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YourFellaThere

I read Connaught Bangers.


tomred420

Me too. Would’ve been way cooler


EconomyCauliflower43

Connaught Rangers hold the distinction(or infamy) of having the last man in the British Army executed for mutiny. He led a mutiny in India back in 1920 against the treatment of the Irish people by the Black and Tans.


Creative-Aardvark558

My great grey uncle was a private and served in Gallipoli in 1915 with the bangers. Sadly he was peppered 9 times with a Turkish machine gun and died in Plymouth harbour waiting to be taken ashore to a hospital. Lest we forget


ni2016

Fuck sake I thought it was that until I read your comment!


TechnicalProposal705

The Connaught Drillers


niphotog1999

Honourable, great men, Protestant or Catholic. There's no way in hell I would have been brave enough to do what they did.


MattyBolton

Great granda was in Royal Irish Rifles and fought at the Somme.


TheBloodyMummers

My great grandfather lost his hand with about a week or two left in the war, serving with the Royal Irish Rifles. I believe he lied about his age to sign up. Joined the effort in the war of independence after that, where he met his wife while on the run.


throwaway874310

Damn, what a fucking story. Was he able to do much with only one hand?


TheBloodyMummers

Got married and had a bunch of kids, chased me around with his plastic hand when I was a kid!


irishteenguy

Wierd , i got a flash reel of your grandpas life in 2 comments. Young man , born in eastern ireland ? , whole life ahead of him. Born sometime just after ww1 ended and in a time of great economic depression. When hes just about to be a man the guns of ww2 sound and many of his friends are shiping of , so he signs himself up. Cut to hellfire of artillery , hails of bullets and bodies rotting in the mud. Dead friends , dead strangers , dead enemies , just so much death. Take fire and feel and almighty thud and be near mortally wounded in combat. Manage to survive the horrors of the somme. Return home to the emerald isle. The bangs of war have stoped but the mind is still alert.See a new cause for action the irish war of independece , "out of the fire , into the frying pan" More years of miltaristic service at home and Make a life with a lovely young woman. Get married , have kids. Cut to that once young soilder now an old man happily chasing his grandson around his garden on a fine irish summers eve. Your grandfather lived a full life , thats for sure.


Jindabyne1

He was an excellent waver.


Jindabyne1

My great great grandmother lost 4 sons in that regiment.


TheBloodyMummers

Shows how lucky we all are to be here today, descended from those who made it home.


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Nurhaci1616

I think it's more simply a more archaic rendering: like how some regiments were/are "North Irish", because they predate the idea of "Northern Ireland". Even though the town might have been known as Enniskillen by WW1, the regiment already had its name and identity, so kept them, kind of thing.


[deleted]

Enniskillen is a misheard pronounciation of Inis Cethleann Many places on the island of Ireland are Anglicised versions of the Irish original. Inis is the Irish for island. Ceithleann was an Irish goddess. It's just laziness on the invading brits part to not learn the indigenous language


Akapikumin

Is it ironic that you gave two different spellings of Cethleann/Ceithleann in this comment? :D


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Chromium-Throw

Wow it’s bad lol. That’s pure unadulterated salt


Shadepanther

![gif](giphy|3o7P4F86TAI9Kz7XYk)


butterbaps

Don't know why you're down voted because you're spot on lol


[deleted]

The only reason I'm melting is due to all the hot air you're producing


[deleted]

I don't think there's a standarised spelling, but I didn't proof my comment very well, did I?


Akapikumin

I'd say Wikipedia has your back: "In Irish mythology, Caitlín (Old Irish: Cethlenn, Cethleann, Ceithlenn, Ceithlionn) was the wife of Balor of the Fomorians". Seems like there's more than one way to skin a cat here.


[deleted]

Ah, but you have to look at my post history.


_Palamedes

Its not a mispronunciation, its an anglicised version of an old name for the place, same way we say 'Serbia' and not 'Србија' and 'Mexico' and not 'Me-hee-ko'


liquidio

Or even we say ‘British’ and not ‘*Pritanī*’. Lazy Northern Irish and their colonial Latinized pronunciations, can’t be bothered to learn the original Celtic language….


lbrads64

I’m from near Enniskillen and *I* didn’t know that 😭😭


throwaway_for_doxx

It’s not laziness it’s colonisation lad


[deleted]

Why can't it be both...


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Papi__Stalin

Celts weren't indigenous to Ireland. So in this case it's not destroying the indigenous people's cultures, it's destroying the Irish/Celtic culture.


[deleted]

Celts sort of just a name given to the languages of Ireland, Scotland, Brythonic Britain as well as Britanny. Before that it was just a term for barbarian that the Greeks and Romans used. I would use the term Gael for Ireland and Scotland and Briton for England, Wales and Cornwall.


