Dress
Their distinctive piper-green head-dress, the Caubeen (which was worn by all Irish regiments later, although the LIR were the first to adopt it) was characterised by being sloped to the left instead of the right—a distinction maintained today between the Royal Irish Regiment (the sponsor Regiment of the LIR) being sloped on the right and the LIR and Liverpool Irish being sloped on the left.
The "sloping" difference was because the bonnets, which were based on the Balmoral of the time, were so big, and sloping fashions of the time were so "rakish", that Riflemen needed to slope to the left in order to see down the sights of the rifle.
2RUR (Royal Ulster Rifles) also sloped to the left.
The LIR sloped to the right whilst part of the Royal Irish Rangers, but reverted to type after the amalgamation or the RIR and the UDR. They are also unique in being the only British Army unit to wear their headdress with the cap badge positioned between the right eye and the right ear - all other units wear theirs with their insignia over the left.
Read more about this topic: London Irish Rifles
Famous quotes containing the word dress:
“Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.”
—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (b.1941)
“The swimming hole is still in use. It has the same mudbank. It is still impossible to dress without carrying mud home in one’s inner garments. As an engineer I could devise improvements for that swimming hole. But I doubt if the decrease in mother’s grief at the homecoming of muddy boys would compensate the inherent joys of getting muddy.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)