Irish Brigade

The Irish Brigade is a brigade made up of the Irish regiments which were put at the service of Louis XIV after the defeat of Jacques II with the Bataille of Boyne. Irish exiled at that time was called the " Wild geese ", " Wild gooses " in French.

Origin of the exile

November 16th, 1688, William of Orange unloads with Torbay in England to be opposed to king d' Angleterre the catholic Jacques II. The English Parliament proposes to him, with his Mary wife, to take the crown of the three kingdoms, England, Scotland and Ireland.

After the Battle of Boyne and the fall of Limerick at the end of 1691, Ireland is lost for Jacques II who takes refuge in France and will settle with the castle of Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer. It is followed by the Irish soldiers who had fought at his sides and whom the tradition took the practice to indicate like the " Wild Geese" , " Geese sauvages".

See also: Wild gooses (jacobites)

For the Sun king, the Irish troops constitute a considerable military contribution. For Jacques II, they maintain a hope of restoration. For the Irish soldiers, the maintenance of the regiments on the continent was the symbol of the continuation of the fight for the jacobite cause and, in a certain manner, for the Irish cause. The block of the last Irish regiments in France became a piece of Ireland brought back on the continent.

The arrival of the Irish regiments in France

Before the battle of Limerick, following the sending of reinforcements in Ireland under the command of the duke of Lauzun, Louis XIV required in exchange that five regiments of Irish infantry pass to her service to France.

These troops were gathered in three regiments, Mountcashel, O' Brien and Dillon, which formed the Brigade Mountcashel. The brigade counted in the beginning 5371 men and it counted 6039 men in 1698. Each regiment was composed of two battalions including/understanding in all fifteen companies of one hundred men and the clean company of the colonel.
The regiments of the Mountcashel brigade were joined after the defeat of Limerick by other soldiers in favor of Jacques II who still fought under the command of Patrick Sarsfield. The war on the continent seemed to offer to the Irishmen the most direct means to fight against the enemies of their king and to contribute to its restoration and there were many volunteers for the exile.

In September 1697, after the Peace of Ryswick, the twenty-five Irish battalions had to reduce the number of their companies from sixteen to fourteen and to lay off half of manpower. A general recasting took place in February 1698. Only three regiments of the brigade Mountcashel (Lee, Clare and Dillon) as well as the regiment of navy, from now on regiment of Albemarle, escaped this reform. The regiments of Limerick and Dublin were removed, the others integrated in five new regiments: Sheldon, Dorrington, Galmoy, Lutrell (then Bourke) and Berwick.

The recruitment of the Irish regiments

Since Ireland, the exile of the " Geese sauvages" or " Wild Geese" brutal and was limited in time, in the shape of massive waves in 1690 and fine 1691-beginning 1692. The full number of exiled was estimated at 19.000 men. There was then a permanent emigration estimated at approximately 1000 individuals per annum until in 1783.

After 1697, “French” recruitment direct was done on the one hand near the Irishmen installed in France and of the Irishmen born in France, the second generation of Wild Geese but they was not numerous.

Other installations through Europe

Following the example duke of Berwick, the Irishmen were established successfully and of number in Spain which also offered an asylum to them where they enjoyed the same privileges as Spanish. Some succeeded of brilliant careers at the court of Philippe V, with the example of Simon Connock which became general sergeant and officer of the bodyguards then governor of Infant, or of Patrick Lawless, lieutenant general, who became ambassador from Spain to London after 1713. Others gained the Empire or Russia.

Progressive integration in the French company

The Irish regiments allow exiled to maintain a strong feeling identity and to protect their particularism. Quickly, a national legend set up around some important facts of the Irishmen on the continent and the figure of Patrick Sarsfield. Its early death on the battle field of Neerwinden deprived the Irish community of a prestigious figure near the court of Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer, but it ensured definitively to him the statute of hero national.

Irish particularism was nourished of a savage animosity towards the members in exile of the two other British nations England and Scotland. The Irish soldiers refused all the British officers others that their Irish compatriots.

Exploits of the Irish brigade

The victories of the Irish regiments were the occasion of exalter their pride nationale.

Many poems and songs jacobites greeted the “surprise of Casement bolt” on February 1st, 1702. The two battalions of the Dillon regiment, under the command of the major Daniel O' Mahony, resisted, at the price of heavy losses (223 killed out of 600 men), with an attack of the Prince Eugene against the city which Villeroy with French and Irish troops held and forced it with retirer.

In the most important contributions of the Irish brigade, one can recall a decisive participation in the battles of Fontenoy on May 11th, 1745, with a large sacrifice, which was worth to them a great regard and rewards on behalf of King Louis XV and of the military commander Maurice of Saxony.

See also: Battle of Fontenoy

The Irish regiments having taken part in the battles of Fontenoy are the following:

The great success of Dillon

Arthur Dillon, which ordered the regiment of its name, was one of the Irish officers jacobites last in France more renommé.
After the defeat of Limerick, it undergoes the confiscation of its grounds in the counties of Mayo, Roscommon and Westmeath. It is promoted sergeant after the victory of Crémone of 1702, becomes general lieutenant in 1706 and is distinguished at the sides from the duke from Berwick at the time of the countryside of 1714. When it withdraws active service in 1730, it transmits its regiment to his oldest son, thus establishing in a final way Dillon like one of the big families of officers in France.
One can announce also the ecclesiastical career of youngest wire, Arthur, which became abbot of Saint-Etienne of Caen then archbishop of Evreux, archbishop of Toulouse and archbishop of Narbonne.

Old relations between France and Ireland

The arrival of the " Geese sauvages" in France was an innovation by its political and religious reasons and especially by its width. However, the movement fell under an older tradition and firmly anchored between France and Ireland. A big number of the officers had already been useful in the French Armies. Enrôlement of Irishman in the French troops for economic reasons was attested since the beginning of the XVIIe century.

True dynasties of soldiers were constituted among the aristocratic big families from which the colonels owners from the regiments came, with the example of Bourke, Dillon, Rooth. However the number of the Irish regiments fell gradually during the XVIIIe century until the reform of 1763, where they were reduced to a brigade of 4.000 men.

After several reforms, in 1775, there remained 3 regiments in the Irish Brigade, with the creation of the regiment Walsh, the absorption of the regiment of Clare by the regiment of Berwick and that of the Bulkeley regiment by the Dillon regiment.

French naturalization

The Irish regiments appeared the best process of assimilation in France while offering to exiled the conditions of success social.

The cut with engagement jacobite of the second generation has been marked symbolically by the granting on November 30th, 1715 of naturalization, comparable to an adoption, all the foreign soldiers for more than ten years in France, therefore with all those which had belonged to the flight of the " Wild Geese" or " Geese sauvages".

Gradually, during the XVIIIe century, engagement jacobite of Irish becomes more symbolic system, with the exaltation of feelings idealized within the framework of the family traditions, but the Irish aristocratic big families are integrated already perfectly into the French company and they will have even their emigrants such Arthur Richard Dillon or their martyrs of the French revolution like Arthur Dillon.

List " Geese sauvages" with their descendants

One can also count in the current descendants:
  • families of the owners of the wines of Bordeaux such as Clarke Castle, Dillon Castle, Kirwan Castle, Castle Mac Carthy, Pontac-Lynch, Marquis de McMahon, Hennessy, etc…

External bonds

  • wild gooses on the site historical Gaeltacht
  • Service of Defense, Article on the " Wild Geese" by Nathalie Broom-Rouffiac.

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