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Irish Army (1661–1801)

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A standing army is a permanent, often professional, army . It is composed of full-time soldiers who may be either career soldiers or conscripts . It differs from army reserves , who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or natural disasters , and temporary armies, which are raised from the civilian population only during a war or threat of war, and disbanded once the war or threat is over. Standing armies tend to be better equipped, better trained, and better prepared for emergencies, defensive deterrence, and particularly, wars. The term dates from approximately 1600, although the phenomenon it describes is much older.

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95-671: The Irish Army or Irish establishment , in practice called the monarch's "army in Ireland" or "army of Ireland", was the standing army of the Kingdom of Ireland , a client state of England and subsequently (from 1707) of Great Britain . It existed from the early 1660s until merged into the British Army in 1801, and for much of the period was the largest force available to the British Crown , being substantially larger than

190-737: A bank approximately 200 metres long, although the associated ditches are no longer clearly visible. The idea of the Pale was inseparable from the notion of a separate Anglo-Irish polity and culture. After the 17th century, and especially after the Anglican Reformation and the Plantation of Ulster , the " Old English " settlers were gradually assimilated into the Irish population. This was in large part due to their relative reluctance to give up Roman Catholicism (those who did not worship in

285-582: A beacon-fire would raise the alarm as far as Tallaght, where an important castle stood. A portion of the Pale is still to be seen in Kildare between Clane and Clongowes Wood College at Sallins. Within the confines of the Pale, the leading gentry and merchants lived lives not too different from those of their counterparts in England, save for the constant fear of attack from the Gaelic Irish. Portions of

380-418: A cost of £122,000 paid out of his regular budget. This became the foundation of the permanent British Army. By 1685 it had grown to 7,500 soldiers in marching regiments, and 1,400 men permanently stationed in garrisons. The Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 provided James II with a pretext to increase the size of the force to 20,000 men, and there were 37,000 in 1688, when England played a role in the closing stage of

475-590: A difference existed between regular troops and a militia force, if I not witnessed the scenes of this day." The Pale The Pale ( Irish : An Pháil ) or the English Pale ( An Pháil Shasanach or An Ghalltacht ) was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages . It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along

570-636: A discharge bounty upon 25 years of honorable service; supplementing the legions were the auxilia , auxiliary forces composed of non-citizens in the provinces who typically earned citizenship as a reward for service. The first modern standing armies on European soil during the Middle Ages were the Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire , which were formed in the 14th century under Sultan Murad I . The first Christian standing army since

665-499: A higher social level, there was extensive intermarriage between the Gaelic Irish aristocracy and Anglo-Norman lords, beginning not long after the invasion. By the late 15th century, the Pale became the only part of Ireland that remained subject to the English king, with most of the island paying only token recognition of the overlordship of the English crown. The tax base shrank to a fraction of what it had been in 1300. A proverb quoted by Sir John Davies said that "whoso lives by west of

760-525: A large [...] military establishment" primarily for the benefit of Great Britain, while still being subject to restrictions on trade. The British government drew on regiments on the Irish establishment for the Braddock Expedition to Fort Duquesne at the opening stages of the French and Indian War . The 44th and 48th foot were quickly dispatched from Ireland and suffered heavy casualties at

855-460: A large standing army meant that the Irish military establishment continued in use as a means to preserve a cadre of regiments that would otherwise have been disbanded. This was achieved by keeping them at a lower than usual operational strength while in Ireland, then recruiting up to full strength before deployment abroad in times of war. "Irish" regiments could at any time be transferred to another establishment, or transferred abroad while remaining on

950-623: A large standing army, comparing it, mischievously, to a standing penis : "An excellent assurance of domestic tranquility, but a dangerous temptation to foreign adventure." After the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814, during the War of 1812 , in which the Maryland and Virginia militias were soundly defeated by the British Army, President James Madison commented, "I could never have believed so great

1045-542: A southwesterly direction towards Kilternan; then turning northwards passed Kilgobbin, where a castle still stands, and crossed the Parish of Taney to the south of that part of the lands of Balally now called Moreen, and thence in a westerly direction to Tallaght, and on to Naas in the County of Kildare. In the wall bounding Moreen is still to be seen a small watch-tower and the remains of a guard-house adjoining it. From this point

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1140-711: A standing army to Parliament, not the king. In his influential work The Wealth of Nations (1776), economist Adam Smith comments that standing armies are a sign of modernizing society, as modern warfare requires the increased skill and discipline of regularly trained standing armies. In the British Thirteen Colonies in America, there was a strong distrust of a standing army not under civilian control. The U.S. Constitution in ( Article 1, Section 8 ) limits federal appropriations to two years, and reserves financial control to Congress, instead of to

