Irish Catholic Service and Identity in the British Armed Forces 1793-1815

Irish Catholic service and identity in the British armed forces 1793-1815 by Darragh Cannon THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF M.LITT DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, MAYNOOTH HEAD OF DEPARTMENT: Professor Marian Lyons Supervisor of Research: Professor Jacqueline Hill October 2014 Table of contents Acknowledgements ii List of abbreviations iii List of illustrations iv Introduction 1 Chapter I Irish Catholic performance in the British armed 17 forces 1793-1815: The military record Chapter II Aspects of the religious identity of Irish Catholic servicemen in the British armed forces 1793-1815 60 Chapter III The stereotyping of the Irish Catholics in the British 95 armed forces 1793-1815 Conclusion 130 Appendices 136 Illustrations 146 Bibliography 151 i Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff of the History Department in Maynooth University for the help that they have given me throughout my studies. I would like to especially thank Professor Marian Lyons for her kindness and support in offering me a departmental scholarship in order to complete this thesis. I am particularly grateful to the tutelage given by my supervisor, Professor Jacqueline Hill, not only for her help and guidance, but also for her enduring patience throughout the course of my studies. A word of thanks must also be made to Ann Donoghue and Catherine Heslin for their help. For their guidance and knowledge during the initial stages of research, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Ivan F. Nelson and Dr David Murphy. Thanks also to the staff of the various libraries and archives that I visited during the course of this research, in particular, the staff of the National Library of Ireland and the British Military Museum at Chelsea. Special thanks go to a number of people for their support and efforts in facilitating my studies. In this regard, I would like to thank all my colleagues at B.M.S Swords but especially John Mulligan, Aaron O'Neill and Kevin Lynch. I would also like to thank all of my former classmates, who were a continual source of encouragement throughout my time at Maynooth. Last and certainly not least, my heartfelt thanks for their love, support and encouragement throughout the research and writing of this thesis goes out to my mum, Kathleen, dad, Michael and my brother, Nigel. I would especially like to thank my partner Jennifer whose enduring patience I will never be able to repay. ii List of Abbreviations I.H.S. Irish Historical Studies J.S.H.A.R. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research N.A.I. National Archives of Ireland N.L.I. National Library of Ireland P.R.O.N.I. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland T.N.A. The National Archives, Kew iii List of illustrations Fig. 1 Portrait of a soldier of the 87th Regiment. Fig. 2 Connaught Ranger - 88th Foot at Badajoz, Peninsular War (1812) Fig. 3 The capture of the French imperial eagle by the 87th Regiment at the Battle of Barrosa Figs 4-8 Irish Regimental Uniforms, pp 146-150. iv Fig. 1 Portrait of a soldier of the 87th Regiment Source: Richard Cannon, Historical record of the Eighty-seventh Regiment, or the Royal Irish Fusiliers (London, 1853), p. 1. v Fig. 2 Connaught Ranger - 88th Foot at Badajoz, Peninsular War (1812) Source: Painting by Jack Sullivan vi Fig. 3 The capture of the French imperial eagle by the 87th Regiment at the Battle of Barrosa Available at http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/battles/c_capturedflags.html [29 Oct. 2014] vii Introduction: Green Redcoats: Irish Catholic service and identity in the British armed forces 1793-1815 In the army, in contrast to parliament, the monarchy, and the church, the Union as the union of three constituent kingdoms was most evident; the wreath of shamrock, thistle, and rose on every regimental colour, as indeed the Union flag itself [from 1801], exactly and fittingly symbolized the soldiery who marched under them.1 The excerpt above reflects the ways in which the British military establishment during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period set out to symbolise a closer British identity among the peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. More importantly, for this thesis, it signifies the milestone which occurred in 1793 when Irish Catholics were officially able to join the British armed forces and fight alongside Protestant English, Welsh and Scottish servicemen in defence of a British state;2 although it must be pointed out that Irish Catholics had been serving unofficially from at least the late 1750s. Further discussion will follow on this shortly, but it is worth noting that this period also bore testimony to a number of other transformations: ......the small professional armies of the eighteenth century quickly gave way to large national armies composed of conscripts. This