irish parliament speech where the help from the UK is acknowledged. In any case any arms sent to the UK were sent for exchange or action body replacement, not to help the UK.

Now you will note while I did publish a summary of the rifle use from 1923 to 1939 I have not followed up with the WWII period. That is because there are still too many open ended questions. For example the records show that the Irish sold 21,169 SMLE MK III rifles in ~1960, with a further ~10,000 in 1984~87 (approximate date). Yet in the survey of rifles I have in the known Irish serial number range (which encompasses ~ 27,400 serial numbers), only 179 show up, while of the 10,000 ER, CR and G rifles 227 have shown up, with known sales of 4,105. So something is not quite right when it comes to the register of WWII serial numbers, there should be a lot more out there. They should be almost as common as the No4 MK II PF serial number range (31,552 in range) with 425 in the database. That is part of the reason for a trip to the archives.

In any case Mike, no intent on my part to belittle you, just point out that if you want to poke holes in folks posts, you should do the research or at least read what has already been written in the thread ahead of time and make sure your post does not contain incorrect information. But as far as poking holes in posted information, pointing out omissions or where there is a logical inconsistency, have at it.

kind regards

Frederick,

Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see an explanation of how some of these guns found their way to Afghanistan. Do you know?

I am pretty sure there were no quantities of No4 MK II’s there in the early to mid ‘80’s. IIRC, the Enfields provided by the CIA to the Muj back then came from the Israelis along with the stocks captured Soviet type weapons.

There are no official records that indicate such as officially the sales occurred after the soviets withdrew from the vacation spot that Afghanistan is. I think this gets down to the entire issue that Capt. Laidler is alluding to regarding his doubts, as apparently more than a few of the official serial number range shows up in places unexpected.

These lists do still exist somewhere but they're quite lengthy and contain details of large amounts of of weapons that have been captured, seized or confiscated etc etc. Including large numbers of No4 Enfields from those serial number batches. But being restricted, you'd be a braver man than me to release specific details..............

Frederick in Post 95 I'm delighted to see you cooling things down in one direction so please don't inflame them in another!
After Eire broke away Great Britain became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This is made up of FOUR countries. England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The citizens were BRITISH. The governement was BRITISH, the empire, at the time, was BRITISH.
We are, despite the efforts of some, still British. I say this as a Scot, a person born in Scotland of Scottish Parents, who can be called Scottish who is also BRITISH, just as someone born in England of English parents can be English and BRITISH.
Now I'm sorry if this sounds pedantic but if we are to research and publish history let's get the basics right! I do not think a Texan would thank me for calling him /her a Californian.
So any WW2 negotiatons were carried out between the BRITISH and IRISH governments.
Here endeth the lesson ;-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

You still haven't come back and said where anyone said anything insulting or even remotely horrible about the Irish yet Mike.

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I think that letting it rest at this time is the best way to leave it. This forum is about the rifle. not the opinion of those who find fault, it seems,exclusively with the Irish. Normaly I would try to convince some of us that not all Irish are as stereotyped...but I might not succeed and this is not the venue.....Any way I have a 11/54 No.4 mk 2....Irish contract LE and uh oh! dare I draw wrath upon the Australians.... a 41 lithgow.