For King, Emperor President & Czar
The Connaught Rangers
Royal Dublin Fusiliers
Dispossessed and disenfranchised, disciplined and dedicated; courageous, loyal, doughty and audacious - the sentimental, and not exclusively native view, of the Irish soldier fighting under a foreign flag. " Low, vulgar men without any one qualification to recommend them - more fit to carry the hod that the epaulette " - an alternative and widely held opinion of that same ' universal ' warrior. There is nothing which uniquely qualifies the Irishman to be a soldier. He is of medium height and weight for a European, is not gifted with any stamina or powers of endurance, is no more accurate with a rifles, is not more or less self-disciplined than the average. So why, along with the German, is the Irishman burdened with a reputation for military sagacity, craft and daring sans pareil ?
If the Germans dominate the officer class of the 'transcendent ' army then the Irish must surely have provided most of the NCOs.
Is the notion of the superhuman Irish fighting man a myth or is there a certain, almost spiritual, quality about an Irishman in uniform ? This is obviously a rhetorical question. Subjectivity, chauvinism and a host of maudlin irrelevancies make any definitive judgement impossible. Searching for the sort of endorsements which would enhance a positive thesis is rather like invoking the Bible to settle an argument. Contrary quotations can always be cited to prove the antithesis. No attempt, therefore, will be made to persue that chimera except to say that the concept of the ' Fighting Irishman ' carries with it an implicit element of condescension. Often unintended, the notion can be as much a patronising obeisance to undiscriminating Irish pugnacity as it is homage to Irish courage and resilience. There are hints of the nineteenth-century ' Punch ' view of the drunken brawling Irishman with the thickest simian appearance for whom discretion could never be the better part of valour because he was illiterate and unable to understand either concept anyway.
That the mythology exists is curious in itself. Why should the Irish rifleman, lancer, fusilier or trooper be more aggressive or invincible than those around him? After all the one thing that most Irish soldiers have in common since the 1700s is that they have been fighting in someone else's army prosecuting someone else's war. Only rarely has the Irishman fought for his homeland, seldom for anything which was native or necessarily dear to him.
Periodically he migh fight for ( or convince himself that he was defending ) his religion. But more often he risked life, limb and liver for a foreign potentate who reciprocated by putting a roof over his head and bread on his table.
Certainly, on occasion, he might respond with particular truculence to an army fighting under the Union Jack, but he might, on those occasions, find himself opposed by another Irishman struggling no less enthusiastically in the British cause. It is not sufficient to dismiss such commonplace occurences with blithe references to antagonistic political or religious traditions on this island. More often than not those two adversaries were from the same tradition.
Perhaps the real truth behind the idealised ' Fighting Irishman ' lies in the very nature of war itself. It is hardly a solitary pastime. Like the various sports which could be said to have replaced it as a focus of aggressive nationalism or ethnic territoriality, it is a group activity. The British establishment, though concious of the potential dangers, had the wit to place the Irish soldier shoulder-to-shoulder with his fellow countryman in some of the most prestigious units in its army. Other nations, often for convenience, did likewise. The result was a soldier far more motivated than one fighting for his personal survival alongside strangers. Irishmen have been present in nearly every batlle or war around the globe. So why did other people's fights become the Irishman's fight again and again?
Often it was simple happenstance, coincidence. The Irishman had migrated and been caught up in a war. But that explanation requires further thought. Why did he happen to be there? With ever-recurring monotony the answer is that his own overpopulated, impoverished country could not support him or his family. Although the Irishman was not necessarily a conscript in the accepted sense ( he could theoretically return to his homeland ) he was constructively conscripted by virue of economic exile. in truth he had no alternative. Ironically the military force which was the main beneficiary was that of the very nation which had, effectively, compelled him to migrate in the first place. Despite all the lore and lionising of ' Wild Geese ' , Fontenoy, Sarsfield and the ' Irish Brigades ' of Europe, the vast bulk of Emigre Irish soldiers served in the Army of Britain.
Those who did not, those who populated the forces of continental Europe , may have had another reason for their exile. They may have had the temerity to oppose the political dominance in their country of the British establishment. After the treaty of Limerick a huge body of Roman Catholic Irish soldiers, who had opposed the Protestant King William, left for France under Patrick Sarsfield, the Earl of Lucan. Many left with the hope of returning in the ranks of a larger French army to put King James II back on the throne. They and their successors who followed the same route throughout the Penal Law days of the 18th century, were forlornly dubbed the
Wild Geese. Those early exiles entered the service of the King of France, the Catholic Louis XIV who was at war with most of Europe. For the next century almost until the Revolution, there would always be an ' Irish Brigade ' in the French Army.
