Ireland's Answer To The SAS

This is the most secretive unit in the entire Irish Armed Forces.

The Irish army ranger wing is the most elite unit in the entire Irish Military up there going toe to toe with the likes of the British SAS or the US’s Delta Force. They are without doubt a tier 1 unit, tasked with direct action black ops missions


The Irish army ranger wing is an elite tier 1 unit up there going toe to toe with the likes of the British SAS or the US’s Delta Force. They are without doubt a tier 1 unit, tasked with direct action black ops missions

In 2018 they won the US Army’s international sniper competition making them the best sniper team in the world, a title previously only held by US teams.

The unit can trace its history back to the 1960s with the establishment of Special Assault Groups within the army to tackle “The Troubles”, the name given to the conflict with Northern Ireland.

Members of the Irish Defence Forces trained in the US Army Ranger School before returning and conducting their own Army Ranger Courses. By the late 1970s 300 Rangers were in operation prompting the creation of the Special Task Force to operate in border regions.

Further training was then received from M-Squadron, an elite Tier 1 Unit from the Netherlands. Eventually in 1980 The Army Ranger Wing was established. There are now talks to change the Name to Ireland’s Special Operations Force.

In modern times the ARW have primarily been used in evacuation missions such as in 2011, evacuating 115 irish citizens from Libya after the fall of Gaddafi, in 2021 evacuating 26 Irish Citizens from Afghanistan post the fall of Kabul or most notably in 2019 with the extraction of Lisa Smith

An Irish Army Soldier turned ISIS member. Plain clothed ARW Personnel, flew to Syria extracting both Lisa and her 2 year old child returning, repatriating Lisa and charging her with multiple terrorism offenses.

In 2015 it was believed there were 150 ARW members with the Government aiming to double that number. However, it is believed that there are now only 50. This is down to a number of factors including the difficulty of the selection course, with only 2 people passing in 2019 as well as pay disputes.