Reference Code: IE-MA-UNJ
Dates: 01 September 1939 to 17 December 1945
Creator(s): Air and Marine Intelligence Staff; G2; Central Control, Air Intelligence, Baldonnel; Duty Officers in Department of Defence and other locations; Office of the Chief of Staff; Southern Command military staff.
Level of Description: Fonds
Extent and Medium: 165 outsize archival boxes containing 187 bound volumes and sets of loose leaves of Unit Journal pages.
Access: Open to the public
Language: English
Back
This collection consists of bound volumes and loose leaves of ‘Unit Journal’ pages. These are large format pages used by G2 staff, Duty Officers and other military personnel to note down reports received over the radio or phone during the Emergency Period, 1939-1945.
It is an incomplete selection of unit journals from General Headquarters (G2 and the Office of the Chief of Staff), the Department of Defence, Air and Marine Intelligence and some Commands and barracks such as Southern Command, Eastern Sector and Sarsfield Barracks in Limerick.
The information noted down is wide in scope, but some of the main subjects include: reports of sightings and movements of foreign aircraft, both commercial and belligerent, around the coast and over land; aircraft arrivals and departures at Irish airports and the seaplane terminal at Foynes; Air Corps flights and crashes; sightings of barrage balloons; aircraft crashes and forced landings, both on land and at sea; locations of Irish patrol vessels; movements of commercial shipping and foreign naval vessels, including submarines; reports of mines, bodies and other objects at sea and washed ashore; explosions at sea; attempted entries into military camps by unknown personnel; attempted escapes from Irish internment camps; accidents and accidental shootings.
The unit journal sets are broken down into the location where they were filled in and the pages are arranged chronologically.