Sarsfield died in 1693 at the Battle of Landen, fighting for France in Flanders against forces of William of Orange
During that first conflict involving the ' Wild Geese ' - the War of the League of Augsburg - over 20,000 Irish soldiers died. A similar number fell in the ensuing War of the Spanish Succession. But within a relatively short period all realistic hopes of a French intervention in Ireland faded. It would be a mistake to to see all Irishmen recruited into the French forces from 1700 onwards as political exiles. The French tended to view them as mere mercenaries, which to some degree they were. Under the Penal Laws, applied against Catholics in 18th century Ireland, they were barred from serving in the British Army. If they wanted to persue a military career ( often as the only alternative poverty and starvation ) they had to do so on the European continent. The apotheosis of France's Irish Brigade camt at the Battle of Fontenoy, fought on the 11th May 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession. Four thousand Irish troops, in six infantry and one calvary regiments were numbered among those in the 60,000 strong French army led by Merechal Maurice de Saxe. The French were opposed by a mainlt British and Dutch force. De Saxe had chosen the ground over which the battle would be fought and he had chosen well. The Irish Brigade was on the left flank of the French linesand was not involved in the earlyfighting during which de Saxe's main force crumbled under an intense and sustained attack led by 16,000 strong British troops under the Duke of Cumberland. Included in the ranks of this army would have been many Protestant Irish, not barred from enlistment by the Penal Laws and whose circumstances were almost as straightened as those of their Catholic fellow countrymen. The Irish regiments bringing with them four cannon were sent in to dislodge Cumberland's right flank and to help save the day for the French. Amid provocative roars of ' Remember Limerick' the Brigade ' sent the British reeling back ' according to a contemporary account of the time. But they suffered serious losses in doing so; at 20 per cent they were higher than any other unit of the French army. Thomas Davis, the Young Irelander, in his suitably bombastic poem ' Fontenoy ' captured the inevitable racial element inherent in the ferocity of the Irish charge: ' How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be gay/The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts today. '
There was only a theoretical element of choice involved in the enlistment of the more impoverished Irish exile to Britain, Europe or much later America. But over the years many Irishmen not motivated by the coercive imperative of poverty joined foreign armies. Some have been idealist.political or religious, some adventurers, some simple mercenaries. The Boer war saw two seperate Irish Brigades fight on the side of the Dutch South Africans. the more significant unit, led by a future leader of the Easter 1916 rebellion, Major John McBride ( working in South Africa as a mine assayer ) grew out of a large Irish population in the Transvaal and a number of 1798 centenary committees in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Motivated by antipathy towards Britain and including a number of unreconstructed Fenians, the Irish battalions were opposed by an army which had an Irish Brigade of its own. The committed amateurs ran into the professionals on more than one occasion. At the Battle of Dundee the pro-Boers took a number of members of the Royal Irish Fusiliers prisoner . Some of the Irish Brigade even recognised and exchenged greetings with the defeated Fusiliers.
Irish units also took both sides in the Spanish Civil War, but while the political and religious gulf betweenthem was unlear their motivation was identical. Young idealists, like the poet Charlie Donnelly, the socialist Frank Ryan or Communist Party member Michael O' Riordan, went to Spain to join the International Brigade and to defend the republic against fascism. But men like Dick Walsh from Carlow and Denis Reynolds from Cavan joined General Eoin O'Duffy's Irish Brigade to fight godless communism and to prserve the Roman Catholic religion in Spain. The James Connolly Column ( about 150 strong ) of the International Brigade became part of the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion, which included many irish Americans.
The O'Duffy Brigade could be seen in a direct line of descent from another religiously motivated Irish unit, this time fighting in Mexico. The Mexican-American War ( 1846-48 ) gave rise to a major dilemma for the 2,000 Irish troops in the army of General Zachary Taylor. They were fighting against Roman Catholic Mexicans for a Protestant dominated army in a conflict which the Mexicans were determined to dub a ' religious ' war. the Irish were encouraged by the Mexicans to desert, and a large number did. These were formed into the a battalion of the Mexican army known as the San Patricios. Two things must be born in mind before we are carried away by Celtic romanticism - most of the defectors were not seduced solely by religious zeal - promises of Mexican land and money were also a powerful attraction. In addition the San Patricios, desppite their name and their distinctive Shamrock flag, were not exclusively Irish. However they were led by one John Reilly ( or Riley ) a sergeant in the US Fifth Infantry. His second-in-command was a Mayoman, Patrick Dalton. The San Patricios, who never numbered more than 200 and were really two companies rather than a battalion, came to grief at the Battle of Churubusco...
