The Irish Military Tradition

Armagh Leuven Links

Eddie O’Kane Leuven 5th May 2012

The Irish Military Tradition

•An Irish Military Tradition?•Images of Irish soldiers in print and sculpture•Important historic events leading to Irish Militaryinvolvement abroad•The Wild Geese•Irish Regiment Uniforms

Armagh Leuven Links Eddie O’Kane Leuven 5th May 2012

Characteristics of the Irish Warrior

Ancient medieval Irish sagas such as the Cú Chulainnstory and the Fenian Cycle refer to an Irish warliketradition

The characteristics are variously described as “reckless daring, spectacular ferocity and indominitablecourage”

And characteristics such as those described by Romanwriters among their Celtic adversaries -“simplemindedness, guilelessness and witlessness”

Influence of the Cú Chulainn saga• William Butler Yeats who wrote

several pieces based on the legend,including the plays On Baile'sStrand (1904), The Green Helmet(1910), At the Hawk’s Well (1917),The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919)and The Death of Cuchulain (1939),and a poem, Cuchulain's Fight withthe Sea (1892).

• Patrick Pearse (leader of the 1916Rebellion in Ireland)

• Later in the 1970s Ulster loyalistparamilitaries adopted Cú Chulainnas a symbol for their defence ofUlster

Anti-war traditionThe idea of a continuous Irish military

tradition over a period of 1,500years is open to discussion

Significant anti-war tradition exists• Daniel O’Connell’s peaceful

agitation for Catholic Emancipationin 1830s

• Irish neutrality during SecondWorld War

• Civil Rights Movement 1960s• Women's Peace movement in

Northern Ireland 1976 Daniel O’Connell

An Irish Military Tradition?

Albrecht Durer “Irish Soldiers and poor people” 1521

An Irish Military Tradition?

Woodcut from around 1550 of Irish soldiers

An Irish Military Tradition?

Woodcut of 1588 by Casper Rutz of an Irish soldier serving on the continent,probably one of the Irish auxiliaries who accompanied the Earl of Leicester'sexpedition to the Netherlands in 1586.

An Irish Military Tradition?

The Submission of Turlogh O’Neill 1576 fromDerrick’s Image of Ireland (1581)

An Irish Military Tradition?O’Cahan tombDungivenPriory

Cooey-na-Gall ÓCatháin , who died in1385. “Cooey-na-Gall” means “Terrorof the Stranger”

An Irish Military Tradition?

The taking of the Earl of Ormonde

A Irish Military Tradition?

Dutch watercolour ofIrish Men and WomenAbout 1575

A Irish Military Tradition?Captain Thomas Lee, circa 1594, when hewas 43 years-old, by the Flemish artistMarcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

The subject is shown in the regalia of acaptain of the Queen's Kern (a hybridcombination of English & Irish dress),posing with legs and feet bare, and armedwith shield, spear and pistol. Lee served inIreland continuously from 1575 to 1599.

It is on record that some Englishmen didadopt Irish dress.

Note the characteristically Irish way heholds his javelin, with one finger through aleather loop which enabled it be twisted andspun in the hand.

A Irish Military Tradition?Excerpted from "Tartans and Kilts" by the Ulster-ScotsAgency:On April 28, 1956, the Coleraine Chronicle reported thediscovery by a farm labourer of ragged clothing dug out ofan earth bank on the farm of Mr William Dixon, in thetownland of Flanders, near Dungiven, County Londonderry.

The find consisted of a woollen jacket or jerkin, a smallportion of a mantle or cloak, trews or tartan trousers, andleather brogues. This was the style of clothing worn by menin those parts in the 16th or 17th century.

The textile expert supported the soil analysis, dating thefind to between 1600 and 1650....Reconstruction of the Dungiven Costume, a set of clothesdiscovered in a bog in the 1960s and thought to date toc.1600, the period of Tyrone's rebellion. It was perhapsoriginally the property of his O'Cahan soldiers. The trousersare of a tartan cloth cut on the bias, while the jacketresembles that of Turlough O'Neill in Derricke's print. Thesemi-circular woollen mantle is 8 1/2 feet wide by 4 feetdeep.

