Irish army

Army an tArm
Cap badge of the Army
Active	February 1922–present
Country	Ireland
Type	Army
Size	7,310 permanent personnel 2,188 Reserve (Nov 2015)
Part of	Defence Forces
Website	Defence Forces - Army
Commanders
Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces	Vice Admiral Mark Mellett DSM
GOC 1st Brigade	Brigadier General Philip Brennan
GOC 2nd Brigade	Brigadier General Michael Beary
GOC DFTC	Brigadier General Joe Mulligan

The Irish Army, known simply as the Army (Irish: an tArm), is the land component of the Defence Forces of Ireland. As of May 2016, approximately 7,300 men and women serve in the Irish Army, divided into two geographically organised brigades. As well as maintaining its primary roles of defending the State and internal security within the State, since 1958 the Army has had a continuous presence in peacekeeping missions around the world. The Army also participates in the European Union Battlegroups. The Air Corps and Naval Service support the Army in carrying out its roles.

The roles of the Army are:

The Defence Forces, including the Army, trace their origins to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the guerrilla organisation that fought British government forces during the Irish War of Independence. In February 1922, the Provisional Government began to recruit volunteers into the new 'National Army'.

The Provisional Government was set up on 16 January 1922 to assume power in the new Irish Free State. On 31 January 1922, a former IRA unit (the Dublin Guard) assumed its new role as the first unit of the new National Army and took over Beggars Bush Barracks, the first British barracks to be handed to the new Irish Free State. The National Army's first Commander-in-Chief, Michael Collins, envisaged the new Army being built around the pre-existing IRA, but over half of this organisation rejected the compromises required by the Anglo-Irish Treaty which established the Irish Free State, and favoured upholding the revolutionary Irish Republic which had been established in 1919.