Flight of the Wild Geese

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The Flight of the Wild Geese refers to the departure of an Irish army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France, as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on October 3, 1691, following the Williamite war in Ireland with the Jacobites. More broadly, the term "Wild Geese" is used in Irish history to refer to the Irish soldiers who left to serve in continental European armies in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

1 Spanish service
2 French service
3 Austrian service
4 The End of the Wild Geese
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

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Spanish service

The first Irish troops to serve as a unit for a continental power formed an Irish regiment in the Spanish army of Flanders in the Eighty Years' War in the 1580s. The regiment had been raised by an English Catholic, William Stanley in Ireland, from native Irish soldiers and mercenaries, whom the English authorities wanted out of the country (See also Tudor re-conquest of Ireland). Stanley was given a commission by Elizabeth I and was intended to lead his regiment on the English side, in support of the Dutch United Provinces. However, in 1585, motivated by religious factors and bribes offered by the Spaniards, Stanley defected to the Spanish side with the regiment. The unit fought in the Netherlands until 1600 when it was disbanded due to heavy wastage through combat and sickness.

In 1607 the "Flight of the Earls" occurred, when the defeated rebels of the Nine Years War (Ireland), Earl of Tyrone Hugh O'Neill and Earl of Tyrconnell Rory O'Donnell, along with many chiefs and their followers from Ulster fled Ireland. They hoped to get Spanish help in order to restart their rebellion in Ireland, but King Philip III of Spain did not want a resumption of war with England and refused their request.

Nevertheless, their arrival led to the formation of a new Irish regiment in Flanders, officered by Gaelic Irish nobles and recruited from their followers and dependents in Ireland. This regiment was more overtly political than its predecessor in Spanish service and was militantly hostile to the English Protestant government in Ireland. The regiment was led by Hugh O'Neill's son John. Prominent officers included Owen Roe O'Neill and Hugh Dubh O'Neill. In 1609, Arthur Chichester, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, deported 1300 former rebel Irish soldiers from Ulster to serve in the Swedish Army. However, under the influence of Catholic clergy, many of them deserted to the Spanish service. A fresh source of recruits came in the early seventeenth century, when Roman Catholics were banned from military and political office in Ireland. As a result, the Irish units in the Spanish service began attracting catholic Old English officers like Thomas Preston and Garret Barry. These men had more pro English views than their Gaelic counterparts and considerable animosity was created over plans to use the Irish regiment to invade Ireland in 1627. The regiment was garrisoned in Brussels during the truce in the Eighty Years' War from 1609-1621 and developed close link with Irish Catholic clergy based in the seminary there - notably Florence Conry.

Many of the Irish troops in Spanish service returned to Ireland after the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and fought in the armies of Confederate Ireland - a movement of Irish Catholics. When the Confederates were defeated and Ireland occupied after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, around 34,000 Irish Confederate troops fled the country to seek service in Spain. Some of them later deserted or defected to French service, where the conditions were deemed better. There continued to be Irish units in the Spanish army until the late 18th century, but in later years only the officers were Irish, the men were predominantly Spanish.

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French service

From the mid 17th century or so, France overtook Spain as the destination for Catholic Irishmen seeking a military career. the principal reason for this was that France was an ascendant power, rapidly expanding its armed forces, whereas Spain was a power in decline. However, the crucial turning point came during the Williamite war in Ireland (1698-91), when Louis XIV gave military and financial aid to the Irish Jacobites. In return for 6000 French troops, Louis demanded 6000 Irish recruits for use in the Nine Years War against the Dutch. These men, led by Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel formed the nucleus of the French Irish Brigade. Later, when the Irish Jacobites under Patrick Sarsfield surrendered at the Treaty of Limerick, they were allowed to leave Ireland for service in the French Army. Sarsfield's "exodus" included 14,000 soldiers and 10,000 women and children. This is popularly known in Ireland as the "Flight of the Wild Geese". Initially, these units were not integrated into the French armed, but were assigned to the court in exile of James II, deposed in the Glorious Revolution, whom Louis deemed the legitimate King of England, Ireland and Scotland. They were later incorporated into the Irish Brigade of the French Army.

Like the earlier Irish units in Spanish service, the French Irish regiments were quite politicised, being composed of dispossessed Irish catholics, who were committed to a Stuart restoration in Britain and Ireland. Famously, the Irish Brigade distinguished themselves in the Battle of Fontenoy against British troops in 1745. Up until 1745, Catholic Irish gentry were allowed to recruit soldiers for France in Ireland. The authorities in Ireland saw this as preferable to having large numbers of unemployed Catholic young men of military age in the country. However, after Irish units were used to support the Jacobite Rising of 1745 in Scotland, the British realised the dangers of this policy and banned recruitment for foreign armies in Ireland. After this point, the rank and file of the Irish units in French service were increasingly non-Irish although the officers continued to be recruited from Ireland. The Irish Brigade was disbanded after the French Revolution, although Napoleon Bonaparte raised a small Irish unit composed of veterans of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

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Austrian service

Throughout this period, there were also substantial numbers of Irish officers and men in the armies of the Austrian Habsburg Empire, many of whom were based in Prague. The most famous of these was Peter Lacy, Russian Field Marshal, whose son Franz Moritz von Lacy excelled in the Austrian service. In 1634, during the Thirty Years' War, Irish officers led by Walter Deveraux assassinated general Albrecht von Wallenstein on the orders of the Emperor. Recruitment for Austrian service was especially associated with the midlands of Ireland and with the Taafe, Nugent and O'Rourke gentry families.

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The End of the Wild Geese

Irish recruitment for continental armies dried up after it was made illegal in 1745. However, it was some time before the British armed forces began to tap into Irish Catholic manpower. In the late eighteenth century, the Penal Laws were gradually relaxed and in the 1790s, the laws prohibiting Catholics bearing arms were abolished. Thereafter, the British began recruiting Irish regiments for the Crown Forces -notably the Connaught Rangers. It has been estimated that up to a third of Wellington's army in the Peninsular War was Irish. Several more Irish regiments were created in the 19th century, notably the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Munster Fusiliers. Irish service in the British Army continued up to Irish independence in 1922. Britain still retains two Irish regiments, the Irish Guards and the Royal Irish Regiment.

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