The 1st Battalion is an operational infantry battalion of the Regular Army, currently stationed at Belfast Barracks, Osnabruck, Germany, as a mechanised infantry battalion in the 4th Armoured Brigade equipped with Saxon Armoured Personnel Carriers.

Saxon Armoured Personnel Carriers

The battalion is commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Richard Jeffries.

The Battalion has seen extensive operational service in recent years:

• It was based at Omagh, Northern Ireland, when on Saturday 15 August 1998, an Irish Republican terrorist group committed the worst atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles by exploding a bomb in the busy main shopping street. The bomb killed 31 people, including a pregnant mother and her unborn twins, and wounded hundreds. The immediate and unstinting actions and efforts of the Battalion, and its accompanying families, to help and support the community in the hours and days which followed has created a close bond with the town of Omagh which continues to this day.
• Within a year of returning from its Northern Ireland posting, the Battalion was back in the Province for a six-month emergency operational tour in South Armagh, the heartland of militant Irish Republicanism, 1999 - 2000.
• The Battalion deployed to central Basra, Iraq, for an incident-packed emergency tour from June to October 2003. As one of the first units to deploy following the combat phase of the invasion of Iraq by the Coalition Forces, it faced extreme and very difficult conditions in getting the country's second city working again. The Battalion's success was subsequently recognised by the award of 22 honours and awards, including a rare Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for the Commanding Officer, Lt Col (now Col) Jorge Mendonca.