Medical Corps (Ireland)


The Medical Corps is the medical corps of the Irish Army, a branch of the Irish Defence Forces, responsible for the provision of health promotion, medical and dental support to forces while on exercise and deployment.
Because it is not a fighting arm, under the Geneva Conventions, members of the corps may only use their weapons for self-defence.

Insignia

The corps has its own distinctive insignia, designed by George Sigerson and TJ McKinney around various symbols of medicine and healing from Irish mythology. Its badge displays the words "Óglaigh na hÉireann" on a scroll at the top. At the bottom is another scroll with the corps' motto, "Comraind Legis". This Middle Irish phrase is a quotation from the Táin Bó Cuailgne, and is equivalent to modern Irish "comhroinn leighis"; it translates as "equal division of healing", referring to the impartial treatment of the wounded that the main characters of the Táin gave to each other in nocturnal truces between battles.
In the centre is a silver hand, referring to Nuada Airgetlám, the mythological chieftain of the Tuatha Dé Danann who lost his hand in battle and had an artificial silver hand made to replace it, designed by Dian Cecht, the god of healing.
The scrolls are joined on each side by a staff about which a serpent is entwined. These do not represent the rod of Aesculapius, but rather the staff of Moses. They refers to the legend that the ancestor of the Gaels, Goídel Glas, and his people encountered the Israelites in the desert while the Israelites were suffering a plague of vipers. Goídel Glas was bitten by a viper, and Moses used his staff to cure him.

Operations

Two teams from the Central Medical Unit of the Medical Corps took part in the response to the West African Ebola virus epidemic under Operation Gritrock from 2014 onward, alongside UK and Canadian military medical personnel.
Paramedics from the Army Medical Corps assisted in staffing ambulances with the HSE National Ambulance Service and Dublin Fire Brigade as part of Ireland's response to the coronavirus pandemic, in order to increase capacity, in 2020.