laststandonzombieisland

The active four-year period of the Mau Mau Rebellion in British Colonial Kenya wrapped up 70 years ago this week on 21 October 1956 with the capture of wounded Kenya Land and Freedom Army Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi. The 36-year-old revolutionary, whose formal military training amounted to a month “taking the King’s shilling” in 1940 before being discharged for drunkenness, was subsequently tried and hanged.

Speaking of taking the schilling…

Official period caption: “At the Naivasha Rifle Range, the 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Fusiliers give members of the Rift Valley Home Guard the chance to handle modern weapons including a Vickers machine gun.”

As detailed by the Royal Irish:

The 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Fusiliers, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel G J Hamilton DSO, landed in Mombasa on 30 January 1955. The Battalion deployed A Company to North Kinangop and B Company to South Kinangop in the West Aberdares. The rest of the Battalion deployed around Navisha in the Rift Valley with a Tactical Area of Responsibility of around 1,600 square miles.

The Battalion conducted counter-terrorist operations against the Mau Mau fighters who were raiding white Kenyan-owned farms and properties and terrorising the black Kenyan workers.

The Battalion’s advance party arrived at Ogbourne St George, England, in October 1955, and the main body departed Kenya on 24 December 1955 aboard the HMT Captain Cook. However, within weeks, the Battalion was moved to Bulford, and then in June 1956, the Battalion moved to Wuppertal in the Federal Republic of (West) Germany.

Kenya became independent in 1963, has been in the Commonwealth since 1964, and “The Faughs” of the Royal Irish Fusiliers– from their motto Faugh-a-Ballagh (“Clear the Way”)– in 1968 were amalgamated with the other regiments of the North Irish Brigade, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Royal Ulster Rifles, to become the Royal Irish Rangers, which were in turn later merged with the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1992 to form today’s The Royal Irish Regiment (27th (Inniskilling), 83rd and 87th and the Ulster Defence Regiment) which was deployed in Africa as recently as 2022 to Mali.

The Royal Irish Fusiliers Museum is in Armagh.