The 1st Battalion Irish Guards, based at Victoria Barracks in Windsor, have spent the past three weeks in intense training in Kenya and have just celebrated St Patrick’s Day in customary style deep in the African bush.

The soldiers of the 1 Irish Guards took a short break from their six-week training programme to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in true Celtic style. The all important shamrock, some 1400 individual sprigs were specially air freighted in from Ireland, from where the Regiment’s essential ‘greenery’ is provided every 17th March for the past 110 years.

1200 men and women formed up for the St Patrick’s Day Parade, the ranks swelled by units such as the Logistic Support Squadron, an artillery battery and a squadron of Royal Engineers that operate alongside the 550 strong regiment forming the Irish Guards’ Battle Group.

Under the baking sun, and in front of two British Major Generals, the shamrock was handed over by the wife of the Colonel of the Regiment, Lady Elizabeth Roberts, and ceremoniously issued to each soldier to place in their head dress.

The British Army has a long association with Kenya using its vast open spaces and jungle terrain for training its troops. Recently, however, there has been a shift in the way that the Army use this facility. The level of training has now more than doubled and, under a new series of exercises to be called ‘Askari Thunder’, there has been a wholesale move towards reflecting current operational deployments.

Many of the Guardsmen spoke of how they enjoyed the experience of training in Africa, most with tall tales of wildlife encounters. At 17 years old Guardsman Richie Spence from Newtownards is one of the youngest of the Guards to be in Kenya. He turns 18 later this year before he is due to deploy to Helmand where he will be among the youngest of the British soldiers on operations.

Speaking of Kenya he said, "The people here are so friendly, my heart goes out to the kids I see running through the bush with nothing on their feet. The training has been very hard, but really good".

Amid the wild and harsh African bush the Irish Guards were true to the British Army’s traditions and celebrated St Patrick’s Day with due ceremony. Their Commanding Officer said: “It’s these customs that add flair, colour and a sense of kinship within the battalion”.

They may well have had to toast their patron saint with a bottle of Tusker (the locally brewed lager) instead of a pint of Dublin’s most famous export, but for one day at least they managed to turn a small part of Africa Celtic.