1235-671: A standing army. Instead they drafted militias from around 150 city states. While the Eastern Zhao did not initially maintain a standing army, the state of Jin became the first to do so in 678 BCE. The first professional army in China was established by the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE, which ushered Imperial China. Under the Qin dynasty, wars were fought by trained vocational soldiers instead of relying on temporary soldiers. In Ancient India , warfare

1330-415: A substitute is immediately supplied and the number again filled. Thousands of these 10,000 guardsmen composed the royal bodyguards in the palace, their insignia were golden apples or pomegranates at the butts of their spears (accordingly they are named “apple-bearers” by Heraclides Cumaeus ). In ancient Greece , the city-states' ( poleis ) armies were essentially drafted citizen militias. The exception

1425-613: A total of 45 foot regiments, each of 12 line companies and one grenadier company; 8 dragoon regiments; 7 cavalry regiments and a cavalry Life Guard, about 36,000 men strong. James landed in Kinsale on 12 March, accompanied by French regulars under Conrad von Rosen , along with English, Scottish and Irish Jacobite volunteers, in an attempt to use Ireland as a base to regain all three kingdoms. On 13 August, Schomberg , head of William's main invasion force, landed in Belfast Lough ; by

1520-621: Is roughly 500 meters and the top of the bank is planted with hedgerow shrubs, indicating that the Pale Ditch subsequently served as a field boundary. Another section of the Pale Ditch lies in the Clay Farm Ecopark, near the Ballyogan Road. This section is very different from the previous section, in that it does not consist of a double ditch and bank. Rather, the builders made use of an existing shallow escarpment, steepening

1615-626: The 18th Foot . With the implications for Ireland uncertain, Irish Protestants launched a rebellion in 1689, forming the Army of the North and declaring William as king, though Tyrconnell was able to retain control of most towns using the remaining units loyal to James. After initially considering reaching a peace settlement with William, Tyrconnell subsequently resolved to hold Ireland for James; in January 1689 he issued warrants for an enormous expansion of

1710-690: The Anglo-Irish Anglican Protestant minority could join the army, while both the Catholic majority in Ireland and Protestant Nonconformists were barred from enlistment. During the reign of the Catholic king James II ( r.  1685–1688 ), Catholics were actively recruited into the army and quickly became a majority within it. When James was overthrown by in the 1688 Glorious Revolution , most Irish Army troops stayed loyal to him and fought on his side as Jacobites in

1805-593: The Barrow , lives west of the law." The earls of Kildare ruled as lords deputy from 1470 (with more or less success), aided by alliances with the Gaelic lords. This lasted until the 1520s, when the earls passed out of royal favour, but the 9th earl was reinstated in the 1530s. The brief revolt by his son "Silken Thomas" in 1534–35 served in the following decades to hasten the Tudor conquest of Ireland , in which Dublin and

1900-627: The British Army following the Acts of Union 1800 . By this stage the traditional ban on Irish Catholics serving in the army had been completely removed, and they began to supply a growing portion of troops. Standing army Sargon of Akkad , the founder of the  Akkadian Empire , is believed to have formed the first standing professional army. Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria (ruled 745–727 BC) created Assyria's first standing army. Tiglath-Pileser III disbanded militias and instead paid professional soldiers for their services. His army

1995-545: The British Army . Disbanded Jacobites still presented a considerable risk to security in Ireland and despite resistance from the English and Irish parliaments, William encouraged them to enlist in his own forces; by the end of 1693 a further 3,650 former Jacobites had joined William's armies fighting on the Continent. William reformed the Irish Army, using it as a source of recruits for his international coalition during

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2090-573: The Church of Ireland bore a variety of legal disabilities). They kept their version of the English language , though by that time many of them also spoke Irish. Several of these men were notable contributors to literature in Irish, including Pierce Ferriter and Geoffrey Keating . Christopher Nugent , 6th Baron Delvin, wrote an Irish-language primer for Elizabeth I . The term continues to be used in contemporary Irish speech to refer to County Dublin and nearby counties, generally critically—for example,

2185-644: The Constitution of 1782 . Amongst its many measures, this gave the Irish Parliament greater control over its own armed forces. In the 1790s the Army was described as "not fit for purpose". This came at a time of growing support for the republican ideas of the French Revolution , amidst fears of the revolutionary spirit spreading to Britain and Ireland. The Irish Army was amalgamated into

