Irish Air Corps

The Air Corps (Irish: An tAerchór) is the air force of Ireland. Organisationally a military branch of the Defence Forces of Ireland, the Air Corps utilises a fleet of fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft to carry out a variety of duties in conjunction with the Irish Army, Irish Naval Service and Garda Síochána. The headquarters of the Air Corps is located at the Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel, County Dublin. The Air Corps has an active establishment of 886 personnel. Like other components of the Defence Forces, it has struggled to maintain strength and as of December 2023 has only 689 active personnel. Unlike the Army or the Naval Service, the Air Corps does not maintain a reserve component.

While established as an army air corps in the 1920s, the Irish Air Corps was not operated as a separate military service until 1997. It is primarily built around various supporting roles rather than actually controlling Irish airspace, having retired its last jet fighter aircraft in 1999. In 2022, the Irish government committed to implementing a series of changes proposed by the Commission on the Defence Forces, which called for (among other revisions) the establishment of an Air Corps Reserve by 2028.