Irish Brigade (France) - Uniforms and Flags

Uniforms and Flags

The Irish Brigade wore red coats throughout the eighteenth century with different coloured facings to distinguish each regiment. In 1757 Bulkeley's Regiment had green facings, Clare's yellow, Dillon's black and Roth's dark blue with white braiding. The 1791 provisional regulations, on the eve of the disestablishment of the Irish Brigade, gave black facings to all four regiments with only minor distinctions to distinguish each unit.

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. Nearly all the regiments' flags carried an Irish harp in the centre, one exception being Roth's regiment of former Foot Guards, whose official title in the 1690s was the King of England's Foot Guards; their flag was a red cross of St George with a crown in the centre surmounted by a crowned 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, later, in 1743, FitzJames infantry. 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. Fitzjames's cavalry regiment standard had a French design of a yellow field with a central radiant sun surmounted by a ribbon with the motto: Nec Pluribus Impar.