" the fighting irish "

"The British Army had always used Irishmen. Infact it has been said " the British Empire was won by the Irish, administered by the Scots and Welsh and the profits went to the English ". In recent years the last line was amended to read " Lost by the English " The Normans used Irish

mercenaries in France, Wales and Scotland. The majority of the Tudor Army in Ireland was Irish, as were Tudor troops abroad. Queen Elizabeth I even raised her own Galloglas unit known as The Queen Majesty's Galloglas.

In 1707 the British had six Irish Regiments. By 1713 this had dropped to 2, but later raised to 5 Irish Regiments. However it was estimated that by 1860 some two thirds of the British Army including the English Country Regiments was constituted by Irishmen or their decendants.

  "REMEMBER YOU ARE WARRIORS DESCENDED FROM A WARLIKE RACE "

"Your Celtic blood gives you a taste for war. from the time when the Dane landed In Ireland at the close of the eigth century,

down to this blessed day, Ireland has been fighting - war with the Dane for 300 years; war with the saxon for 800 years.

The Irish soldier has always had the glory upon his head of the man whose courage , in the hour of danger, can be relied upon. Every nation in Europe has had a taste of what Ireland's courage is. Irish soldiers fought in the armies of Austria, where they were in the field for 30 years. they fought in the armies of Spain. They fought in the armies of France. And they never turned their backs and ran away.

Your fathers had a love for Ireland ; they knew how to prize it. The glory of the faith that has never been tarnished; the glory of the national honor that has never bowed down to acknowledge itself a slave. And my friends the burden and the responsibility of that glory is yours and mine today, in this place. To be - of all other men - what an Irishman must be, because of that glorious history. You and i this afternoon are bound to show the world what Irishmen have been in the ages before us , and what they intend to be in the ages to come. A nation that has never allowed a stain to be fixed upon the national banner. A nation who in spite of its hard fate and its misfortunes, can still look the world in the face, or on Ireland's virgin brow no stain of dishonor has ever been placed "

It is one of history's richer and more puzzling paradoxes that the Irishmen have served the British Crown for many centuries despite the ambivalent relationship, between the nations. Even at the most strained periods, a significant proportion of both officers and men in the British Army have been of irish origin. They range from Field Marshalls ( Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, Henry Wison and Alexander of Tunis to name but three ) to the most lowly private soldier . All have played their part, and more, in weaving the rich tapestry of British military history. In 1854 Sergeant Luke O'Connor from County Rosscommon became the first soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross and sixty years later Lieutenant James Dease from West Meath was the first receipient ( postumous ) of the same accolade in The Great War.

Remarkably the tradition of service proved strong enough to survive the pain of partition which saw the demise of so many proud Irish regiments . Irishmen from both sides of the border continued to rally to the call and perhaps even more remakably, live and fight together as comrades-in-arms in regiments such as the Irish Guards despite religious and social differences that would have precluded contact let alone friendship, back in their native land.

Irishmen have brought much more than numbers to the British Army. Their humour and resilience in the face of hardship, their fighting qualities and their sense of duty and pride have long been recognised by friend and foe alike.

From the time that the ancestors of the Irish people, the Celts, appeared in history their military prowess was recorded by their neighbours who generally found difficulty in living with them. The Romans feared Celtic military power, but Celtic auxiliary troops were instrumental in Roman victories over firece tribes like the Helveti of Switzerland and were particularly appreciated by Caesar in the fighting against their Celtic Kinsman, the Belgic tribes of Northern France. By 52 BC independent Celtic tribes were to be found only in Britain and Ireland.

The Roman historian Tacitus , writing of the first century, viewed the manner of life of the Irish as the very essence of savagery. A brutal pagan culture existed in Ireland long after it had disappeared in Europe. In the ancient Irish Celtic Literature the exemplar of martial prowess was Cuchulainn, a heroic being with supernatural powers a culture devoted to the glorification of warfare, in which was a demand for heroism: ' to be wounded in the back, while fleeing from an enemy lost the king his status in ancient Irish law '.

Long before the actual forming of the british Army Irish soldiers were in great demand to fight for the british cown.

Edward I and Edward II used irish mercenaries during their Scottish wars, the hobblers or mounted lancers being of value in the Scottish terrain. Alao in demand by Ulster Chieftans and other Irish warlords were the galloglass or foreign warriors, heavily armed mercenary foot soldiers, a fiery mixture of Irish, Scots and Norse blood, ' essentially....gaelic in tongue and custom' from the Scottish Isles, elite families who, with the lighter armed Irish Kern, also infantry, became the backbone of most native Irish armies from the late thirteenth century. Henry VIII employed the savage Irish kern whose reputation was such that they were hated in both France and Scotland. He was that the absence from Ireland of these fierce warriors' should rather do good than hurt ', a viewpoint of Irish soldiers echoed centuries later in penal law times.

