My Memories of Paddy Mullins

Time can play tricks with one’s memory and this article is based on events and places and things that happened, as best as I can recall. Some people I can recall their rank rather than the first name, so apologies to anybody who I may not have remembered correctly.

I first met Paddy in Collins Barracks Cork in May 1960. As I recall Paddy joined up very shortly after I had enlisted on the 5th of May. My army number was 810547 and I think Paddy may have been 810552.

We were part of No 6 platoon and were based in Block 6 at the Command-training depot. Our platoon sergeant was Sgt Cusack. We also had corporals Bill Sisk, Joe Hunt, John St. John and some others who I can't recall.

I got to know Paddy shortly after he joined. He was a country boy and came from a farming background just like myself. Having so much in common it followed that we became the very best of friends and while I made many friends in the Army, Paddy was my best friend.

It is hard to believe that we soldiered together for only a year and five months before he died so tragically. So what kind of a fellow was Paddy?

Paddy was quiet and unassuming and always in good humour. However, underneath he had a serious side and was extremely competent and reliable. Everything he did he did well and despite his young age (he was only about 17 yrs old) he excelled at all aspects of soldiering.

Paddy loved music and could sing well himself on occasions. He loved country & western music and liked singers such as Jim Reeves, of whom he could do a very good imitation. Two songs I remember him singing were Red River Valley and Mona Lisa.

Trooper Patrick Mullins

Paddy had a great way with the ladies and I recall he had a number of girl friends during our time in Cork, each one better looking than the next. Paddy was going out with a girl called Esther who lived in Sunday’s Well. This was towards the end of our time in Cork. He brought me along one evening to let me see how pretty she was, on condition that I waited on the other side of the street and did not make myself known. I remembered watching with envy from a safe distance as this smashing looking girl came up and walked off with Paddy for the evening.

Having completed our basic training in Cork, Paddy and myself along with four others were posted to Fitzgerald Camp in Fermoy in December of 1960. No sooner had we arrived than we were put on a dispatch riders course under the instruction on Sgt Fraher.

We settled into life in Fermoy very well. Paddy was a good hurler and often played matches in the camp sports field in Fermoy. Our off duty time was spent going to dances and of course the cinema in Fermoy.

Paddy’s sister Mary and her husband Tom Kent lived near Kilworth camp and many an evening I would go along with Paddy on a visit. Mary and Tom were so welcoming; it was home from home for me.

February 1961 saw us finished the despatch riders course and after volunteering for overseas duty we were put on special training for deployment to the Congo.

The Congo was very much in the news at this stage and the Niemba ambush where 11 Irish soldiers had been killed in December 1960 was very much on everyone’s minds. However being young, optimistic and seeing a chance to travel we looked forward to going on active service abroad, although Paddy often passed the remark and I quote as I remember what he used to say "It is alright to go out but will we come back".

Did he have a premonition about being killed? Who knows?

We left for the Congo in late June 1961 with stopovers in places like Malta, Tripoli and Nigeria. We travelled in big Globe master aircraft flown by the US Air Force. It was a huge change going from Fermoy to the Congo and also being on active service for the first time.

Paddy took all this in his stride, however, and settled in, with his usual calmness and good-humoured approach, to carry out whatever duties were necessary.

We made many more friends from other units who joined us to make up the Armoured Group of the 35th Battalion. Among them we got to know Cpl Michael Nolan from Wexford who was to die in the same engagement along with Paddy.

Not much happened until about August when things started getting tense and in September the UN launched an offensive in Elizabethville to take control of the city as the situation had become intolerable with regard to free movement of our troops in the area.

It was during the early part of this period that Paddy along with Ml Nolan were killed when the armoured car they were travelling in on a patrol was ambushed and took antitank fire.

Paddy’s remains were never recovered and he lies out there somewhere thousands of miles from home.

I think about him very often and what life would have been like for him had he survived. I am sure he would be married now with his family grown up just like myself. I also feel we would have kept in touch and often when I go to play a game of golf I feel it is a sport Paddy would have taken up and I have no doubt he would have become an excellent golfer and have a single figure handicap.

The ceremony to commemerate Paddy held in his home parish in Kilbehenny is now an annual event and is a special night for all of us who served with him. Meeting up with the Mullins family on the night is always a pleasure.

Paddy was a great guy and would have made an even greater contribution to life had he lived. However those of us who knew him are all the better for having served with a young man of such a very high calibre and we can be proud of him.