The Irish Military Tradition

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 Military
involvement 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 Chulainn
story and the Fenian Cycle refer to an Irish warlike
tradition
The characteristics are variously described as
“reckless daring, spectacular ferocity and indominitable
courage”
And characteristics such as those described by Roman
writers 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's
Strand (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 with
the Sea (1892).
Patrick Pearse (leader of the 1916
Rebellion in Ireland)
Later in the 1970s Ulster loyalist
paramilitaries adopted Cú Chulainn
as a symbol for their defence of
Ulster
Anti-war tradition
The idea of a continuous Irish military
tradition over a period of 1,500
years is open to discussion
Significant anti-war tradition exists
•
Daniel O’Connell’s peaceful
agitation for Catholic Emancipation
in 1830s
•
Irish neutrality during Second
World 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's
expedition to the Netherlands in 1586.
An Irish Military Tradition?
The Submission of Turlogh O’Neill 1576 from
Derrick’s Image of Ireland (1581)
An Irish Military Tradition?
O’Cahan tomb
Dungiven
Priory
Cooey-na-Gall Ó
Catháin , who died in
1385. “Cooey-naGall” means “Terror
of the Stranger”
An Irish Military Tradition?
The taking of the Earl of Ormonde
A Irish Military Tradition?
Dutch watercolour of
Irish Men and Women
About 1575
A Irish Military Tradition?
Captain Thomas Lee, circa 1594, when he
was 43 years-old, by the Flemish artist
Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.
The subject is shown in the regalia of a
captain of the Queen's Kern (a hybrid
combination of English & Irish dress),
posing with legs and feet bare, and armed
with shield, spear and pistol. Lee served in
Ireland continuously from 1575 to 1599.
It is on record that some Englishmen did
adopt Irish dress.
Note the characteristically Irish way he
holds his javelin, with one finger through a
leather loop which enabled it be twisted and
spun in the hand.
A Irish Military Tradition?
Excerpted from "Tartans and Kilts" by the Ulster-Scots
Agency:
On April 28, 1956, the Coleraine Chronicle reported the
discovery by a farm labourer of ragged clothing dug out of
an earth bank on the farm of Mr William Dixon, in the
townland of Flanders, near Dungiven, County Londonderry.
The find consisted of a woollen jacket or jerkin, a small
portion of a mantle or cloak, trews or tartan trousers, and
leather brogues. This was the style of clothing worn by men
in those parts in the 16th or 17th century.
The textile expert supported the soil analysis, dating the
find to between 1600 and 1650....
Reconstruction of the Dungiven Costume, a set of clothes
discovered in a bog in the 1960s and thought to date to
c.1600, the period of Tyrone's rebellion. It was perhaps
originally the property of his O'Cahan soldiers. The trousers
are of a tartan cloth cut on the bias, while the jacket
resembles that of Turlough O'Neill in Derricke's print. The
semi-circular woollen mantle is 8 1/2 feet wide by 4 feet
deep.
Ulster Museum Belfast
An Irish Military Tradition?
“Les Irandais que nous avons vus de si bons soldats en France
et en Espagne ont toujours mal combattus chez eux.” Voltaire
1751
(“The Irish whom we have seen to be such good soldiers in
France and Spain have always fought badly at home.”)
Matthew O’Conor in his Military History of the Irish
Nation (1845) disagreed with Voltaire's scathing and
sweeping judgement. O’Conor mentions the Irish
victory over the Vikings at Clontarf in 1014
O’Conor dismissed the military history of medieval
Ireland.
'Prior to the sixteenth century', he wrote, 'the wars of the
Irish were either petty intestine feuds not worthy of
historical notice or uncombined efforts in resistance to
Norse and Anglo-Norman invasion.' O’Conor said it
was the earl of Tyrone who 'may be regarded as
opening the school for that national military genius
which afterwards rose to so noble a pitch of fame in
all the most warlike services of Europe'
Character of the Irish Soldier
• In 1964, G. A. Hayes-McCoy, historian, referred
to the observation of General Richard Taylor of
the Confederate States of America.
• “Strange people, these Irish!” mused Taylor,
“Fighting everyone's battles and cheerfully taking
the hot end of the poker, they are only to be found
wanting when engaged in what they believe to be
their national cause.”
Character of the Irish Soldier
• Hayes-McCoy felt that Patrick Pearse’s 1916
Rebellion had redeemed the Irish military
reputation at home – he felt Irish failure at home
had been the result of bad leadership and lack of
training He pointed out –
“There is no such thing as a born soldier, nor do
courage and strength of body alone make one:
training and experience are necessary.”
Character of the Irish Soldier
• Hayes-McCoy Irish Battles: a Military History of
Ireland, 1969, confines itself to fourteen
engagements and ends with the battle of Arklow
during the 1798 rebellion.
• The nineteenth century is ignored because it
witnessed 'much military activity in Ireland but ...
no warfare'.