2280-548: The English and Scottish establishments . Initially solely under the monarch's control, from 1699 the army was jointly controlled by the monarch and by the Parliament of England . The Parliament of Ireland took over some responsibilities in 1769, extended after 1782 when it began passing its own Mutiny Acts . The army, funded by Irish crown revenues, had its own Commander-in-Chief . For much of its history, only members of

2375-483: The French army . Popularly known in Ireland as the " Flight of the Wild Geese ", the process began almost immediately, using English ships sailing from Cork; French ships completed it by December. Modern estimates suggest that around 19,000 men of the Irish army and rapparees , or irregular forces, departed: women and children brought the figure to slightly over 20,000, or about one per cent of Ireland's population at

2470-753: The Nine Years' War of 1688–1697, the French and Indian War of 1754-1763, and the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783. It also fought against the United Irishmen insurgents in the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , although the bulk of the pro-Government fighting was left by the establishment to be done by two parallel but separate forces intended for service domestically: the Irish Militia , re-organized in 1793, and

2565-592: The Nine Years' War . Though Catholic recruitment was once again forbidden, this proved loosely enforced in practice while manpower was needed and men keen to enlist: a 1697 inquiry found 64 Irish Catholics in a single battalion and 400 in Sir Richard Coote 's regiment. Following the Treaty of Ryswick , William planned to maintain a much larger standing army but the Parliament of England responded by passing

2660-606: The Normans increasingly assimilated into Irish culture after 1300. They made alliances with neighbouring autonomous Gaelic lords. In the long periods when there was no large royal army in Ireland, the Norman lords, like their Gaelic neighbours in the provinces, acted essentially as independent rulers in their own areas. The Lordship controlled by the English king shrank accordingly, and as parts of its perimeter in counties Meath and Kildare were fenced or ditched, it became known as

2755-674: The Songhai Empire under the Askia Mohammad I (1493–1528) possessed a full-time corps of 40,000 professional warriors. Al-Sa'di, the chronicler who wrote the Tarikh al-Sudan , compared Askia Mohammad I's army to that of his predecessor; "he distinguished between the civilian and the army unlike Sunni Ali [1464–92] when everyone was a soldier." Askia Mohammad I is said to have possessed cynical attitudes towards kingdoms that lacked professional armies like his, notably in reference to

2850-474: The Tudors took a greater interest in Irish affairs from 1485 and moved it back to Dublin. The Pale generally consisted of fertile lowlands which were easier for the garrison to defend from ambush than hilly or wooded ground. For reasons of trade and administration, a version of English became the official language. Its closest modern derivative is said to be the accent used by natives of Fingal . In 1366, so that

2945-671: The Williamite War in Ireland . Following James's defeat, many of these troops went into exile in France , where they became the core of the Irish Brigade . The army was rebuilt by the new regime after the Williamite victory, once again as an exclusively Protestant force, although manpower shortages meant that over time some Catholics were enlisted, an arrangement finally legalised in 1778 . Its soldiers fought for Britain in

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3040-683: The feudal nature of the Lordship. The Act was never implemented successfully, even in the Pale itself. This inability to enforce the statute indicated that Ireland was withdrawing from English cultural norms. By the Tudor period, the Irish culture and language had reestablished itself in regions conquered by the Anglo-Normans: "even in the Pale, all the common folk ... for the most part are of Irish birth, Irish habit and of Irish language". At

3135-616: The "English Army for Ireland", to support the Irish Royalists . Scotland sent a Covenanter army to Ulster. Irish Protestants in northwestern Ulster raised their own ' Laggan Army ', which was nominally under the command of the Crown, but largely acted independently. The Irish Confederate army fought against these armies, in what became known as the Irish Confederate Wars . The King authorised secret negotiations with

3230-438: The "Pale," separating the lands occupied by the settlers from those remaining in the hands of the Irish. This barrier consisted of a ditch, raised some ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a hedge of thorn on the outer side. It was constructed, not so much to keep out the Irish, as to form an obstacle in their way in their raids on the cattle of the settlers, and thus give time for a rescue. The Pale began at Dalkey, and followed

3325-432: The "boundary" concept was the idea of a pale as an area within which local laws were valid. The term was used not only for the Pale in Ireland but also for various other English overseas settlements, notably English Calais . The term was also used to refer to specific regions in other nations: the term Pale of Settlement was applied to the area in the west of Imperial Russia where Jews were permitted to reside. The Pale

