The Noble Society of Celts, is an hereditary society of persons with Celtic roots and int e re st s, w ho a re o f no b le t it le a nd g e nt le b irt h, a nd w ho have come together in a search for, and celebration of, things Celtic. Spring 2012 Edition - Part One THE AGE OF SWASHBUCKLING IRISHMEN Days of Adventure & Glory with the Legions of Irish ‘Wild Geese’ in Europe The MacAuliffe Regiment – later known as the Ultonia (Ulster) Regiment - and its early forms have a history in the Spanish Army stretching back to 1597. The regiment was originally known in Spain as El Terico Irlanda (‘The Regiment of Ireland’). The MacAuliffe Regiment (Regiment Ultonia) became part of the famous Irish Brigade of the Spanish Army, which also included the Hibernia Regiment, the Irlanda Regiment, the Limerick Regiment, the Wauchop Regiment, the Waterford Regiment, and the Dublin Dragoons. As well as producing Spanish victories in campaigns in Europe, the Irish Brigade of Spain spearheaded the Spanish Empire’s expansion in the ‘New World’ … bringing Cuba, Louisiana, Texas, California, and Mexico under the flag of their adopted country. Tercio Irlanda – Army of Spanish Flanders 1605 Irish Post Office Commemorative Stamp It was during the Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland in the late 1500s that the first Irishmen went to serve Spain in El Terico Irlanda which, in 1605, changed its name to the Tyrone Regiment and was commanded by Prince Henry O’Neill (also known as Earl of Tyrone), who was the son of the famous ‘Red Hugh’ O’Neill. In 1628 the regiment appears to have split up into independent companies. In 1698, Captain John Jordan was commanding a Tyrone company of the Spanish forces in Florida. Irish ‘Wild Geese’ with the Spanish forces in Florida After the assault on Ireland in 1649 by the rabidly anti-Catholic forces of England’s republican ‘Commonwealth’ – an invasion which became infamous in history as a campaign of ethnic-cleansing and genocide perpetrated by Oliver Cromwell* and England’s ‘New Model Army’, resulting in 600,000 civilian deaths out of a total Irish population at that time of only 1,400,000 men, women, and children – many Irishmen of fighting-age who survived England’s genocide then left for the mainland of Europe, to serve as mercenaries in the armies of France, Spain, Austria, and Russia. * Cromwell's hostility to the Irish was religious as well as political. He was passionately opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, which he saw as denying the primacy of the Bible in favour of papal and clerical authority, and which he blamed for suspected tyranny and persecution of Protestants in Europe. Cromwell's association of Catholicism with persecution was deepened with the Irish Rebellion of 1641. This rebellion, although intended to be bloodless, was marked by several massacres of Protestant English and Lowland-Scottish settlers by the Gaelic-Irish and ‘Old English’ (descendants of Catholic settlers who came to Ireland much earlier from Wales, Normandy, and England after the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169–71), and by the Highland-Scot Catholics in the north of Ireland. The Protestant English and Presbyterian Lowland-Scottish colonists had settled on land confiscated by the English government from former owners, native Irish-Catholic and Highland-Scot Catholics of Country Antrim, to make way for the non-native Protestants. These factors contributed to the brutality of Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland. Oliver Cromwell’s English ‘New Model Army’, 1649 Many thousands more Irish fighting men were added to the European armies after the Treaty of Limerick** in 1691. And, because France and Spain were at war with England, both countries eagerly recruited these tough, battle-hardened, Irish warriors ... and, of course, the Irish relished any and every opportunity to once again confront their old foe, the English. How fierce the smiles these exiles wear, who're wont to look so gay; The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts today. The treaty broken ere the ink wherewith 'twas writ could dry, Their plundered homes, their ruined shrines, their women's parting cry, Their priesthood hunted down like wolves, their country overthrown! Each looks as if revenge for all were staked on him alone. William of Orange rallies his ‘multi-national’ Protestant army in Ireland, 1690 The ‘Williamite War’ in Ireland — also called the ‘Jacobite War in Ireland’ — and in Irish-Gaelic it was known as Cogadh an Dá Rí (meaning ‘War of the Two Kings’) — was a conflict between Catholic King James II of England (also known as James VII of Scotland) and his son-in-law (who was also his nephew!), the Protestant Dutchman, William of Orange … and the conflict was about who would be King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The cause of the war