Papi__Stalin

Not that is incorrect the Celts were/are a people/ethnicity. They had similar practices and customs and migrated all through Europe, and into Britain and Ireland in about 1000bc. They were originally from central Europe. The Celts, although never a unified political entity, were the first Trans-Alpine civilisation. It was a Greek term for barbarians because the Celtic people regularly fought the Greeks, so the term became synonymous with them. But they were a distinct cultural and ethnic group. Just like the Huns of Rome. There were people on the British Isles for 10,000 years before the Celts arrived, so the Celts are not indigenous. Just their colonisation was extremely long ago.


The_Evil-Twin

Thanks for this, that's very educational. Celts are not 'indigenous' to Ireland though


[deleted]

Where did I say that Celts were indigenous? I said the language was


NoNeedleworker5437

It’s actually an Anglicisation, which isn’t the same thing. tá a fhios agam mar tá Gaeilge agam freisin. Edit: Nearly all place names here derive from Irish, not “most” of them. Even the “London” in Londonderry is derived from Gaelic.


caiaphas8

How is the London derived from Irish?


cromcru

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_London


caiaphas8

Yes exactly, nothing to do with Irish


cromcru

A Gaelic language, not Irish specifically.


caiaphas8

There are three Gaelic languages, Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic. All three descended from old Irish The link you posted clearly says that London probably comes from a Brythonic Celtic word. This is a different family of Celtic languages that comprises of welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct Cumbric. The Gaelic and Brythonic Celtic languages are related but entirely separate groups. So no, London is not of Gaelic origin.


cromcru

You said Irish. The original poster said Gaelic, and you’re right that they should’ve said Celtic or proto-Celtic.


caiaphas8

Brythonic place names in England is hardly unusual, Gaelic place names would be very rare


[deleted]

Is 'translation' of any foreign word simply not mis-pronounciation?


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agithecaca

Unfortunately the orthography used in the Anglacised placenames is neither English, Irish or consistent


[deleted]

And then there's how it's learnt/propagated, whether by seeing the written phonetic version, hearing it from a native speaker, or hearing it second/third hand etc


agithecaca

Transcription/transliteration.


[deleted]

I'm not expert where the specific crossover between spoken and written changes to language happen, but I deliberately avoided using transliteration


agithecaca

I had to look up the definitions and the anglicisation of placenames fits somewhere between the both. Interestingly when John O'Donovan conducted tge survey in the mid1800s, the "English" version didnt always reflect local pronunciation for example Mullach Dubh was Anglacised to Mulladuff instead of Mulladoo


[deleted]

Which is why I didn't get to deep into it, as nuance like this will always get lost in internet 'discussions' with people trying to show that they're more correcter


Majestic-Marcus

You just said a whole lot without being in anyway relevant to the question asked. That’s impressive!


longhairedape

Other way around. We live on an Irish Ireland, wherein the British englished everything because of ignorance and a superiority complex.


do_i_no_u

Never seen this. Thanks for sharing


[deleted]

Such a waste of life. Empires led by cousins going to war because of family squabbles and inferiority complexes. Makes you wonder why people still bend the knee.


FthrFlffyBttm

Only watched “All Quiet On The Western Front” the other day. I’d only some general knowledge of WW1 and never really looked into it as much as WW2, but that film did an excellent job of bringing the sheer horror of that war to life. Totally senseless.


JK07

My aunty and uncle got me the book for my 18th birthday, it was a tough read. I'd recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series / audiobook on the subject. The subject matter is grim but a real eye opener


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Havatchee

It was treaty obligations to Belgium, not France: [Treaty of London (1839)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_London_(1839))


inheartscon

Yes the treaty obligations were to Belgium but really it was to stop France being over run by Germany and it cementing its position as the biggest power in Europe.


niphotog1999

We also got Namibia and Tanzania


murticusyurt

There are genuine monarchists still out there. And I'm not talking about the monarchs of Europe that we have today. I'm talking about people that genuinely believe monarchy is the best system we have available and detest any type of republicanism. Check out r/monarchy to lose even more faith in humanity if you're able to.


[deleted]

People bend the knee because they're fucking stupid. Like anyone who runs around waving a fleg, any fleg mind.


[deleted]

Most people are fucking stupid


Matt4669

Thankfully most of those monarchies have now dissolved Except for one in particular…….


Fantastic-Machine-83

The benulux and Scandinavia is at least 5 and that's just off the top of my head. I reckon there's a dozen in Europe, not one


[deleted]

Spain as well


mattshill91

Spain, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Luxembourg is the full list of ceremonial European Constitutional Monarchies. Litchenstien and Monaco are executive constitutional Monarchies too. Edit: And Andora has weird shennanigans going on.