3420-433: The 1530s. The Fitzgerald family had traditionally been the leading Anglo-Irish lords in the country, serving as Lord Lieutenants . Their rebellion exposed the weakness of Henry VIII 's forces in the Lordship, with the rebels securing large gains and besieging Dublin . In 1542 the Kingdom of Ireland was formally established and Henry VIII of England became King of Ireland. The English then began establishing control over

3515-432: The 1685 Monmouth and Argyll rebellions. While recruitment of Catholics into the army had recommenced in the last years of Charles II's reign, James's newly appointed Commander-in-Chief , Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell , wished to create a Catholic establishment loyal to James and conducted a purge of Protestant army officers, replacing many with Catholics. He also began accelerating recruitment of Catholics into

3610-479: The 1699 Disbanding Act, intended to prevent William involving the country in Continental wars; this reduced the English army to 7,000 and the Irish to 12,000. The Disbanding Act also insisted on the discharge of all foreigners, such as French Huguenots , from both armies; from 1701 most recruitment in Ireland was also officially prohibited. Through most of the 18th century, parliamentary hostility in England to

3705-489: The 16th century to the first half of the 17th century. Although other powers adopted the tercio formation, their armies fell short of the fearsome reputation of the Spanish, whose core of professional soldiers gave them an edge that was hard for other states to match. Prior to the influence of Oliver Cromwell , England lacked a standing army, instead relying on militia organized by local officials, private forces mobilized by

3800-485: The Black Army had an arquebus , which was an unusual ratio at the time. The high price of medieval gunpowder prevented them from raising it any further. The main troops of the army were the infantry, artillery and light and heavy cavalry. The function of the heavy cavalry was to protect the light armoured infantry and artillery, while the other corps delivered sporadic, surprise assaults on the enemy. In West Africa,

3895-699: The British Isles. Many of its officers and men were, however, Cromwellian veterans of doubtful loyalty, and in 1661 Charles's newly appointed viceroy, the Duke of Ormonde , began a process of reforming it. Ormonde's initial step in reorganisation was to raise a 1,200-strong regiment of Foot Guards in April 1662, quartered in Dublin. The experienced Anglo-Irish soldier Sir William Flower was made lieutenant-colonel, while Ormonde's son Richard Butler, 1st Earl of Arran

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3990-459: The British parliament accordingly raised the cap on the Irish establishment from 12,000 to 15,235, while in 1769 a statute of the Irish parliament committed to maintaining the "augmentation" of the additional 3,235 troops. The inequities of the situation were among the main drivers of the early Irish Patriot movement in the mid 18th century; it was pointed out that Ireland was "obliged to support

4085-769: The Confederates, resulting in a Confederate–Royalist ceasefire in September 1643. In 1644, a Confederate military expedition landed in Scotland to help Royalists there. In 1649, a large English Parliamentarian army , led by Oliver Cromwell , invaded Ireland . It besieged and captured many towns from the Confederate–Royalist alliance, and had conquered Ireland by 1653. The remnants of the Royalist Irish army served in exile under Charles II , while Ireland

4180-531: The De Verdon fortress of Castle Roche , while the southern border lay slightly south of the present day M50 motorway in Dublin, which crosses the site of what was Carrickmines Castle . The following description is from The Parish of Taney: A History of Dundrum, near Dublin, and Its Neighbourhood (1895): In the period immediately after the Norman Settlement was constructed the barrier, known as

4275-642: The English Crown could assert its authority over the settlers, a parliament was assembled in Kilkenny and the Statute of Kilkenny was enacted. The statute decreed that intermarriage between English settlers and Irish natives was forbidden. It also forbade the settlers from using the Irish language and adopting Irish modes of dress or other customs, as such practices were already common. The adoption of Gaelic Brehon property law, in particular, undermined

4370-572: The English under their subjection". James and Tyrconnell's efforts to promote Catholicism alienated large parts of the British political establishment and in 1688 James was deposed by his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband (and James's nephew) William of Orange , ruling as joint monarchs. James had ordered 2,500 troops of the Irish army, including a battalion each of the Foot Guards, Granard's and Hamilton's regiments, transferred to England in late 1688, crippling Tyrconnell's ability to defend

4465-405: The Foot Guards were deployed as " sea-soldiers " during the Third Anglo-Dutch War : the cavalry's typical duties included escorting merchandise and bullion. During the period there were fears of a revival of republicanism amongst Irish Protestants, and extra troops were stationed around Cork and Ulster. This strategy was broadly successful: at James's accession there was no equivalent Irish rising to

