When Cormac Brady wanted to propose to his girlfriend, Hazel McDermott, he decided to do it underwater while they were both scuba-diving in Lanzarote. He had several laminated sheets of paper made for the occasion.
One showed the question. The others were, variously, Yes, No, Maybe, and a fourth displayed an expletive.
In the event, Brady got the answer he wanted and he and Hazel now live in their new home in Maynooth, having tied the knot last November.
“I chose the ‘Yes’ card and wanted to get up to the surface very fast to celebrate,” says Hazel. “It was lovely, a special moment.”
In Ireland, Brady (34) is attached, notionally at least, to St Bricin’s Military Hospital in Dublin. But on the Golan with Undof, he is operations officer in the 48th, working closely with his OC, Lieut-Col Mark Prendergast; his No2, Comdt Paul Kelly; and information officer Capt Phelim Carroll.
Brady will relate "up the line", as it were, to Lieut-Col Prendergast and Comdt Kelly but also to Undof's Joint Operations Command, the JOC, known to all as "the Joc". The Golan is his fourth overseas posting, after Kosovo, Congo and Lebanon.
He grew up in Athenry, Co Galway, and enlisted in 2000. After cadet school, he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion in Kilkenny. It was a career choice that went against the grain of his family background. His father was a banker for 40 years, his mother a homemaker; one elder brother manages hedge funds in New York, the other is now a financial controller in the Health Service Executive.
Something different
“I was doing business in DCU and realised it wasn’t for me,” he explained at dinner one evening. “I needed a change, I needed something different and I knew I was never going to be someone who’d be parked behind a desk, doing the nine to five.”
He and Hazel met socially in Maynooth, from where Hazel (30) comes. “He’s a wonderful person,” she says. “He’s very kind and genuine and we just really clicked straight away.”
Hazel studied social science in Maynooth and works for the local branch of Gheel Autism Services, a non-profit organisation helping people with the condition and their families. Gheel is funded by the HSE but has managed to keep the effects of cuts away from delivery, says Hazel.
Staying positive
Does she have anxieties about the mission? “It’s slightly different now that we’re married and we have our own home together,” she says. “He’s leaving our home. It’s challenging in itself but we managed it the last time and you have to stay positive . . .”
And Syria?
"It's not something I like speaking about because you just don't even want to say things out loud. I for one will try to avoid as much information on the news and in the newspapers as possible. Syria is just a daily thing, you hear it constantly . . . We'll be fine and we'll get through it but definitely, it will be a little bit more worrying than Lebanon."
Cormac’s experience has him a little more phlegmatic. “You sign up. You join up. You do the training,” he says. “You are worried about any mission but, at the end of the day, it is definitely harder for your partner. What we found worked on previous missions is, we do communicate. Goal-setting is hugely important – the half-way mark, the leave period, the planned holiday.”
The planned holiday will be three weeks in July – “Somewhere exciting, somewhere nice,” says Hazel.
And when home in October at mission’s end, there’ll be time for Jet and Rua, his beloved red setters, country pursuits (shooting, walking). And for a serious rugby enthusiast and keen player for NUIM Barnhall, there’s also the end of the rugby world cup to look forward to.
