Tag Archives: Irish Guards Rudyard Kipling

The hidden Irish battle flags

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Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the six British infantry regiments that recruited there were disbanded, and on 12 June– 100 years ago today– their Colours were laid up at St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle, to be kept forever in the care of the King and his descendants.

These included the colors of the:

-The Royal Irish Regiment.
-The Connaught Rangers.
-The Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment.
-The Royal Munster Fusiliers.
-The Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
-The South Irish Horse.

These regiments had been bled white during the Great War just a few years prior. “Estimates of how many Irish men fought in the First World War vary, but it is now generally accepted that around 200,000 soldiers from the island of Ireland served over the course of the war,” notes the IWM. This was up from the 30,000 in service with The Old Contemptibles in 1914. “Historians today tend to use a figure of between 27,000 and 35,000 men killed” when it comes to the numbers of Irishmen left on Great War battlefields.

The “Blue Caps/Old Toughs” of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, for instance, dated back to the old 102nd and 103rd Foot of 1644 and had over four dozen battle honors on their flag starting with the Battle of Plassey, making them one of the most decorated units in the British Army.

Royal Dublin Fusiliers June 12th 1922

According to The Times the King inspected the representatives of the regiments and then addressed them as such:

We are here today in circumstances which cannot fail to strike a note of sadness in our hearts. No regiment parts with their Colours without feelings of sorrow. A knight in days gone by bore on his shield his coat-of-arms, tokens of valour and worth. Only to death did he surrender them. Your Colours are the records of valorous deeds in war and of the glorious traditions thereby created. You are called upon to part with them today for reasons beyond your control and resistance. By you and your predecessors these Colours have been reverenced and guarded as a sacred trust – which trust you now confide in me.

As your King I am proud to accept this trust. But I fully realise with what grief you relinquish these dearly-prized emblems; and I pledge my word that within these ancient and historic walls your Colours will be treasured, honoured, and protected as hallowed memorials of the glorious deeds of brave and loyal regiments.

The Queen’s and Regimental Colours of each Battalion were paraded through Windsor and handed to the King for safekeeping after a service at Windsor Castle.

Marching the flags to exile…

Today, the British Army still has the famous “Micks” of the Irish Guards based in London and the Belfast-based Royal Irish Regiment, formed from Northern Ireland, but the old “Southern Irish” flags have largely been kept away for the past 100 years.

Quis Separabit

The Irish Guards received a number of pieces of silver from each regiment upon disbandment, which are kept in the Officers and Sergeants Messes.

A Gentlemanly Guards Sniper

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Terry Wieland over at American Rifleman has a great article on a “Gentleman’s Trench Rifle,” specifically, a Royal Grade H&H single-shot, complete with scope, that went to war against The Huns with an officer of the Irish Guards.

This .303 British Royal Grade Holland & Holland single-shot, serial No. 26069, was used by the Irish Guards as a sniping rifle during World War I. It is shown here with period trench maps, a German stick grenade, British binoculars and some German 8 mm Mauser cartridges. Photo by Jonathan Green

The story of how H&H rifle No. 26069 journeyed from the Bruton Street showroom to the Guards Museum is really one of convergence of the great names in pre-war England, in the military, in literature and in gunmaking. It involves Harold Alexander, Britain’s greatest soldier of the 20th century, and Field Marshall Lord Roberts, one of its greatest of the 19th; it involves Rudyard Kipling, Poet Laureate of the Empire and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature; and of course Holland & Holland, England’s greatest riflemaker.

The story begins with Lord Roberts in South Africa, fighting the Afrikaners in Britain’s first, and one of its bloodiest, military campaigns of the 20th century. There, Roberts renewed his acquaintance with Rudyard Kipling, an old friend from India.

More here. 

Happy 120th to “The Micks”

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Smart Irishmen Wanted for HM Irish Regiment of Foot Guards Coloured chromolithograph recruiting poster after Black. Published by HM’s Stationery Office, 1927.

The Irish Guards regiment of the Britsh Army was formed on 1 April 1900 by order of Queen Victoria, to honor the Irish war dead in the war with the Boers. To this day, “The Micks” remain the “young” regiment of the Guards and their 1st Battalion is based in London at the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow.

Today, they are 120 years old.

One of their fallen Great War officers, 18-year-old John Kipling, late of Wellington College, led his fresh platoon of the Irish Guard’s 2nd battalion “over the top” at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and was never seen alive again. The truth was, young Mr. Kipling should probably have never been there, having previously failed his admission to the Royal Navy due to poor eyesight. However, his father, Rudyard Kipling, pulled some strings and arranged to find a place in the Guards for his only and most beloved son.

John’s loss would reportedly crush the renowned author and poet.

With that,

The Irish Guards – by Rudyard Kipling (1918)

We’re not so old in the Army List,
But we’re not so young at our trade,
For we had the honor at Fontenoy
Of meeting the Guards’ Brigade.
‘Twas Lally, Dillon, Bulkeley, Clare,
And Lee that led us then,
And after a hundred and seventy years
We’re fighting for France again!
Old Days! The wild geese are flighting,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish there’s bound to be fighting,
And when there’s no fighting, it’s Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

The fashion’s all for khaki now,
But once through France, we went
Full-dressed in scarlet Army cloth,
The English-left at Ghent.
They’re fighting on our side to-day
But, before they changed their clothes,
The half of Europe knew our fame,
As all of Ireland knows!
Old Days! The wild geese are flying,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish there’s memory undying,
And when we forget, it is Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

From Barry Wood to Gouzeaucourt,
From Boyne to Pilkem Ridge,
The ancient days come back no more
Than water under the bridge.
But the bridge it stands and the water runs
As red as yesterday,
And the Irish move to the sound of the guns
Like salmon to the sea.
Old Days! The wild geese are ranging,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish their hearts are unchanging,
And when they are changed, it is Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!

We’re not so old in the Army List,
But we’re not so new in the ring,
For we carried our packs with Marshal Saxe
When Louis was our King.
But Douglas Haig’s our Marshal now
And we’re King George’s men,
And after one hundred and seventy years
We’re fighting for France again!
Ah, France! And did we stand by you,
When life was made splendid with gifts and rewards?
Ah, France! And will we deny you
In the hour of your agony, Mother of Swords?
Old Days! The wild geese are flying,
Head to the storm as they faced it before!
For where there are Irish there’s loving and fighting
And when we stop either, it’s Ireland no more!
Ireland no more!