4560-432: The Franco-Dutch War. In 1689, William III expanded the army to 74,000, and then to 94,000 in 1694. Nervous at the power such a large force afforded the king whilst under his personal command, Parliament reduced the cadre to 7,000 in 1697. Scotland and Ireland had theoretically separate military establishments, but they were de facto merged with the English force. The Bill of Rights 1689 officially reserved authority over

4655-481: The French army by forming standing infantry regiments to replace the militia structure. The first, the Régiments de Picardie, Piémont, Navarre and Champagne, were called Les Vieux Corps (The Old Corps). It was normal policy to disband regiments after a war was over to save costs. The Vieux Corps and the king's own household troops (the Maison militaire du roi de France ) were the only survivors. The Black Army , established in 1462 by Hungarian king, Matthias Hunyadi

4750-428: The Irish Yeomanry , formed in 1796. Following the 1800 Acts of Union and their abolition of the Parliament of Ireland, the Irish Army's regiments were placed on the British establishment, although some roles continued to exist separately. For historical reasons, the modern Irish Army , which originated as the pre-1922 Irish Republican Army , does not trace its lineage from any part of the earlier Irish Army, although

4845-473: The Irish army's senior commander, French officer Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe was killed and many other officers killed or taken prisoner, dealing a decisive blow to the Jacobite effort. Tyrconnell died of a stroke the following month and Patrick Sarsfield took over as the senior Jacobite negotiator. In October Sarsfield signed the Treaty of Limerick ; the settlement agreed to his demand that those still in Jacobite service could leave for France to serve with

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4940-460: The Irish establishment, although they then ceased to be a charge on the Irish Exchequer. The anomalous situation was emphasised by the fact that they were technically forbidden from recruiting rank and file in Ireland until 1756, although routinely ignored during manpower crises. The expense and difficulty of recruiting in Britain regularly led to staff officers clandestinely enlisting Irish Catholics, or attempting to pass Irish Protestants off as Scots:

5035-477: The Latin word pālus , meaning "stake", specifically a stake used to support a fence. A paling fence is made of pales ganged side by side, and the word palisade is derived from the same root. From this came the figurative meaning of "boundary". The Oxford English Dictionary is dubious about the popular notion that the phrase beyond the pale , as something outside the boundary—i.e., uncivilised, derives from this specific Irish meaning. Also derived from

5130-494: The New Irish Army against his English Parliamentarian enemies, in the months before the outbreak of the English Civil War . When the Irish Rebellion of 1641 broke out, the traditional Irish Army was too small in size to cope. Many soldiers of the New Irish Army joined the rebels, and soon controlled large swathes of Ireland. In 1642 they established the Irish Catholic Confederacy and an Irish Confederate army. Large numbers of reinforcements arrived from England in 1642, known as

5225-431: The Pale Ditch can still be seen in the Sandyford/Kilgobbin/Ballyogan areas of South Dublin. The most well-preserved section can be visited and lies just south of the Ballyogan Road within the Ballyogan Recycling Park. It consists of pair of ditches on either side of a high flat-topped bank. The bank is 2 to 3 meters wide on the top and is approximately 2 meters above the bottom of the ditches. The entire length of this section

5320-403: The Pale, deriving from the Latin word palus , a stake, or, synecdochically , a fence. Parts can still be seen west of Clane on the grounds of what is now Clongowes Wood College . The military power of the crown itself was greatly weakened by the Hundred Years War (1337–1453), and the Wars of the Roses (1455–85). The Parliament of Ireland was created, often sitting at Drogheda until

5415-413: The President. The President, however, retains command of the armed forces when they are raised, as commander-in-chief . The Framers' suspicion of a standing army is reflected in the constitutional requirement that the appointment and promotion of high-ranking military officers (like civil officers) be confirmed by the Senate . At the 1787 Constitutional Convention , Elbridge Gerry argued against

5510-478: The army. As the Catholic gentry realised the profits that could be made raising men for military service, many of the new regiments initially consisted of 30-45 companies, mostly without uniforms and armed with clubs or rusty muskets; neither Tyrconnell's government nor the Irish economy could afford to properly equip or pay such numbers and a team of inspectors, including Patrick Sarsfield , reduced them to more manageable totals. James's Irish army eventually settled at

