Irish national service circa 1950

[pet50ite]

When visiting my cousins this weekend, they showed me a letter written by our auntie about her brother (their father) saying that he had done national service. There is one bit that none of us understand. I wonder if anyone would be able to make sense of it for us.

"An army car came to the house to collect Fabian apparently a crack shot or something and they needed him and when he look out of the window at the car drawing up he said to me .  Will you look who they sent form.   "The Gull" .  However, I was so proud they could not do with out him.

Pet50ite

[dathai]

National Service sounds like something you were compelled to do,idont think we ever had that in Ireland.
The Gull was obviously a nickname for some well known character.
Do you know if Fabian was in Ireland 1950s

edited to add  could it have been during the Emergency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(Ireland)

[Sinann]

That's good thinking dathai, my mother often talks about the families getting moved out of the Curragh Camp when WWII started to make way for the soldiers. There may well have been a call up of anyone who could serve at the time.

[eadaoin]

If he was in the FCA (local defence force) at the start of WWII, he'd have been called up.

OH's father was called up in Dublin 1939 and let go in November 1945, I think. He went to training camp every year until the mid to late 1950s.

[pet50ite]

A very interesting article Dathai, thank you. Eadaoin and Sinann, thanks for your replies As far as I know Fabian was in Ireland in 1950 and had moved to England about 1952. He was born around 1927 so would only have been in the army at the end of the Emergency. I'm really curious to find out who or what "the gull" was.
pet50ite