Martin Coyle sent me this article which he found on an American Website
IAN MALONE
IRISH GUARDS
This was
from the website
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/03/_ians_death_bro.html
IAN MALONE - IRISH GUARD IN LIFE, UNITED IN DEATH
Below
is the story of Ian Malone - a young Irishman who bridged the divide between
Ian's death brought people together
By Philip Watson Lance Corporal Ian Malone died in an ambush on the streets of
Having reached the edge of the old city and achieved their objective of
securing a university campus, Ian Malone and his colleagues had left their Warrior
armoured personnel carrier, and were regrouping. They had scoured the area and,
in the dusty shade of dusk, all seemed safe.
In an instant, however, two Fedayeen in civilian clothes broke cover and
sprayed the crew with automatic fire. Four soldiers were hit. Ian Malone took
two bullets - one through the neck, the other in the head - and died instantly,
becoming one of 55 British soldiers killed in
What made the 28-year-old Lance Corporal remarkable, though, apart from the
peerless qualities that all who knew him instantly recognised - he was a
thinker and philosopher; courteous and religious; a talented chess player and
musician; an exceptional soldier; and, as his school chaplain said at his
funeral, not macho but manly - was that Ian Malone was an Irishman fighting for
the British Army.
Many have found in Ian Malone's life and death something profoundly symbolic:
the notion that he represents the continuing spirit of progress and
reconciliation between
Ballyfermot has always, however, been an area of strong family ties, resilient
community spirit, good schools and committed teachers - and from an early age,
Ian, the eldest of five children, did well. He began to play chess at the age
of six, later joining the local chess club. In the Army, he would often beat
his commanding officers, until he was told, only half-jokingly, not to do it
too often because it was bad for morale.
At the local Christian Brothers secondary school, he shone academically, yet
his more stubborn, non-conformist nature also began to surface. For one mock exam
for his Leaving Certificate, the equivalent of A-Levels, he was given zero for
writing one-sentence answers, later claiming it was all a waste of time, as the
teacher knew that he knew more than that. Shortly afterwards, he refused to sit
his final exams, insisting that he would take them a year later, which he did,
with some success. For the next three years, however, he had an assortment of
manual jobs. He was mostly restless and unsettled.
His waywardness was reined in by compensatory disciplines. In his teens, he
briefly took up boxing, but found greater fulfillment in the controlled power
of martial arts, becoming local under-16s karate champion. Although Ian Malone
was tall and skinny for his age, he also had great strength and stamina.
His dedication was primarily reserved, though, for the FCA, the Irish version
of the Territorial Army. Having joined when he was 15, he spent one night a
week and every Sunday morning training at a barracks four miles away. He also
went on three-week summer camps.
This experience inspired him to pursue a career in the Irish Defence Forces.
His maternal grandfather had served in the Irish Army and it seemed a logical
progression from the Reserves. He was to be disappointed: in the mid-1990s,
Undeterred, he researched careers in the French Foreign Legion and the British
Army and discussed opportunities with his former school chaplain, Father David
Lumsden. "I remember that we'd both seen the Laurel and Hardy films, in
which they go off and join the French Foreign Legion, so we instantly rejected
that option," says Fr Lumsden. "We knew how tough it would be."
In 1997, Ian Malone applied to the Irish Guards, a regiment with a long and
proud history within the British Army. Formed in 1900 by order of Queen
Ian Malone's decision also had a long historical precedent. Almost 150,000
Irish soldiers fought in the First World War; 49,000 died. More than 60,000
Irishmen - more than from loyal
As one of 400 or more men from the republic then serving in the British Army,
some of them stationed in Northern Ireland, Ian Malone was part of a familiar
Irish story of economic emigration - he was seeking work abroad when there was
little at home. And never having left the country, he was no doubt seeking
travel and adventure, too.
It took him three attempts to be accepted; he was underweight and he had
problems with his eyesight. Yet in one Army test, Ian was found to have an IQ
of 130 and he was offered the possibility of officer training or joining the
RAF. He declined both, saying that foot soldiering and
the Irish Guards were for him.
In 1997, he travelled to Catterick in
His family also noted a change in him. "I honestly didn't expect Ian to
last, but when he came home the first time, I sensed that he'd discovered what
he was looking for," says his mother, May.
"He was happier in himself and had definitely found his calling. Ian
enjoyed every minute of being in the Army."
He soon joined 1st battalion in its base at
A keen short story writer and an avid reader of history and archaeology, he had
also persuaded the Army to fund an Open University degree course in English and
History. It was an irony, therefore, that Ian Malone was killed in the grounds
of
Throughout all this time, Lance Corporal Malone cleverly negotiated the
paradoxes of being an Irishman in the British Army. He swore fealty to the
Queen and learned to sing the British national anthem. Yet in barracks and
pubs, he stayed resolutely and proudly Irish and, along with most of his
regiment, would sing noisy renditions of such popular Irish songs as The Fields
of Athenry.
Army life could have been isolated and lonely for an Irishman, a national no
man's land. Yet Ian Malone seemed too self-possessed and self-aware to let such
challenges affect him.
Two years after Ian had signed up to the Pipers, another non-Briton joined the
regiment: Christopher Muzvuru, from
At the end of April last year, Guardsman Malone was given a huge funeral in
Ballyfermot, during which British soldiers were seen in uniform on the streets
of
At the funeral mass, several men wore British military blazers, uniforms and
medals; it was the first time many in the congregation had felt free to do so
in public. In his oration, a British Army chaplain talked about the tortuous
relationship between
As the coffin was taken up by a bearer party of Irish Guardsmen and led out of
the church, two pipers played traditional laments; one piper was from the
British Army, the other from the Irish Defence Forces. As the cortège passed,
local policemen saluted. Finally, at the cemetery, the Irish Guards' regimental
colonel, the Duke of Abercorn, stepped forward to present May Malone with her
son's piper's cap.
This week, May Malone attended the St Patrick's Day presentation - by the
Princess Royal - of shamrock to the Irish Guards in south
The war, she said, should never have happened, there was no need for it, but
she tried not to be bitter about his death because that was not what Ian would
have wanted.
"People in
Paul Harraghy, who was one of Ian's pallbearers, believes his friend's death
may have improved the relationship between
It is a sentiment echoed at the foot of Ian Malone's gravestone in Palmerstown
cemetery in