'He was never going to make old bones. If it had not been the IRA, it would have been a shark, a fall from the North Face of the Eiger or a head-hunter on the Upper Amazon.'
– Julian Malins QC, Nairac's close friend
For a junior Army officer who died young, Captain Robert Nairac has achieved remarkable posthumous fame; equalled only, perhaps, by some of the soldier-poets of the First World War, such as Rupert Brooke. He was not famous before his death at the hands of a lynch mob in the Republic of Ireland. But, since his death, which received front-page coverage in 1977, interest in him has never died.
Robert Nairac, however, had begun to make his mark before he died. By any standard, even by comparison with his friend Colonel “H” Jones, he was an extraordinary man and an extraordinary soldier. He packed far more into his twenty-eight-and-a-half years than most of us manage in eighty.
He is remembered at his old school, Ampleforth College, as one of the most charismatic individuals ever to have served there as a Monitor. He was “good at everything,” not only leaving with a respectable haul of O and A Levels, but excelling at boxing, rugby, running, shooting, falconry, dry-fly fishing... He is also described as having been, when young, a devout conservative Catholic of “almost mediaeval intensity.”
It was only towards the end of his third year at Oxford that Robert Nairac decided on an Army career. Despite his lack of any family connection, he was able without difficulty to secure a commission with the Grenadier Guards and an Army university cadetship (scholarship) for his final year.
Nairac joined the Army in 1972, straight from Oxford. He distinguished himself from the start. He was assessed “well above average” at Sandhurst and played in the Sandhurst First XV rugby team. His annual Army confidential reports were exceptional. The last one ever written awarded him Box A markings in every subject except Administration and Organisation, where he scored a B. This, as anyone who has served in the Army knows, is no mean achievement.
His report from Staff College (Junior Division), dated June 1976, less than a year before his death, is similarly excellent: "An able and intelligent officer with a strong and attractive personality and an abundance of common-sense. He is a natural leader and thrives on responsibility... I have no hesitation in recommending him for a grade 3 staff appointment or as an adjutant."
He spoke French to Interpreter standard. Had he survived for a few more weeks and rejoined his regiment as planned in June 1977, he would have been promoted to Acting Major, Company Commander and was to have received a medal in recognition of his exceptional services; all before his twenty-ninth birthday.
page 2 >