Ulster Museum Belfast

An Irish Military Tradition?“Les Irandais que nous avons vus de si bons soldats en Franceet en Espagne ont toujours mal combattus chez eux.” Voltaire1751

(“The Irish whom we have seen to be such good soldiers inFrance and Spain have always fought badly at home.”)

Matthew O’Conor in his Military History of the IrishNation (1845) disagreed with Voltaire's scathing andsweeping judgement. O’Conor mentions the Irishvictory over the Vikings at Clontarf in 1014

O’Conor dismissed the military history of medievalIreland.

'Prior to the sixteenth century', he wrote, 'the wars of theIrish were either petty intestine feuds not worthy ofhistorical notice or uncombined efforts in resistance toNorse and Anglo-Norman invasion.' O’Conor said itwas the earl of Tyrone who 'may be regarded asopening the school for that national military geniuswhich afterwards rose to so noble a pitch of fame inall the most warlike services of Europe'

Character of the Irish Soldier

• In 1964, G. A. Hayes-McCoy, historian, referredto the observation of General Richard Taylor ofthe Confederate States of America.

• “Strange people, these Irish!” mused Taylor,“Fighting everyone's battles and cheerfully takingthe hot end of the poker, they are only to be foundwanting when engaged in what they believe to betheir national cause.”

Character of the Irish Soldier

• Hayes-McCoy felt that Patrick Pearse’s 1916Rebellion had redeemed the Irish militaryreputation at home – he felt Irish failure at homehad been the result of bad leadership and lack oftraining He pointed out –“There is no such thing as a born soldier, nor docourage and strength of body alone make one:training and experience are necessary.”

Character of the Irish Soldier

• Hayes-McCoy Irish Battles: a Military History ofIreland, 1969, confines itself to fourteenengagements and ends with the battle of Arklowduring the 1798 rebellion.

• The nineteenth century is ignored because itwitnessed 'much military activity in Ireland but ...no warfare'.

• Hayes-McCoy's perception of Irish militaryhistory solely in terms of 'nationalist' soldiering,

Character of the Irish Soldier

• Hayes-Mc Coy ignores the organisation andarming of the Protestant anti Home RuleUlster Volunteer Force

Military presence in Ireland in thenineteenth Century

• According to Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey in“A Military History of Ireland” 1996, the imageof continuous military activity in Ireland waslargely a caricature

• It suited the English who wished to maintain alarge garrison of soldiers because of the threat ofviolence

• It suited those opposed to the English presencebecause it proved to their supporters that thestruggle continued

Military presence in Ireland in thenineteenth Century

• In the nineteenth century, there were usually between20,000 and 25,000 British soldiers in Ireland.

• They were quartered in some 100 barracks witharound 400 military stations dotted around thecountry.

• In addition to the regular army there were Militia andYeomanry formations which in the later nineteenthcentury were supplemented by the Royal IrishConstabulary, an armed police force closer to theFrench gendarmerie than their English counterpart

Family traditions among Irishsoldiers abroad

• The Irish historian, Grainne Henry in her study ofthe Irish army in Flanders in the early seventeenthcentury remarks on the strong family traditionamong these soldiers –

“The number of uncles, brothers, and cousinsserving together in the Irish military group is quiteamazing”, she writes, adding, “family migrationseems to have been... common amongst those inthe service of the Army of Flanders”.

Family traditions among Irishsoldiers abroad

• Later in France the family tradition was alsoevident – “Alexander de Comerford”,Captain of Grenadiers in Dillon’s regimentin 1776 looked for a military pension. Hehad served thirty four years in Frenchservice. He listed his campaigns and theinvolvement of his family in the Frencharmy

Family traditions among Irishsoldiers abroad

• Alexander de Comerford, 1776• “Son grand-père était major du régiment de

Bulkeley lorsqu'il passa en France; son grandoncle ancien capitaine au dit régiment fut tué a labataille de Malplaquet; son père, ancient capitainedu meme régiment mourut de ses blessures enEcosse en 1746. Il a aujourd'hui deux de sesoncles ancient Chevaliers de St Louis qui vontretirer ef son fils officier au régiment de Dillon quifait la quatrième generation de père et fils auservice du roi”

Important historic events leading toIrish Military involvement abroad

• The Nine Years War (1594 -1603)• The Battle of Kinsale 1601• The Flight of the Earls 1607• The Plantation of Ulster (1610 -1625)• The Battle of Scarriffholis 1650• Williamite War - Siege of Derry 1689, Battle of

the Boyne 1690, Treaty of Limerick 1691

Mass exodus abroad of Irish Soldiers (mainly Catholic)

The Wild Geese• Under the Treaty of Limerick, Jacobite soldiers in formed

regiments had the option to leave with their arms and flags forFrance to serve under James II in the Irish Brigade.