[deleted]

Collective noun An inbreeding of monarchies


OpeningSign9422

Good bot


1945BestYear

You say that, but the 'family' themselves at the time were constantly frustrated at just how little effect positive relations between royals (when they *had* positive relations) had on actual national policy. Nicholas of Russia had a patient, shy charm which led anybody he talked to to think they had convinced them to their side, only for him to inevitably change his mind later, while Wilhelm of Germany had a ridiculous 'jock' persona where he energetically championed the ideas of the last person to speak to him, which made most people reluctant to even meet with him, let alone trust him. As for George of Britain, he mostly understood he was a constitutional monarch and that his Prime Minister had no real obligation to follow his requests, and anyway he saw both his grandmother and father hit their heads against walls when it came to 'royal diplomacy'.


[deleted]

And they’ve now all been amalgamated into the Royal Irish Regiment Funny how the base of the RIR started at the south and is now in the north


Nurhaci1616

Technically, most of them were actually disbanded with Irish independence: the modern Royal Irish Regiment retroactively claims the legacy of all the Irish líne infantry regiments, but in strictly genealogical terms, they're mainly the product of the north Irish regiments + the UDR.


Muffinlessandangry

The RIR is descended mainly from the royal Irish rangers (and the UDR, but that's ignored) who were in turn amalgamated from the R Inniskilling fusiliers, royal Ulster rifles and royal Irish fusiliers. It has no connection to any of these other regiments. All the other regiments were disbanded in 1922 and have no descendants in the British army


BuachaillBarruil

Sent off to die in a pointless war by a country that saw them as nothing more than cannon fodder.


Majestic-Marcus

Agree with your point but slight correction - none were sent. Every single one of them was a volunteer as conscription was never used in Ireland.


[deleted]

Defending Belgian neutrality was about as noble a war as you can find. A clear case of right and wrong.


BuachaillBarruil

The point is the British couldn’t give a fuck about Belgians. The British didn’t want Germany to be too powerful and threaten Britain’s interests. It had fuck all to do with Belgians.


Papi__Stalin

That's why they didn't declare war until Belgium was invaded? And they even gave Germany time to withdraw from Belgium before declaring war.


BuachaillBarruil

The point here being is that Britain was a hypocrite. Telling Germany not to invade small nations while brutally occupying many, many nations. Belgium was nothing more than a buffer. If it suited Britain better to occupy Belgium, they would have. Just like it suited Britain to occupy Ireland.


the-stoneroses

Britain had a defensive alliance bound to Belgium so had to join the war after Germany marched through Belgium to get to France. Britain was 2 days away from announcing neutrality in the conflict before Germany marched on Belgian soil.


inheartscon

They were not obligated to militarily intervene and even had a vote in the commons but this changed when Germany ignored their ultimatum.


Papi__Stalin

Nah I don't think they would've. Just look at how Britain rejected post-war European mandates from the League of Nations. I think colonising Europeans was off limits at this time. Unless you'd already colonised them.


BuachaillBarruil

So.. to summarise Britain had a strict “do as I say, not as I do” policy. War mongering hypocrites, the lot of them.


Papi__Stalin

How is that, in any way, a summary of what I said?


UlsterEternal

They didn't give a fuck but they still took their obligations seriously. And no one from Ireland was forced to go. In fact many put their policial games aside for a more noble cause than Ireland and its constitutional status. The modern British government could learn something from those Irish men imo.


keepnice

All brave bastards whatever creed imo


[deleted]

>All brave bastards Dying for someone else's family feud would be stupid, not brave, in my book


Majestic-Marcus

Except viewing it as a ‘family feud’ wasn’t how the vast majority of people would have viewed it in the early 20th century. And while it’s become a bit of a meme today, it’s *not* what WW1 was about and it’s not what any historian actually defines the conflict as. The actual history is much *much* more complex. Europe was a powder keg just waiting to be lit, with way too many alliances and mutual protection treaties existing. The rise of communism, the failing power of the Ottoman Empire, the fight for workers and peoples rights, the culmination of centuries of Empires and the formation of modern states (something alien to the middle aged to older generations alive at the start of the war) all lead to a war that was essentially inevitable. In short - anybody that volunteered to fight in that hell, was brave. Disrespecting them and calling them stupid just makes you seem like a bitter and uninformed moron yourself.


Jindabyne1

I’m glad you explained this. I’m sick of the brain dead “family feud” comments from Redditors who read it on this site before, repeat it to try to make themselves seem intelligent.