5605-433: The control of the English Crown and its government in Ireland. During the Scottish Crisis of the early 1640s, Randal MacDonnell, Earl of Antrim was authorized by King Charles I to raise a 'New Irish Army'. Mainly drawn from the Catholic Gaelic inhabitants of Ulster , and mustered at Carrickfergus , it was intended to take part in a landing on the coast of Scotland. However it was rumoured that Charles I planned to lead

5700-407: The core of the French gendarmes that dominated European battlefields in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. They were stationed throughout France and summoned into larger armies when needed. Provisions were also made for franc-archers and foot soldiers raised from the non-noble classes, but those units were disbanded at the end of the Hundred Years' War . The bulk of the infantry for warfare

5795-566: The country. While the Royal Hospital Kilmainham was built for the welfare of soldiers in 1680, the rank and file remained generally poorly paid and equipped; a report of 1676 described the army as "in a most miserable condition". All officers and men serving in Ireland were supposed to produce evidence of being Anglican Protestants, Catholic professional soldiers only being permitted to serve abroad. The dismissal or resignation of former New Model Army veterans meant that many officers were inexperienced Anglo-Irish gentleman soldiers who often embezzled

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5890-438: The country; all were disarmed on William's landing in England. Their Catholic personnel were imprisoned on the Isle of Wight before being shipped to the Continent for service with the Emperor Leopold ; the remaining Protestant officers and men were incorporated into Granard's Regiment, which as the regiment with the highest proportion of Protestants became the only regiment of the Irish Army to continue in service with William, as

5985-489: The course of time. The empire's great armies were, like the empire itself, very diverse. Its standing army was composed of Persians (the bravest people of empire according to Herodotus) and Medes. This standing army, which may have been reviewed every year by the king or his representative, is called kāra in the inscriptions. At the heart of this army was its elite guard, The 10,000 Immortals . Herodotus describes that if any of these guardsmen drops out owing to death or disease,

6080-421: The disastrous engagement at the Monongahela . Both regiments continued to serve throughout the war taking part in the more successful expedition against Havana before returning home in 1763 for service again in Ireland. Following the outbreak of rebellion in Britain's Thirteen Colonies in 1775, Ireland provided large numbers of recruits to the expanded British Army. Following a vote in the Irish Parliament, it

6175-411: The east coast stretching north from Dalkey , south of Dublin , to the garrison town of Dundalk . The inland boundary went to Naas and Leixlip around the Earldom of Kildare , towards Trim and north towards Kells . In this district, many townlands have English or Norman-French names, the latter associated with Anglo-Norman influence in England. The word pale , meaning a fence, is derived from

6270-456: The end of the month, he had more than 20,000 men. Carrickfergus fell on 27 August, but an opportunity for Schomberg to quickly end the war by taking Dundalk was missed after his army was crippled by poor logistics, exacerbated by disease. The ensuing Williamite War was to last two years and claim up to 100,000 civilian and military lives by contemporary estimate. William himself landed in June 1690 bringing substantial reinforcements; James's army

6365-446: The fall of the Western Roman Empire to be paid with regular wages, instead of feudal levies, was established by King Charles VII of France in the 1430s while the Hundred Years' War was still raging. As he realized that France needed professional reliable troops for ongoing and future conflicts, units were raised by issuing "ordonnances" to govern their length of service, composition and payment. These compagnies d'ordonnance formed

6460-420: The first true professional Hellenic army, with soldiers and cavalrymen paid for their service year-round, rather than a militia of men who mostly farmed the land for subsistence and occasionally mustered for campaigns. The Western Zhou maintained a standing army, enabling them to effectively control other city states and spread their influence. Unlike the Western Zhou, the Eastern Zhou initially did not have

6555-817: The funds sent by Dublin; by 1676 most men were on extended furlough as there was insufficient money to pay them, with the Foot Guards remaining the only effective unit of the army. By 1685 and the accession of Charles's Catholic brother James II , the establishment consisted of the Foot Guards; the Earl of Granard's Regiment , based in Roscommon, Longford and Westmeath; Viscount Mountjoy 's, based in Tyrone, Armagh and Derry; Sir Thomas Newcomen's, based in Wexford, Tipperary, and King's County; Thomas Fairfax's, based in Antrim and Down; Justin McCarthy 's, based in Cork; and Theodore Russell's, based in Galway, Clare and Queens County. There were also three regiments of cavalry; Ormonde's, Tyrconnell's and Ossory 's. The Irish army's main duty remained internal security, although two companies of

