Irish Brigade (France) - Service

Service

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. Having been merged into the original Irish Brigade these units served the French well until the French Revolution. Other Irishmen - such as Peter Lacy - proceeded to enter the Austrian service on an individual basis.

The Irish Brigade became one of the elite units of the French Army. While increasingly diluted by French and foreign recruits from elsewhere in Europe, its Irish-born officers and men often aspired to return to aid Ireland and regain their ancestral lands, as some did during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.

Irish regiments participated in most of the major land battles fought by the French between 1690 and 1789, particularly Steenkirk (1692), Neerwinden (1693), Marsaglia (1693), Blenheim (1704), Almansa (1707), Malplaquet (1709), Fontenoy (1745), Battle of Lauffeld (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. For the latter, a composite battalion of infantry ("Irish Picquets") comprising detachments from each of the regiments of the Irish Brigade, plus one squadron of cavalry, was sent to Scotland. This force saw action 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. As serving soldiers of the French King the Irish Picquets were permitted to formally surrender after Culloden with a promise of honourable treatment, and were not subjected to the reprisals suffered by the Highland clansmen. Many other exiled Jacobites in the French army were captured en route to Scotland in late 1745 and early 1746, including Charles Radcliffe, 5th Earl of Derwentwater, a captain in Dillon's regiment who was executed in London in 1746.

In the interim, however, the Brigade found itself briefly opposed to its Spanish counterpart in the War of the Quadruple Alliance in 1718-20, as France was allied to the Jacobites' British Hanoverian rivals. As a result it was Spain who assisted the Highland Jacobites in their rising that ended in the Battle of Glen Shiel in 1719. The 1716 Anglo-French alliance had effectively secured the Hanoverian succession in Ireland and Britain. Despite the alliance France continued to recognise James III as legitimate, and therefore the Jacobite regiments in France continued to hope for decades that their cause would eventually succeed.

Irish regiments served in the War of the Austrian Succession, 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. The five regiments were increased to six during the War of the Austrian Succession, the sixth being Lally's, initially created by the Comte de Lally -Tollendal through drafts from the original five. Each regiment had a strength of one battalion of 685 men and Fitz James' cavalry regiment counted 240 men. The Brigade played a crucial role at Fontenoy attacking the right flank of the British column suffering some 500 casualties while capturing the two colours from the Coldstream Guards and fifteen cannon. The Irish suffered similar casualties at Lauffeld while leading the assault that finally drove the British from that town. During the Seven Years War the Irish Regiments in French service were: Bulkeley, Clare, Dillon, Rooth, Berwick and Lally as well as the regiment of cavalry, Fitz James; parts of these units were at the Battle of Culloden.

From January 1766 the Papacy formally recognised George III of the Hanoverian dynasty as the lawful monarch of Britain and Ireland, and refused to recognise Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was now styled as King Charles III by the Jacobites. The rise of George III also saw the Tories come back to power with John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute forming a ministry — the Tories had previously included high placed, financially powerful Jacobites. There were always a 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.