During the reign of Elizabeth I irish soldiers were allowed to serve in the English Army from 1563 and under the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrott, certain Irishmen were allowed to raise companies ....of their own countrymen. The irish Council said, in June 1598, that three-quarters of the Queen's troops then in Ireland were Irish. To the English Ireland was full of

'Barbarians' and Elizabeth's courtiers saw with wonder the wholly Gaelic appearence of the second Earl of Tyrone, the great Hugh O'Neill's Celtic party in London, in defiance of previous Tudor legislation.

  ' Their hair was long: fringes hanging down to cover their eyes.

  They wore shirts with long sleeves dyed with saffron, short tunics

  and shaggy cloaks. Some walked with bare feet, others wore

  leather sandals. The galloglas carried battle-axes and wore

  long coats of mail

As one contemporary chronicler recorded ' they presented a fantastic sight '

The important Irish rebellion in 1641 led to the civil war in England and untimately to charles I losing his crown. By 1642 many Irish soldiers had provided the king with desperately needed manpower. Charles's nephew and second in command, Prince Rupert of the Rhine ( who would later be the Lieutenant General of all the kings armies ) wrote

'gratefully ' to the Marquis of ormond about his ' Irishes' whom he felt instinctively to be the best fighters he had ever yet commanded..I am mightily in love with my Irish soldiers.' In 1644 and 1645 the Scots warrior Alisdair Macdonald brought from Antrim ( in Ulster ) to Scotland wild Irish kern who together with many Macdonald's clan fought for Charles under the Marquis of montrose against the Covenanters.When King Charles was executed in 1649 Oliver Cromwell and other Parlimentarians were resolved to deal with Irish interference in English affairs. In August of that same year Cromwell arrived in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant and Commander in Chief of the Commonwealth Army, with his avenging regiments.

Although his terror tactics were widely practised in war at this time, the irish would never forget the savagery of the Cromwellian Army at places like Drogheda and Wexford. By the time of Cromwells death in 1658 deep resentment existed between the irish and the English. The English were now to be perennially anxious about a resurgence of Irish militarism ideologically supported by the power of the papacy and coninental armies. When the ill - starred house of Stuart returned to the throne and its pro- Catholic sympathies were revealed, most Englishmen thought like a polemicist of 1641.

  ' Ireland is not unfitly termed a back doore into England: and of

  what dismall portendance...to have the pope the keeper of the

  keyes of your back doore...if you let ireland goe, the peace and

  safety of your own land and nation...will soon follow after it .'

 I would very much like to thank the publishers Pen & Sword for allowing me to use the above material from the book " Heroic Option "

The Irish In The British Army..writen by Desmond & Jean Bowen. A superb book and well worth reading, covering Irish Regiments from their formation right through to the Great War. If you wish to order a copy please contact

Pen& Sword( sales) on 01226 734241 or www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

In a period of time begining around 500BC, the Celtic culture which was expanding in central Europe reached Britain and Ireland. While probably not an invasion as such, the Celts arrived in sufficient numbers to replace the language and culture of Ireland's Bronze Age population with that of the Celts. The Celts were an Iron age people, and used iron in addition to bronze to make weapons, cooking utensils and other items. Iron takes more technology to refine, but it is also much stronger and more durable than bronze. The Celts in Ireland divided themselves into over a hundred small kingdoms or

' trauths' , each of which was ruled by a king. Sometimes a King had the allegiance of a number of other Kings, and there were a few Kings who a lot of control. These were Kings of provinces. Early maps by Mediterranean sailors and geographers have identified the key tribes of Ireland around the time of Christ and these have been matched with historical evidence and folklore.

  Ancient Ireland

  Tara Hill and the home to Irish Kings

  and warriors, situated in Co Meath and

  only a few miles from where my father

  was born in the town of Trim.

The Celtic culture was based around a system of honour, whereby warriors gained honour by valour in battle.

Unlike conflicts in later history, it was invariably the aristocracy who did the fighting while the peasantry who often worked like slaves for thier King, remained on their farms.Around 43 A.D the expanding Roman Empire conquered Celtic Britain, as it had conquered most of Celtic Europe. Ireland and Scotland remianed one of the only non - Roman Celtic areas left.

Trade continued between Britain and Ireland, but following the decline of the Roman Empire in the 400's A.D , the Irish plundered the British coast, and later formed colonies in Cornwall , Wales and Scotland. All were untimately defeated by the Britons except the colony in Scotland ( by the Dal Riata trible ) which survived and ultimately formed the basis of the kingdom of Scotland..Next page the Vikings Invade Ireland .