• 14,000 Jacobites chose this option and embarked on ships forFrance.

• Individual soldiers also emigrated to join the Spanish, Frenchor Austrian armies

• The departure became known as the “Flight of the WildGeese”.

• The Jacobite soldiers also had the option of joining theWilliamite army. 1,000 soldiers chose to do so.

• Jacobite soldiers thirdly had the option of returning homewhich some 2,000 soldiers chose.

The Wild Geese

• Over half a million soldiers served in the IrishBrigades of France and Spain from 1585 to1818

The Defence of Leuven 1635• Thomas Preston, 1st

Viscount Tara (1585–1655)was an Irish soldier whofought in the Thirty YearsWar on the Spanish side. Hedistinguished himself in theSiege of Leuven against theFrench and Dutch in 1635.His wife was a Flemish ladyof rank, by whom he hadseveral children, one of hisdaughters being the secondwife of Sir Phelim O’Neill.

Relief of Leuven. Oil on canvas by Pieter Snayers.

The Wild Geese

Irish – 1680 - 1718

1. Officer, Gardes Irlandais. 16802. Private, Regiment Clare. 16923. Ensign, Regiment Roth. 1718

The Wild Geese

Irish - 1709 - 1757

1. Private, regiment Lally. 17552. Private, Regiment Clare. 17573. Grenadier, Regiment Ultonia. 1709

The Wild Geese

Irish 1720 - 1740

1. Private, Regiment Bulkeley. 17202. Private, Regiment Berwick. 17343. Drummer, Regiment Dillon. 1740

The Wild Geese

Irish 1740 - 1745

1. Trooper, Fitzjames’s Horse. 17403. Ensign, Regiment Dillon. 1745

The Wild Geese

Irish 1762 - 1770

1. Carabiner, Fitzjame’s Horse. 17622. Colonel, Regiment Berwick. 1770

The Wild Geese

Irish 1768 - 1789

1. Drummer, Regiment Irlanda. 17682. Chasseur, Regiment Walsh. 17743. Corporal, Regiment Dillon. 1789

The Wild Geese

Irish 1791 - 1805

1. Grenadier, Regiment Berwick. 17912. Colonel, Regiment Hibernia. 18023. Private, Regiment Ultonia. 1805

The Wild Geese

Irish 1808 - 1814

1. Officer, Regiment Irlanda. 18082. Chasseur, Legion Irlandaise. 18103. Private, Regiment Hibernia. 1814

Effect of the lifting of the ban onCatholics joining the British Army

• Protestants had believed it a right and a duty tojoin the British army

• In 1780 one third of commissions in the Britisharmy were held by Irish Protestant gentry

• In the 1790s Irish Catholics were activly recruitedto the British regular army and to the Irish Militia

• By the mid-nineteenth century 40 % of the armywas Irish-born or the sons of emigrants

References• Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey “A Military History of

Ireland” 1996• Mark McLaughlin (illus. Chris Warner) “The Wild Geese”

1980• Harman Murtagh “Irish soldiers abroad” 1996• Brendan Jennings, “Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders 1582

– 1700” O.F.M. 1964• Brigadier A.E.C. Bredin “A History of the Irish Soldier”

1987• Fr.Walter Hegarty “The O’Hegartys of Ulster” Donegal

Historical Society Journal 1948• H. F. McClintock “Old Irish and Highland Dress” 1943

Reference for early IrishManuscripts online

• www.isos.dias.ie• www.isos.dias.ie• www.isos.dias.ie

• Reference for palaeography – includingturorials and exercises etc

• www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/