Tag Archives: Royal Irish Rifles

To be kept forever in the care…

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The Irish Regiments of the British Army in all their scarlet finery, 1897.

Chromolithograph by Emrik and Binger after Richard Simkin, 1897. Published as a supplement to ‘The Boys Own Paper’, 25 December 1897. National Army Museum NAM. 1973-11-137-1

The above, as detailed by the NAM:

Shows twenty mounted and dismounted figures representing twelve units: trumpeter and officer, 4th Irish Dragoon Guards; trooper, 5th Royal Irish Lancers; trooper, 6th Inniskilling Dragoons; corporal and officer, 8th King’s Own Royal Irish Hussars; officer, Royal Irish Regiment; officer, Royal Irish Fusiliers; officer and corporal, Royal Irish Rifles; private, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers; corporal and sergeant major, Royal Munster Fusiliers; drummer, Royal Dublin Fusiliers; officer, Connaught Rangers; bandsman, Leinster Regiment.

The Old Contemptibles in 1914, the regulars of the BEF, included upwards of 30,000 Irishmen, and it is now generally accepted that around 200,000 soldiers recruited from the island of Ireland served over the course of the Great War.

Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the six British infantry regiments that recruited there were disbanded, and on 12 June, 103 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.

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.

Still coming home

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The Commonwealth War Graves Commission earlier this month held a ceremony at Messines Ridge British Cemetery for two unknown soldiers whose remains were recently recovered near the town of Wijtschate, south of Ieper, in the Belgian province of West Flanders.

Despite the best attempts by the Commission, the two lads were only identified as a member of the Royal Irish Rifles (Now part of the Royal Irish Regiment) and an unknown soldier of an unknown regiment, both of which will bear a headstone marked “Soldier of the Great War, Known unto God.”