Irish Regiments - WW I - 1914 - 1918

Uncle Fester

Youtube Link: http://youtu.be/6T_ngm1OMSw

Snickers Man

Would have to take issue with the panel that appears in the video that refers to the "Irish regiments" and lists a lot of units that had only tenuous links to Ireland.

There were eight "Irish" infantry regiments during the First World war, each assigned as the county regiment for several Irish counties. Eight regiments, 32 counties; doesn't take a mathematical genius to work out that typically each regiment catered for four counties, but in practice some catered for three and others for five.

The regiments, and their contributing counties were:

Royal Irish Rifles: Antrim, Down and Louth
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers: Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry and Donegal
Roya Irish Fusiliers: Cavan, Monaghan and Armagh
Connaught Rangers: Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo & Galway (ie Connaught)
Leinster Regiment: Longford, Meath, Westmeath, Laois, Offaly (or Queen's & King's Counties)
Royal Dublin Fusiliers: Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow and Carlow
Royal Irish Regiment: Wexford, Kilkenny, Waterford and Tipperary
Royal Munster Fusiliers: Cork, Kerry, Clare & Limerick.

The makeup of these regiments would have been largely but not exclusively Irish, as would that of the Irish Guards.

The Tyneside Irish Brigade were four battalions from the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. They were not an Irish regiment at all. They were basically Catholic Geordies so many of them might indeed have had a bit of Irish heritage. But that was it. Their colours are held in a Catholic cathedral in Newcastle, which is unusual.

The London Irish Rifles were a territorial battalion of the London Regiment. Similarly the Liverpool Irish were a territorial battalion of the King's Liverpool Regiment. They were no more Irish than the rest of Liverpool.

Jawgap

No room for the Irish cavalry regiments.....

The North Irish Horse
The South Irish Horse
4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards
5th Royal Irish Lancers
6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons
8th (The King’s Royal Irish) Hussars

You also do a bit of dis-service to the Tyneside Irish - they were originally raised in September 1914 as "Pals" battalions from Irishmen living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The War Office required that they form part of the county regiment, in their case the Northumberland Fusiliers.

The same with the Liverpool Irish - they were orginally raised as an infantry corps in 1860 and drew from Liverpool's large Irish community. They were originally named the 64th Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps before they became the 5th (Irish) Volunteer Battalion of the King's
(Liverpool Regiment). They subsequently formed part Territorial Force and
became the 8th (Irish) Battalion, the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

There as Irish as the Irish Regiment of Canada