6650-439: The island . It involved the policy of surrender and regrant , and the colonization of Irish land by Protestant settlers, largely from England. This sparked conflict with various Irish lordships, most notably the Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years' War . This latter conflict ended in 1603 with English victory over the Irish armies and their Spanish allies. Following the Flight of the Earls (1607), all of Ireland came under

6745-441: The island—known as Gaelic Ireland —remained under the control of various native Irish kingdoms and chiefdoms. The English administration , the Anglo-Norman lords and the Irish chiefs each raised their own armies in times of war. By the 15th century the area of direct English control had shrunk to an area called the Pale , and English rule came under further strain during the rebellion of Thomas FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Kildare in

6840-401: The medieval counties of Louth , Meath , Dublin and Kildare , leaving out half of Meath, most of Kildare, and southwest County Dublin. Border or garrison towns of the pale included Ardee , Siddan , Kells , Athboy , Trim , Kilcock , Clane , Naas , Harristown , Ballymore Eustace , Rathmore , Kilteel , Saggart , Tallaght and Dalkey . The northern frontier of the Pale was marked by

6935-475: The nationality test did not apply to officers, among whom the Anglo-Irish were disproportionately represented in both the Irish and British establishments. By 1767, British ministers wanted to increase the size of the peacetime army, but faced parliamentary resistance to any attempt to expand the British establishment. The "Augmentation crisis" resulted in an increase in the Irish army being proposed instead;

7030-401: The neighboring kingdoms in the land of Borgu . The Majapahit thalassocracy was recorded by a Chinese observer as having 30,000 full-time professional troops, whose soldiers and commanders were paid in gold. This shows the existence of a standing army, an achievement that only a handful of Southeast Asian empires could hope to achieve. In addition to these professional soldiers, Majapahit

7125-641: The nobility and hired mercenaries from Europe. This changed during the English Civil War , when Cromwell formed his New Model Army of 50,000 men. This professional body of soldiers proved more effective than untrained militia, and enabled him to exert control over the country. The army was disbanded by Parliament following the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, and the Cromwellian model

7220-680: The pre-1922 Royal Irish Regiment did, while the 92nd Regiment of the French Army still traces its descent from the Irish Brigade. Following the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century, large parts of Ireland came under the control of Anglo-Norman lords and the English Crown. This territory became the Lordship of Ireland and the kings of England claimed sovereignty over it as "lords of Ireland". The rest of

7315-601: The rank and file, starting with the Foot Guards, giving the pretext that “the King would have all his men young and of one size”. By the summer of 1686, two-thirds of the army's rank and file and 40% of officers were Catholic. Reports received by the viceroy, the Earl of Clarendon , of growing friction between Catholic army units and Protestants began to cause concern both in Ireland and England: Clarendon's secretary noted "the Irish talk of nothing now but recovering their lands and bringing

7410-537: The sections described above are part of a single linear earthwork, designed to connect Kilgobbin and Carrickmines castles, fortifications built by the Walsh Family during the medieval period to defend the southern marches of the Pale. Another, slightly less well-preserved section of the Pale Ditch can be seen at Kilcross Crescent within the Kilcross housing estate near Sandyford village. This section consists of

7505-531: The slope to create a 2 meter high barrier to movement from north to south. The purpose of this was probably to make it hard for Irish raiders to herd stolen cattle from the Pale to the Wicklow mountains to the south. That this feature was part of the Pale Ditch was originally proposed by Rob Goodbody in the 1990s, and recently confirmed by archaeology during the building of the Clay Farm housing development. Both

7600-450: The surviving Pale were used as the crown's main military base. A book A Perambulation of Leinster, Meath, and Louth, of which consist the English Pale (1596) expressed contemporary usage. The Pale was composed of Dublin and its surrounding area, the population of which was mainly made of Old English merchants who were loyal to the crown. The Pale boundary essentially consisted of a fortified ditch and rampart built around parts of

7695-467: The time. It was reported that some of the soldiers had to be forced on board the ships when they learned they would be joining the French. Most were unable to bring or to contact their families and many appear to have deserted en route from Limerick to Cork. A separate Irish Brigade had been formed in 1689–90 for French service: the new arrivals from Ireland were eventually incorporated in it but continued

7790-514: The traditions of the old Irish army. While the French, despite a great deal of resistance by James himself, substantially reorganised the force, some individual regiments continued in existence, such as the Grand Prior's Regiment and the Foot Guards, which became Albemarle's and Dorrington's Regiments of the Irish Brigade respectively. They continued to wear the red coat of the Irish Army, leading to occasional confusion when they were fighting

