Lance Corporal Ian Malone (8 December 1974 – 6 April 2003) from

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, was a member of the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

Irish Guards The Irish Guards (IG) is one of the Foot guards#United Kingdom, Foot Guards regiments of the British Army and is part of the Guards Division. Together with the Royal Irish Regiment (1992), Royal Irish Regiment, it is one of the two Irish infant ...

. He was the first person born in

to be killed in the

Iraq War The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with 2003 invasion of Iraq, the invasion by a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition, which ...

. Malone's funeral in Dublin was the first funeral with a uniformed British military presence in the Republic of Ireland.

Background

Twenty-eight-year-old Ian Malone came from a

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

background in the

suburb of

Ballyfermot Ballyfermot () is a suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located west of the city centre, south of Phoenix Park. It is bordered by Chapelizod on the north, by Bluebell, Dublin, Bluebell on the south, by Inchicore on the east, ...

. The eldest of a family of five, Malone was educated by the De La Salle Christian Brothers Catholic school. He served in FCA, the Irish reserve defence force. It is claimed that he applied to join the Irish Army but was rejected due to his age. When he joined the

in 1997, a regiment of the British Army created in 1900 by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

, he was 23 years old and the age limits for the Irish Army at that time was over 17 years and under 21 years of age (with the age limit extended to a max of 25 years if the recruit held a 3rd Level Degree) .

Military service

Malone was promoted to

lance corporal Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many English-speaking armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organisations. It is below the rank of corporal. Etymology The presumed origin of the rank of lance corp ...

in October 2000 and served on

Operation Agricola The Kosovo War (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Косовски рат, Kosovski rat) was an armed conflict in Kosovo that lasted from 28 February 1998 until 11 June 1999. It ...

in Kosovo. He completed a piper's course in April 1999, and was a member of the pipe band. He also served with the Battle Group in Poland, Canada, Oman and Germany. In November 2002 Lance Corporal Malone was one of a number of British soldiers interviewed on a

Radio Telefís Éireann Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connected to ...

documentary series, ''True Lives''. Regarding his membership of the British Army, he said: :''At the end of the day I am just abroad doing a job. People go on about Irishmen dying for freedom and all that. That's a fair one. They did. But they died to give men like me the freedom to choose what to do.'' Malone was deployed on

Operation Telic Operation Telic (Op TELIC) was the codename under which all of the United Kingdom's military operations in Iraq were conducted between the start of the invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003 and the withdrawal of the last remaining British forces on ...

in an armoured infantry section with Number 1 Company, Irish Guards, as part of the

Royal Scots Dragoon Guards The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys) is a light Cavalry regiments of the British Army, cavalry regiment of the British Army, and the senior Scottish regiment. The regiment, through the Royal Scots Greys, is the oldest survivi ...

Battle Group within

7 Armoured Brigade The 7th Armoured Brigade was an armoured brigade formation of the British Army. The brigade is also known as the "Desert Rats", a nickname formerly held by the 7th Armoured Division, of which the brigade formed a part during the Second ...

. Lance Corporal Malone was shot in the head by a sniper on 6 April in

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

during the Irish Guards' advance on the country's second largest city,

Basra Basra () is a port city in Iraq, southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the List of largest cities of Iraq, third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq bor ...

Funeral

The removal of Lance Corporal Malone's body to Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic church in Ballyfermot was attended by hundreds of people, including Charlie O'Connor, a local TD, whose father had served in the Irish Guards. His funeral on 24 April 2003 was celebrated by Fr. Dave Lumsden and drew large crowds, including senior politicians from the opposition such as

Gay Mitchell Gabriel Mitchell (born 30 December 1951) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Minister of State for European Affairs from 1994 to 1997 and Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1992 to 1993. He served as a Member of the European Parliament ...

, TD. An honour guard of the Irish Guards in their full dress uniform was provided, though the

coffin A coffin or casket is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, for burial, entombment or cremation. Coffins are sometimes referred to as caskets, particularly in American English. A distinction is commonly drawn between "coffins" a ...

was not draped in the

Union flag The Union Jack or Union Flag is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was also used as the official flag of several British colonies and dominions before they adopted their own national flags. It is sometimes a ...

. One piper from the Irish Guard and one piper from the Irish Defence Forces, 2inf bn Cq C o'Dywer PM, played at the funeral, Oft in the stilly night.

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

. His funeral was the first time since 1922, that uniformed British Army soldiers had been seen in Dublin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malone, Ian Keith 1974 births 2003 deaths Irish Guards soldiers British military personnel killed in action in the Iraq War British Army personnel of the Iraq War Military personnel from County Dublin 20th-century British Army personnel Military personnel from Dublin (city)