The 87th (Royal Irish Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1793 and amalgamated into the Princess Victoria's (Royal Irish Fusiliers) in 1881.
The regiment was raised in 1793 as the 87th (The Prince of Wales's Irish) Regiment of Foot, taking its title from George IV, then Prince of Wales, later modifying its title to 87th (The Prince of Wales's Own Irish) Regiment of Foot, then to 87th (Royal Irish Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot following the Prince's accession to the throne.
The 87th were famous for being the first British Regiment to capture a French Imperial Eagle during the Peninsular War. At the Battle of Barrosa on 5 March 1811, Ensign Edward Keogh and Sergeant Patrick Masterson captured the Eagle of the 8th Ligne. Keogh only managed to get a hand on the shaft when he was shot and bayoneted, he was killed instantly. Masterson had followed his officer and after killing several men he wrenched the Eagle from the dying hands of its bearer, Lieutenant Gazan.
It was bugler Paddy Shannon of the 2nd Battalion of the 87th Regiment of Foot who "picked up" Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's baton after the battle of Vittoria . The baton was sent to George the Prince Regent by Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington, who in return awarded Wellington, his English field marshal's baton.
Famous quotes containing the words irish, regiment and/or foot:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“With two thousand years of Christianity behind him ... a man can’t see a regiment of soldiers march past without going off the deep end. It starts off far too many ideas in his head.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye.
What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high,
And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern stalks upon higher,
Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)