7885-617: Was a strip of land that stretched north from Dalkey in Dublin to Dundalk in Louth; it became the base of English rule in Ireland. The Norman invasion of Ireland , beginning in 1169, created the Lordship of Ireland and brought Ireland under the theoretical control of the Plantagenet Kings of England. From the 13th century onwards, the Hiberno-Norman occupation in Ireland at first faltered, then waned. Across most of Ireland,

7980-606: Was agreed that a number of Irish Army regiments be allowed to serve in America. This led to concerns that Ireland was not properly defended once France entered the war in 1778, having sent so many soldiers abroad. A spontaneous movement established the Irish Volunteers , committed to the defence of the island against invasion. Despite this, the Volunteers rapidly emerged as a political movement demanding greater powers be granted to Ireland by London, which eventually led to

8075-455: Was composed largely of Assyrian soldiers but was supplemented with foreign mercenaries and vassal states. The standing army he created was the most sophisticated administrative and economic institution of its time, and was the engine of Assyrian economy which capitalized on warfare. Cyrus the Great formed the first professional army of Persia. The composition of the army varied and developed in

8170-572: Was created in Maghada by the ruler Bimbisara . Under the reign of Augustus , the first Roman emperor , a standing professional army of the Roman Empire was gradually instituted, with regularized pay. This professional force of legionaries was expensive to maintain, but supported the authority of the empire, not only as combat troops but also as provincial police forces, engineers , and guards. Legionaries were citizen volunteers entitled to

8265-671: Was defeated at the Boyne in July, leading to the loss of Dublin, but held off William's advance at the Siege of Limerick in September. With the Jacobites retaining much of western Ireland, both James and William left Ireland in 1690, leaving the war to be handled by subordinates. In July of the following year the bloodiest battle in Irish history was fought at Aughrim in County Galway ;

8360-702: Was first attested during the Vedic period. However, warfare was primarily waged between various clans and kingdoms solely by the kshatriya class during times of conflict. True standing armies in India developed under the Mahajanapadas , which relied on paid professional soldiers year round. The most prominent of the Mahajanapadas was the Kingdom of Magadha . It is accepted that the first standing army of India

8455-558: Was garrisoned by English republican troops until 1660. In 1660 Charles was restored to the Irish throne . While the English New Model Army was quickly disbanded after the Restoration, Charles initially retained the large army still stationed in Ireland. It numbered 5,000 infantry and 2,500 cavalry, considerably bigger than it had been before the rebellion, and was the largest armed force available to Charles in

8550-490: Was gazetted colonel, with captaincy of a company. To minimise Cromwellian influence, many of the rank and file were initially raised in England, with further recruits drawn from the ranks of the Irish “Independent Companies”. In 1672 the remainder of the Irish army was organised into six new regiments of foot, though this was primarily a paper-based exercise as other than the Guards they remained split up in small garrisons around

8645-525: Was in ancient Sparta , which had a standing army that trained year-round (and not only in summertime). Through the 5th century, they comprised the only professional soldiers in ancient Greece, aside from hired mercenaries. However, the Spartan army commonly consisted of helots (serfs), who considerably outnumbered the Spartiates , as well as numerous allies of Sparta. Philip II of Macedon instituted

8740-472: Was initially considered a failure due to various logistical and political problems with the force. The Militia Act 1661 prohibited local authorities from assembling militia without the approval of the king, to prevent such a force being used to oppress local opponents. This weakened the incentive for local officials to draw up their own fighting forces, and King Charles II subsequently assembled four regiments of infantry and cavalry, calling them his guards, at

8835-427: Was still provided by urban or provincial militias, raised from an area or city to fight locally and named for their recruiting grounds. Gradually these units became more permanent, and in the 1480s, Swiss instructors were recruited and some of the 'bandes' (militia) were combined to form temporary 'legions' of up to 9,000 men. The men would be paid and contracted and would receive training. Henry II further regularised

8930-578: Was strengthened by troops from subordinate countries and regional leaders. As was common in Southeast Asia, Majapahit also used a levy system, in fact, the majority of the Majapahit troops were a levy. The Spanish Empire tercios were the first Spanish standing units composed of professional soldiers. Their pike and shot composition assured predominance in the European battlefields from

9025-420: Was the first Central/Eastern European standing army. However, while the Black Army was certainly the first standing field army in that part of Europe, Hungary in fact had maintained a permanent army in the form of garrisons of border fortresses since the 1420s. Matthias recognized the importance and key role of early firearms in the infantry, which greatly contributed to his victories. Every fourth soldier in

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