was the deposition of James II as King of the Three Kingdoms in 1688, by William (who was married to James’ daughter Mary II) . James was supported by the mostly-Catholic ‘Jacobites’*** in Ireland and he hoped to use that country as a base to regain his Three Kingdoms. He was given military support by France to this end. For this reason, the war became part of a wider European conflict known as the ‘Nine Years War’. James was opposed in Ireland by the mostly Protestant ‘Williamites’, concentrated in the north of the country. William of Orange landed a multi-national Protestant force in Ireland, composed of English, Lowland- Scottish, Dutch, Danish and other troops, to put down Jacobite resistance. *** ‘Jacobite’: being a supporter of King James II of England and VII of Scotland; the word ‘Jacobite’ comes from Jacobus, the Latin for James. James left Ireland after a reverse at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690; while the Irish remained faithful to James and fought on, even after he abandoned them … and the Irish Jacobites were finally defeated at the second seige of Limerick, which followed on from the disastrous Battle of Aughrim in 1691. Kinsale Harbor 1690: James II flees Ireland for a luxurious Exile in France The Treaty of Limerick**, which was signed on 3 October 1691, offered generous peace terms to those Jacobites willing to stay in Ireland and give an oath of loyalty to William III. A peace treaty was concluded on these terms, giving toleration to Catholicism and full legal rights to Catholics who swore an oath of loyalty to William and Mary. However in 1697, the Protestant-dominated Irish Parliament refused to ratify the articles of the Treaty … and from 1695 onwards, the Irish Parliament updated the ‘penal laws’, which discriminated harshly against Catholics. Catholics saw this as a severe breach of faith. A popular contemporary Irish saying was, cuimhnigí Luimneach agus feall na Sassanaigh (“remember Limerick and Saxon treachery”). Part of the Treaty agreed to Sarsfield’s demand that the Jacobite army could leave Ireland as a body and go to France. Ships were even provided for this purpose. Initially, they formed the army-in-exile of the deposed King James II, though this Irish army was operating as part of the French army. After James’ death, the remnants of this force merged into the elite Irish Brigade of France, which had been originally set up in 1690 from 6,000 Irish recruits sent to France by the Irish Jacobites, in return for French military aid in Ireland. ** The Treaty of Limerick ended the Williamite war in Ireland between the Jacobites and the supporters of William of Orange. The treaty concluded the second Siege of Limerick, and its articles dealt with the treatment of the disbanded Jacobite army. Under the treaty, Jacobite soldiers in organised regiments had the option to leave as regimental groups with their weapons and flags for France to continue serving under the exiled King James II in the Irish army-in-exile, which was funded by the King of France. Some 14,000 Jacobites chose this option and were marched south to Cork city where they embarked on ships for France, with around 10,000 women and children accompanying them. (Large numbers of individual soldiers wanting to join the French, Spanish, or Austrian armies also emigrated covertly during the following hundred years or so, in what became known as the ‘Flight of the Wild Geese’.) Under the terms of the treaty, the Jacobite soldiers also had the option of joining the Williamite army. And 1,000 soldiers chose this option. The Jacobite soldiers had a third option; they could return home – and some 2,000 soldiers did so. This treaty had twenty-nine articles, which were agreed upon between the Dutch Lieutenant- General Ginkle, Commander-in-Chief of the English and multi-national Protestant army, and the Lieutenant-Generals D'Usson and Philibert-Emmanuel de Froulay, the chevalier de Tessé, who were Commanders-in-Chief of the Irish army. The articles were then signed by D'Usson, Le Chevalier de Tesse, Latour Montfort, Patrick Sarsfield (the Irish Earl of Lucan), Colonel Nicholas Purcell of Loughmoe, Mark Talbot, and Piers, Viscount Glamoy. However, the Treaty articles were not honoured by the victorious Williamite government for long, as the Papacy again recognized James II as the lawful king of Ireland from 1693. The few Catholic landowners who took the oath in 1691-93 remained protected, including their descendants. Those who did not were known as "non-jurors", and their loyalty to the new regime was automatically suspect. Some managed to have an outlawry specifically reversed, such as the 8th Viscount Dillon in 1694. Starting in 1695, a series of harsh penal laws were enacted by the Protestant Irish parliament to make it difficult for the Irish Catholic gentry who had not taken the oath by 1695 to remain Catholic.