Irish Military Insignia - Army, Command, 1941

This series of badges represent the first formation badges to have been worn by the Irish Army. They were quite small in size when compared to the current style. There were two issues of the badges, one spade shaped and one shield shaped. The badge size was one inch by one and a half inches. At the end of the emergency the divisional badges continued to be worn by two Commands. The 1st Division was worn by the Southern Command in a slightly larger size until it was incorporated into the new command badge in the 1960s and continues to be worn by the 1st Southern Brigade. The 2nd Division continued to be used as the Eastern Command badge, and more recently as the 2nd Eastern Brigade, but in a larger size. There were an additional two badges one for the Military College and the other for Army Troops. The Army Troops were those not covered by any of the others. I know that the Air Corps wore it prior to the winged flash.


	Army Headquarters	Army Headquarters


1st Division	1st Division	2nd Division	2nd Division


Curragh Command	Curragh Command	Eastern Command	Eastern Command


Southern Command	Southern Command	Western Command	Western Command


Military College	Military College	Army Troops	Army Troops

Colour Code: The Southern Command is a shade of GREEN and the Western Command is BLUE. The Eastern Command had two colours GREY and CERISE PINK. It should be remembered that these badges were worn over sixty years ago therefore the colour shade has faded in some cases also because of the colours I have lost some quality in the scanning process.

The brigade bars were worn under the formation flash. The colours indicated which brigade the wearer belonged to. There were eight brigades which were broken down as follows: (1st Division '1', '3' and '7') (2nd Division '2', '4' and '6') and two independent Brigades 5th and 8th. Within the 1st Division the Brigade colours were 1st = Green, 3rd = White and 7th = Orange. The 2nd Division was 2nd = Green, 4th White and 6th Orange. The 5th and 8th were Green indicates that they were in the same command area. The bar size was one and a half inches long by just over quarter of an inch wide.