Captain Robert Nairac...A Hero?

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Captain Robert Laurence Nairac was a Catholic, born on the 31st of August 1948 in Mauritius, England. His father Maurice was Catholic and his mother Barbara Protestant and, although there were no difficulties about that within the family, Robert was to experience at first hand the significance of a religious division that deeply affected the communities that became his prime focus as a serving soldier. He was educated at Ampleworth College, a well-known English Catholic public school, and then Lincoln College. “Robert Nairac emerged from Lincoln College, Oxford in 1971 with a good degree (a 2.1 or Upper Second), four blues for boxing, (having been instrumental in reviving the University Club and in consequence the annual fixture with Cambridge) to enter RMA Sandhurst supported by the sponsorship of the Grenadier Guards. From his rooms at Oxford, both intrigued and depressed by them, he observed the beginnings of the modern Troubles in Northern Ireland when they arose at the end of the sixties era of protest which had been in full flight across the world.”[1] After that “Nairac chose to try for entry into Sandhurst to establish himself as a career soldier, but all the time with an eye on Ulster as the best theatre for advancement. It was for that reason that, after Sandhurst, he undertook postgraduate studies at University College, Dublin and honed his knowledge of Ireland to a degree matched by few brother officers, unless they were of Irish birth and upbringing until the point where his mimicry of the local accent and enthusiastic rendering of rebel songs convinced many who met and heard him that he was an Irishman. Ultimately, however, over-confidence in his capacity to simulate the Irish persona was to be his mortal downfall.”[2] Officially his military title was Liaison Officer with the 3rd Infantry Brigade but many felt that he had links with the IRA and was
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