A Brief History of the queen’s royal irish hussars
In late October 1958 the 4th Hussars and the 8th Hussars amalgamated in Hohne, Northern Germany, forming The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars. Their first tour of duty as a Regiment was in Hohne itself as part of the 7th Armoured Brigade. In 1961 the Irish Hussars re-roled as an Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, deploying to Aden for a year of peaceful patrolling during which they manned their own flight of aircraft.
The Regiment moved straight from Aden to Malaya in October 1962 and were garrisoned in Ipoh, Singapore and Sarawak. The Squadrons rotated through this series of widely dispersed camps, patrolling to keep the peace from being broken by Indonesian communist forces, with whom there was some limited fighting. In 1964 the Regiment moved back to Wolfenbuttel as the Armoured Car Regiment of 1st Division for four years. It then returned to England spending a short time in Perham Down then Bovington for two years after which they returned to Paderborn in Germany. In 1974 the Irish Hussars went on a short tour to Cyprus to help in the aftermath of the Turkish invasion as part of the United Nations contingent.
In 1979 the Regiment moved back to Tidworth for three years, during which an independent Squadron completed two tours as the Armoured Recce Squadron in Cyprus and a small contingent became ceasefire monitors in Rhodesia. From 1982-1987 the Regiment was back in Munster, from where it completed a short tour in Northern Ireland in 1983 as the Maze Prison Guard Force. Two years in Bovington and Catterick followed Munster, then back out to Germany in 1990 where the Regiment took part in the Gulf War and liberation of Kuwait, spearheading the 7th Armoured Brigade 100 hour advance. In 1993 the Regiment completed another tour in Cyprus shortly before amalgamation.