If the Germans dominate the officer class of the 'transcendent ' army then the Irish must surely have provided most of the NCOs.
Is the notion of the superhuman Irish fighting man a myth or is there a certain, almost spiritual, quality about an Irishman in uniform ? This is obviously a rhetorical question. Subjectivity, chauvinism and a host of maudlin irrelevancies make any definitive judgement impossible. Searching for the sort of endorsements which would enhance a positive thesis is rather like invoking the Bible to settle an argument. Contrary quotations can always be cited to prove the antithesis. No attempt, therefore, will be made to persue that chimera except to say that the concept of the ' Fighting Irishman ' carries with it an implicit element of condescension. Often unintended, the notion can be as much a patronising obeisance to undiscriminating Irish pugnacity as it is homage to Irish courage and resilience. There are hints of the nineteenth-century ' Punch ' view of the drunken brawling Irishman with the thickest simian appearance for whom discretion could never be the better part of valour because he was illiterate and unable to understand either concept anyway.
That the mythology exists is curious in itself. Why should the Irish rifleman, lancer, fusilier or trooper be more aggressive or invincible than those around him? After all the one thing that most Irish soldiers have in common since the 1700s is that they have been fighting in someone else's army prosecuting someone else's war. Only rarely has the Irishman fought for his homeland, seldom for anything which was native or necessarily dear to him.
Periodically he migh fight for ( or convince himself that he was defending ) his religion. But more often he risked life, limb and liver for a foreign potentate who reciprocated by putting a roof over his head and bread on his table.
Certainly, on occasion, he might respond with particular truculence to an army fighting under the Union Jack, but he might, on those occasions, find himself opposed by another Irishman struggling no less enthusiastically in the British cause. It is not sufficient to dismiss such commonplace occurences with blithe references to antagonistic political or religious traditions on this island. More often than not those two adversaries were from the same tradition.
Perhaps the real truth behind the idealised ' Fighting Irishman ' lies in the very nature of war itself. It is hardly a solitary pastime. Like the various sports which could be said to have replaced it as a focus of aggressive nationalism or ethnic territoriality, it is a group activity. The British establishment, though concious of the potential dangers, had the wit to place the Irish soldier shoulder-to-shoulder with his fellow countryman in some of the most prestigious units in its army. Other nations, often for convenience, did likewise. The result was a soldier far more motivated than one fighting for his personal survival alongside strangers. Irishmen have been present in nearly every batlle or war around the globe. So why did other people's fights become the Irishman's fight again and again?
Often it was simple happenstance, coincidence. The Irishman had migrated and been caught up in a war. But that explanation requires further thought. Why did he happen to be there? With ever-recurring monotony the answer is that his own overpopulated, impoverished country could not support him or his family. Although the Irishman was not necessarily a conscript in the accepted sense ( he could theoretically return to his homeland ) he was constructively conscripted by virue of economic exile. in truth he had no alternative. Ironically the military force which was the main beneficiary was that of the very nation which had, effectively, compelled him to migrate in the first place. Despite all the lore and lionising of ' Wild Geese ' , Fontenoy, Sarsfield and the ' Irish Brigades ' of Europe, the vast bulk of Emigre Irish soldiers served in the Army of Britain.
Those who did not, those who populated the forces of continental Europe , may have had another reason for their exile. They may have had the temerity to oppose the political dominance in their country of the British establishment. After the treaty of Limerick a huge body of Roman Catholic Irish soldiers, who had opposed the Protestant King William, left for France under Patrick Sarsfield, the Earl of Lucan. Many left with the hope of returning in the ranks of a larger French army to put King James II back on the throne. They and their successors who followed the same route throughout the Penal Law days of the 18th century, were forlornly dubbed the
Wild Geese. Those early exiles entered the service of the King of France, the Catholic Louis XIV who was at war with most of Europe. For the next century almost until the Revolution, there would always be an ' Irish Brigade ' in the French Army.
