Flew in support of the Provisional Government’s National Army against the anti-Treaty IRA; Wikipedia describes its role as minimal.

The air arm of the new state was born in the middle of a war between former comrades. The Military Archives record an Air Service headquarters at Baldonnel in June 1922 with 14 pilots and 13 aircraft; the Civil War began on 28 June 1922. By the end of the year, Wikipedia counts about ten aircraft, among them Bristol F.2B Fighters and Martinsydes bought from British stocks. The anti-Treaty IRA had no aircraft, so there was no air fighting, and Wikipedia sums up the air service’s part in the war as minimal. The one loss confirmed in the sources reached for this page is an S.E.5a that force-landed at Mallow, Co. Cork, and was destroyed by anti-Treaty forces. The war ended in May 1923. Details of individual missions, such as reconnaissance or leaflet flights, were not confirmed and are left out.

Výsledek The war ended on 24 May 1923 with the anti-Treaty side’s ceasefire; the air service survived to become the Irish Army Air Corps in 1924.

Aircraft counts for 1922 differ: 13 aircraft in June (Military Archives) against about ten at the end of the year (Wikipedia). Both sides of the Civil War are described by their usual historical names; no casualty figure for the air service was found.

Létání pro

National Army Air Service

Kde

Irsko

Vedle

Žádné spojenecké letectvo

Proti

Anti-Treaty IRA

Letadlo

Stíhačka Bristol F.2B, Martinsyde F.4, S.E.5a, Avro 504K

Výpady

No sortie count was found in the sources reached.

Ztráty

1 letadloOne S.E.5a force-landed at Mallow and was destroyed by anti-Treaty forces. Aircrew casualties were not confirmed and are left out.

Zdroje

Military Archives · Wikipedie · Wikipedie · Wikipedie

Neutrality patrols, coastal reconnaissance and air defence of a neutral state; no combat with belligerent aircraft is recorded.

On 30 August 1939, as war approached, the Air Corps sent five aircraft and 92 personnel to Rineanna, the future Shannon Airport. For the next six years it policed the skies of a state that would not take sides. The Military Archives count 163 belligerent aircraft that force-landed in Ireland during the war; the Air Corps disposed of their weapons and salvaged the airframes, and so acquired a Hudson, a Fairey Battle and more Hurricanes. Its own fighter strength grew to about 20 Hurricanes, flown from 1944 by No. 1 Fighter Squadron at Gormanston. Wikipedia records no engagement between Air Corps aircraft and a belligerent aircraft; what they did shoot down were dozens of barrage balloons that had broken loose from Britain. Belligerent airmen who came down were interned at the Curragh. Wikipedia records that all Allied servicemen had been released by October 1944, while German internees stayed to the end, and that Allied aircraft used the Donegal Corridor to reach the Atlantic from Lough Erne. The German bombing of Dublin’s North Strand on the night of 30/31 May 1941 killed 38 people; Germany blamed wind or British interference with navigation beams.

Výsledek Ireland stayed neutral. The Air Corps ended the war with a small fighter force built partly from interned and bought RAF aircraft.

Ireland was not a belligerent; this entry records an armed neutrality operation, not a war. Internment numbers were not confirmed and are left out. The treatment of Allied and German airmen differed, as the sources cited describe.

Létání pro

Irish Army Air Corps

Kde

Irish airspace and coast

Vedle

Žádné spojenecké letectvo

Letadlo

Hawker Hurricane, Gloster Gladiator, Avro Anson, Westland Lysander, Supermarine Walrus

Výpady

No sortie count was found.

Ztráty

Wartime training losses were not checked for this page.

Zdroje

Flying in Ireland · Military Archives · Wikipedie · Wikipedie · Wikipedie · Wikipedie · Wikipedie

A single C295 flight into Beirut to deliver senior Defence Forces officers to UN posts and bring out Irish Army engineers.

Irish troops have served with the UN in Lebanon for decades, but the Air Corps long lacked an aircraft that could reach them. The third C295, delivered in October 2025, changed that. On 27 March 2026 C295 286 flew from Dublin to Larnaca and on into Beirut, according to Flying in Ireland, to deliver senior Irish officers to UN positions and to bring out a specialist team of Irish Army engineers who had been unable to leave after the Israel Defense Forces moved into southern Lebanon. The magazine reports that an armed Irish convoy brought the engineers along the coast to the airport, and that the Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs arranged deconfliction with Israeli authorities. The aircraft was on the ground for about 90 minutes and returned to Larnaca. It was not a combat mission, but it was the Air Corps’ first flight of its kind into an active conflict zone in recent years.

Výsledek The engineers were brought out; the flight spent about 90 minutes on the ground at Beirut.

Based on one specialist-press report; the Defence Forces’ own account was not reached. Descriptions of the Israeli operation follow that report and are attributed to it.

Létání pro

Irský letecký sbor

Kde

Lebanon, from Larnaca, Cyprus

Vedle

Organizace spojených národů (UNIFIL)

Letadlo

Airbus C295W

Výpady

1One Larnaca–Beirut–Larnaca round trip on 27 March 2026.

Ztráty

0 letadel · 0 zabitýchŽádné hlášeny.

Zdroje

Flying in Ireland · Flying in Ireland