• Hayes-McCoy's perception of Irish military
history solely in terms of 'nationalist' soldiering,
Character of the Irish Soldier
• Hayes-Mc Coy ignores the organisation and
arming of the Protestant anti Home Rule
Ulster Volunteer Force
Military presence in Ireland in the
nineteenth Century
• According to Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey in
“A Military History of Ireland” 1996, the image
of continuous military activity in Ireland was
largely a caricature
• It suited the English who wished to maintain a
large garrison of soldiers because of the threat of
violence
• It suited those opposed to the English presence
because it proved to their supporters that the
struggle continued
Military presence in Ireland in the
nineteenth Century
• In the nineteenth century, there were usually between
20,000 and 25,000 British soldiers in Ireland.
• They were quartered in some 100 barracks with
around 400 military stations dotted around the
country.
• In addition to the regular army there were Militia and
Yeomanry formations which in the later nineteenth
century were supplemented by the Royal Irish
Constabulary, an armed police force closer to the
French gendarmerie than their English counterpart
Family traditions among Irish
soldiers abroad
• The Irish historian, Grainne Henry in her study of
the Irish army in Flanders in the early seventeenth
century remarks on the strong family tradition
among these soldiers –
“The number of uncles, brothers, and cousins
serving together in the Irish military group is quite
amazing”, she writes, adding, “family migration
seems to have been... common amongst those in
the service of the Army of Flanders”.
Family traditions among Irish
soldiers abroad
• Later in France the family tradition was also
evident – “Alexander de Comerford”,
Captain of Grenadiers in Dillon’s regiment
in 1776 looked for a military pension. He
had served thirty four years in French
service. He listed his campaigns and the
involvement of his family in the French
army
Family traditions among Irish
soldiers abroad
• Alexander de Comerford, 1776
• “Son grand-père était major du régiment de
Bulkeley lorsqu'il passa en France; son grand
oncle ancien capitaine au dit régiment fut tué a la
bataille de Malplaquet; son père, ancient capitaine
du meme régiment mourut de ses blessures en
Ecosse en 1746. Il a aujourd'hui deux de ses
oncles ancient Chevaliers de St Louis qui vont
retirer ef son fils officier au régiment de Dillon qui
fait la quatrième generation de père et fils au
service du roi”
Important historic events leading to
Irish 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 for
France to serve under James II in the Irish Brigade.
• 14,000 Jacobites chose this option and embarked on ships for
France.
• Individual soldiers also emigrated to join the Spanish, French
or Austrian armies
• The departure became known as the “Flight of the Wild
Geese”.
• The Jacobite soldiers also had the option of joining the
Williamite army. 1,000 soldiers chose to do so.
• Jacobite soldiers thirdly had the option of returning home
which some 2,000 soldiers chose.
The Wild Geese
• Over half a million soldiers served in the Irish
Brigades of France and Spain from 1585 to
1818
The Defence of Leuven 1635
•
Thomas Preston, 1st
Viscount Tara (1585–1655)
was an Irish soldier who
fought in the Thirty Years
War on the Spanish side. He
distinguished himself in the
Siege of Leuven against the
French and Dutch in 1635.
His wife was a Flemish lady
of rank, by whom he had
several children, one of his
daughters being the second
wife of Sir Phelim O’Neill.
Relief of Leuven. Oil on canvas by Pieter Snayers.
The Wild Geese
Irish – 1680 - 1718
1. Officer, Gardes Irlandais. 1680
2. Private, Regiment Clare. 1692
3. Ensign, Regiment Roth. 1718
The Wild Geese
Irish - 1709 - 1757
1. Private, regiment Lally. 1755
2. Private, Regiment Clare. 1757
3. Grenadier, Regiment Ultonia. 1709
The Wild Geese
Irish 1720 - 1740
1. Private, Regiment Bulkeley. 1720
2. Private, Regiment Berwick. 1734
3. Drummer, Regiment Dillon. 1740
The Wild Geese
Irish 1740 - 1745
1. Trooper, Fitzjames’s Horse. 1740
3. Ensign, Regiment Dillon. 1745
The Wild Geese
Irish 1762 - 1770
1. Carabiner, Fitzjame’s Horse. 1762
2. Colonel, Regiment Berwick. 1770
The Wild Geese
Irish 1768 - 1789
1. Drummer, Regiment Irlanda. 1768
2. Chasseur, Regiment Walsh. 1774
3. Corporal, Regiment Dillon. 1789
The Wild Geese
Irish 1791 - 1805
1. Grenadier, Regiment Berwick. 1791
2. Colonel, Regiment Hibernia. 1802
3. Private, Regiment Ultonia. 1805
The Wild Geese
Irish 1808 - 1814
1. Officer, Regiment Irlanda. 1808
2. Chasseur, Legion Irlandaise. 1810
3. Private, Regiment Hibernia. 1814
Effect of the lifting of the ban on
Catholics joining the British Army
• Protestants had believed it a right and a duty to
join the British army
• In 1780 one third of commissions in the British
army were held by Irish Protestant gentry
• In the 1790s Irish Catholics were activly recruited
to the British regular army and to the Irish Militia
• By the mid-nineteenth century 40 % of the army
was 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 Irish
Manuscripts online
• www.isos.dias.ie
• Reference for palaeography – including
turorials and exercises etc
• www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/