| Irish Brigade |
The flag of Dillon's Regiment, Irish Brigade of France. |
| Active |
May 1690 - 1791 |
| Country |
France |
| Allegiance |
France/King James II |
| Branch |
French army |
| Type |
infantry |
| Size |
Three regiments |
| Motto |
Semper et ubique Fidelis (Always and Everywhere Faithful) |
| Colors |
red |
| Battles/wars |
Nine Years War
*Battle of Steenkerque
War of the Spanish Succession
*Battle of Malplaquet
War of Austrian Succession
*Battle of Fontenoy
Jacobite Rising
*Battle of Falkirk
|
| Commanders |
Notable
commanders |
Patrick Sarsfield, Justin MacCarthy |
- For other uses, see Irish Brigade.
The Irish Brigade was a brigade in the French army
composed of Irish exiles. It was formed in May 1690 when five Jacobite regiments were sent from Ireland to France in return for a larger force of French infantry who were
sent to fight in the Williamite war in Ireland, and served until 1792.
Formation
These five Jacobite regiments, named after their colonels: Lord Mountcashel, Butler, Feilding,
O'Brien and Dillon, were largely inexperienced and the French immediately disbanded Butler's and Feilding's, either incorporating
their men into the remaining three regiments or sending them back to Ireland. The remaining three regiments, Mountcashel's,
O'Brien's and Dillon's, formed the Irish Brigade which served the French during the remainder of the Nine Years War (1689-97).
Following the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 which ended the war between
King James II and VII and King William
III in Ireland, a separate force of circa 12,000 Jacobites had arrived in France in an event known as Flight of the Wild Geese. These were kept separate from the Irish Brigade and were formed into
King James's own army in exile, albeit in the pay of France.
With the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 King James's army in exile was disbanded, though
many of its officers and men were reformed into new regiments, and having been merged into the original Irish Brigade these units
served the French well until the French Revolution. Others - such as Peter Lacy - proceeded to enter the Austrian service.
Irish regiments served at virtually every major land battle fought by the French between 1690 and 1789, particularly
Steenkirk (1692), Neerwinden (1693),
Marsaglia (1693), Blenheim (1704),
Malplaquet (1709), Fontenoy (1745),
Lafelt (1747);and Rossbach (1757).
They also remained strongly attached to the Jacobite cause, taking part in the rising of
1715 and the rising of 1745, with a composite battalion of infantry and one squadron
of cavalry seeing action, particularly at the second Battle of Falkirk (where
they cemented the victory by driving off the Hanoverians causing the clans to waver)
and Culloden, alongside the regiment of Royal Scots (Royal Ecossais) which had been
raised the year before in French service. Many other exiled Jacobites in the French army were captured en route to
Scotland in late 1745 and early 1746, most particularly Charles Radcliffe, 5th Earl of Derwentwater, a captain in Dillon's regiment who was executed in London
in 1746.
Irish regiments served in the Seven Years' War, both in Europe and India, and during the American War of Independence, though by the 1740s the number
of Irishmen serving in the regiments had begun to markedly decline. Also from January 1766 the Papacy recognised the Hanoverian dynasty as the lawful rulers of Britain
and Ireland, and ended its support for the Jacobites. Orders were always given in English so many Irish-speaking Irishmen probably learnt their first English
while serving in the French army. There were always a significant number of English and Scots serving in the Brigade, though
their numbers fluctuated markedly over the years. A database being compiled by the Centre for Irish-Scottish Studies at Trinity
College suggests that for every ten Irishmen there were on average two Englishmen and one Scot.
Uniforms
The Irish Brigade wore red coats throughout the eighteenth century with different coloured facings to distinguish each
regiment. In 1757 Bulkeley's Regiment had blue facings, Clare's yellow, Dillon's black and Rooth's dark blue with white braiding.
Most of their flags were representative of their British Jacobite origins, with every
regimental colour carrying the cross of St George and the four crowns of
England, Ireland, Scotland and France (Fitzjames's cavalry regiment was an exception in that it
had a French design). Nearly all the regiments' flags carried an Irish harp in the centre, one
exception being the regiment of former Foot Guards (whose official title in the 1690s was the King
of England's Foot Guards) whose flag was just a cross of St George with a crown in the centre surmounted by a lion. Another was
the Earl of Clancarty's, whose flag became that of the Duke of Berwick's regiment when the latter was founded in 1698 following
the abolition and merger of Clancarty's and several other regiments to form Berwick's. A correct representation of the flag
carried by Berwick's regiment can be seen by following the link below to the Flags of the French army.
Some officers of the Irish Brigade are believed to have cried out "Remember Limerick and Saxon Faith" or "Remember Limerick
and Saxon perfidy" at the battle of Fontenoy in 1745, though modern research by Eoghan Ó hAnnracháin has shown that it is very
doubtful if the regiments would also have been chanting in Irish, a language unknown to
probably a majority of the brigade at the time. For further details see his article "Casualties in the Ranks of the Clare
Regiment at Fontenoy" in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Number 99, 1994.
Disbandment
The Brigade was dissolved from 1791 by the progress of the French revolution. Its
members had sworn loyalty to the King of France, not to the French people and their new republic of 1792. In 1792 the remnants of
the Brigade were presented with a "farewell banner," bearing the device of an Irish Harp embroidered with shamrocks and
fleurs-de-lis. The gift was accompanied by the following address:
"Gentlemen, we acknowledge the inappreciable services that France has received from the Irish Brigade, in the course of the
last 100 years; services that we shall never forget, though under an impossibility on requiting them. Receive this Standard as a
pledge of our remembrance, a monument of our admiration, and our respect, and in future, generous Irishmen, this shall be the
motto of your spotless flag:
1692-1792,
Semper et ubique Fidelis"
|
|
— Count de Provence (afterwards Louie XVIII)
|
Literature
The most detailed book yet published is John O'Callaghan's 19th century work History of the Irish Brigades in the Service
of France. A (sometimes inaccurate) modern summary is contained in Mark McLaughlin's The Wild Geese, published by
Osprey in 1980 as part of their Men at Arms series.
See also
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