same period saw artillery transformed from a specialised profession overseen by mechanics into a major service branch capable of dominating battlefields. The wars waged were wars of conquest on a grand scale and were fought by huge armies, which consisted of professional soldiers, mercenaries, and patriotic conscripts.......The rise of nationalism, the institution of universal conscription, the comprehensive economic mobilization of society, and the creation of the ‘nation in arms’ combined to constitute a revolution in military affairs.3 This evolution in warfare which had been steadily building throughout the eighteenth century reached an apogee in 1793 with mass mobilisation in France. Historically it 1 J. E. Cookson, The British armed nation 1793-1815 (New York, 1997), p.171. 2 It has been estimated that the ‘intensive recruitment took place with possibly as many as one in five of the Irish male cohort seeing service of some sort between 1793-1815’, see Thomas Bartlett, ‘Defence counter- insurgency and rebellion’ in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds), A military history of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), pp 247-93. 3 Andrew N. Liaropoulos, ‘Revolutions in warfare: Theoretical paradigms and historical evidence: The Napoleonic and First World War revolutions in military affairs’ in Journal of Military History, lxx, no. 2 (Apr., 2006), pp 363-384, available at JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/4137957 [05 May 2014]. 1 became known as the levee en masse, while the type of warfare which followed came to be recognised as 'total war'.4 Many countries had to respond to this development but none more so than Britain, which had been France’s long time adversary.5 The result of this was that Britain was forced to look more acutely at the available manpower in Ireland. While the French Revolutionary Wars began against a backdrop of a revolution in warfare, the revolution that is considered in this thesis was that ‘within a generation the British state had gone from a policy of firm exclusion of Catholic soldiers to one of reliance on them.’ 6 It was as Bartlett states ‘a revolution almost as startling as anything that France could offer.’7 Returning to earlier Irish Catholic participation in the armed forces, it should be pointed out that up until the Williamite wars (1689-91) Irish Catholics had a long history of service to the English/British crown.8 However, owing to the religious aspect of the conflict, particularly in Ireland, Catholic participation in the British forces ceased officially for over one hundred years.9 It was not until the Seven Years War as just indicated (1756-63) that Irish Catholics were considered again.10 During the 1760s, a 4 In response to the dangers of foreign war, the committee of public safety [in Paris] established a mass conscription (levée en masse) and succeeded in training an army of about 800,000 soldiers in less than a year. This was much larger than any army available to other European states, and laid the basis for Napoleon's domination of Europe. The levée en masse represents a turning point in the history of warfare. From then on, war was to become ‘total’ involving all elements of the population, and all the reserves of the state, see Internet modern history sourcebook: The levée en masse, 23 August 1793, available at Fordham University http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1793levee.asp [04 February 2014]. 5 Stephen Conway, 'The mobilisation of manpower for Britain's mid-eighteenth-century wars' in Historical Research, lxxvii, no. 197 (2007), pp 377-404. 6 Bartlett, ‘Defence counter-insurgency and rebellion’, p. 253. 7 Ibid, p. 253. 8 Elizabeth I and Charles I employed Irish soldiers, see Desmond & Jean Bowen, The heroic option: The Irish in the British army (Barnsley, 2005), pp 2-3; In 1680, in Tangiers, Irish Catholic servicemen were employed on behalf of Charles II, see Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, empire and the world 1600-1850 (London, 2002), p. 39. In 1687, James II employed Irish Catholics en masse in his army in Ireland; see A.E.C. Bredin, A history of the Irish soldier (Belfast 2007), pp 99-101. 9 The penal laws excluded Catholics from serving in the army, from education, owning a weapon, holding public office or taking part in elections. However, they were only implemented in a piecemeal fashion, see David L. Smith, A history of the British Isles, 1603-1707 (Oxford, 1998) p. 334; Irish Protestants were also denied access to the armed forces until 1745 because of a fear that Catholics might slip through, see Bowen, The heroic option, p. 13. 10 Lord Trimleston, one of the most prominent members of the Irish Catholic nobility, proposed the recruitment of Irish Catholics to the British government during the Seven Years War (1756-63) but with the end of the war in sight, the plans lost their urgency.

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