Sarsfield died in 1693 at the Battle of Landen, fighting for France in Flanders against forces of William of Orange
During that first conflict involving the ' Wild Geese ' - the War of the League of Augsburg - over 20,000 Irish soldiers died. A similar number fell in the ensuing War of the Spanish Succession. But within a relatively short period all realistic hopes of a French intervention in Ireland faded. It would be a mistake to to see all Irishmen recruited into the French forces from 1700 onwards as political exiles. The French tended to view them as mere mercenaries, which to some degree they were. Under the Penal Laws, applied against Catholics in 18th century Ireland, they were barred from serving in the British Army. If they wanted to persue a military career ( often as the only alternative poverty and starvation ) they had to do so on the European continent. The apotheosis of France's Irish Brigade camt at the Battle of Fontenoy, fought on the 11th May 1745 during the War of the Austrian Succession. Four thousand Irish troops, in six infantry and one calvary regiments were numbered among those in the 60,000 strong French army led by Merechal Maurice de Saxe. The French were opposed by a mainlt British and Dutch force. De Saxe had chosen the ground over which the battle would be fought and he had chosen well. The Irish Brigade was on the left flank of the French linesand was not involved in the earlyfighting during which de Saxe's main force crumbled under an intense and sustained attack led by 16,000 strong British troops under the Duke of Cumberland. Included in the ranks of this army would have been many Protestant Irish, not barred from enlistment by the Penal Laws and whose circumstances were almost as straightened as those of their Catholic fellow countrymen. The Irish regiments bringing with them four cannon were sent in to dislodge Cumberland's right flank and to help save the day for the French. Amid provocative roars of ' Remember Limerick' the Brigade ' sent the British reeling back ' according to a contemporary account of the time. But they suffered serious losses in doing so; at 20 per cent they were higher than any other unit of the French army. Thomas Davis, the Young Irelander, in his suitably bombastic poem ' Fontenoy ' captured the inevitable racial element inherent in the ferocity of the Irish charge: ' How fierce the look these exiles wear, who're wont to be gay/The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts today. '
There was only a theoretical element of choice involved in the enlistment of the more impoverished Irish exile to Britain, Europe or much later America. But over the years many Irishmen not motivated by the coercive imperative of poverty joined foreign armies. Some have been idealist.political or religious, some adventurers, some simple mercenaries. The Boer war saw two seperate Irish Brigades fight on the side of the Dutch South Africans. the more significant unit, led by a future leader of the Easter 1916 rebellion, Major John McBride ( working in South Africa as a mine assayer ) grew out of a large Irish population in the Transvaal and a number of 1798 centenary committees in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Motivated by antipathy towards Britain and including a number of unreconstructed Fenians, the Irish battalions were opposed by an army which had an Irish Brigade of its own. The committed amateurs ran into the professionals on more than one occasion. At the Battle of Dundee the pro-Boers took a number of members of the Royal Irish Fusiliers prisoner . Some of the Irish Brigade even recognised and exchenged greetings with the defeated Fusiliers.
Irish units also took both sides in the Spanish Civil War, but while the political and religious gulf betweenthem was unlear their motivation was identical. Young idealists, like the poet Charlie Donnelly, the socialist Frank Ryan or Communist Party member Michael O' Riordan, went to Spain to join the International Brigade and to defend the republic against fascism. But men like Dick Walsh from Carlow and Denis Reynolds from Cavan joined General Eoin O'Duffy's Irish Brigade to fight godless communism and to prserve the Roman Catholic religion in Spain. The James Connolly Column ( about 150 strong ) of the International Brigade became part of the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion, which included many irish Americans.
The O'Duffy Brigade could be seen in a direct line of descent from another religiously motivated Irish unit, this time fighting in Mexico. The Mexican-American War ( 1846-48 ) gave rise to a major dilemma for the 2,000 Irish troops in the army of General Zachary Taylor. They were fighting against Roman Catholic Mexicans for a Protestant dominated army in a conflict which the Mexicans were determined to dub a ' religious ' war. the Irish were encouraged by the Mexicans to desert, and a large number did. These were formed into the a battalion of the Mexican army known as the San Patricios. Two things must be born in mind before we are carried away by Celtic romanticism - most of the defectors were not seduced solely by religious zeal - promises of Mexican land and money were also a powerful attraction. In addition the San Patricios, desppite their name and their distinctive Shamrock flag, were not exclusively Irish. However they were led by one John Reilly ( or Riley ) a sergeant in the US Fifth Infantry. His second-in-command was a Mayoman, Patrick Dalton. The San Patricios, who never numbered more than 200 and were really two companies rather than a battalion, came to grief at the Battle of Churubusco...