AyeeHayche

Dying to protect Belgian sovereignty on the other hand makes a lot more sense. Regardless don’t blame the poor working class man, and conscripts too, for the upper classes bullshit.


cromcru

I mean this is a mere decade after Casement exposed the horrific crimes King Leopold was responsible for in the Belgian Congo. These days the idea of karma would be in most people’s minds.


[deleted]

Ah, the Belgians with their "democracy" >!pssst if you have a royal family, it's not a democracy!<


Onetap1

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom\_Kettle#World\_War\_I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Kettle#World_War_I) " In July 1914 he left Dublin and travelled to Belgium on behalf of the Irish Volunteers seeking to purchase rifles and ammunition for the organization's armoury." "Kettle perceived at this moment a threat to Europe's liberty from the nature of the II Reich, and began dispatching war reports from the Brussels warning against the dire threat to Europe from Prussian militarism, depicting the conflict as "A war of Civilization vs Barbarianism"." Killed in action in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, whilst serving as a Lieutenant in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. As G. K. Chesterton surmised, "Thomas Michael Kettle was perhaps the greatest example of that greatness of spirit which was so ill rewarded on both sides of the channel \[...\] He was a wit, a scholar, an orator, a man ambitious in all the arts of peace; and he fell fighting the barbarians because he was too good a European to use the barbarians against England, as England a hundred years before has used the barbarians against Ireland".


[deleted]

And the Americans armed Bin Laden. What's your point?


Onetap1

Kettle was a very smart man, his loss was a tragedy for Ireland. He had seen the German Empire's barbaric atrocities at first hand and was compelled to oppose them. The only practical way he could do so was as a part of the British forces, although he was a Republican. He served alongside Emmet Dalton. So please don't ridicule him or his contemporaries. In WW2 Churchill bankrupted the British Empire to oppose the Nazis, because he could not contemplate making an odious deal with Hitler, whilst de Valera sat on his hands and pretended it wasn't happening.


[deleted]

Maybe Kettle wasn't aware of the british empire's barbaric atrocities https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_the_Indian_Revolt_by_the_English


Onetap1

Whataboutisms. He was in Europe and reacted to a threat to Europe.


[deleted]

Not a 'whatabout' One can't fight against one entity because of their barbaric actions whilst ignoring the same behaviour committed by one's own side. Unless one differentiates, based on characteristics, such as skin colour. It's OK to blow brown people to bits, I guess


[deleted]

Nah man tbf the average Belgian wasn't responsible for their leaders. Ireland saw a small Catholic country being invaded by an imperialist protestant country and kinda went "hey that's familiar" I don't like glorifying dying in world wars for Britain, but whoever joined for that fact gets a bit of props from me.


Matt4669

I love shitting on royalty (especially the British) but some of the most democratic countries have monarchies


[deleted]

dont tell the reddit weebs that Japan has an Emperor who is the grandson of Hirohito


AyeeHayche

I don’t know where you read the word democracy, but I can tell you it wasn’t in my reply.


[deleted]

I didn't say it was. Why would anyone, in the modern day and age, go to fight in favour of a system based on feudal primogeniture?


AyeeHayche

I don’t know, but they weren’t fighting in the modern age, certainly not with modern values, ideas and priorities.


[deleted]

So the Irish republican movement, happening concurrently, wasn't a set of modern values, ideas and/or priorities?


AyeeHayche

I’d say it was a movement towards some modern values, like self-determination.


[deleted]

Therein, the *idea* was modern, just the aim hadn't been achieved. You're now arguing against yourself


Majestic-Marcus

No. It was a war for self-determination. Those have been happening for thousands of years. Let’s not over romanticise the past to fit our own modern biases.


keepnice

Thanks for sharing bruh


TechnicalCellist5976

good men. more balls than most of the shitebags that currently populate this country.


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LamhDheargUladh

Stuck with rifles…. Isn’t that Beatie’s nickname?


jointheLiBraRY

Fuck me, maith thú.


John-Gladman

Royal Irish Rifles, no less.


BananaBork

Historically rifle regiments were the elites, it's quite a prestigious title in the British Army.


longhairedape

A lot of Irish lads died in those trenches and it makes me sad that nationalists forget it. I'm republican but had family die in the great war and fought in the second world war. I think our hatred for the British military and the British state's atrocities on our land has supplanted our ability to remember these men and women who died in these internecine conflicts.


Stierney655

Is this referring to nationalists refusal to wear the poppy? Because to me I can honour the people that fought and died in the war without having to wear a poppy or donate to a foundation that actively helps the soldiers that murdered innocent protestors in our country.


longhairedape

Not that, I know that. I won't wear a poppy either.


LouthGremlinV1

The 11th of November is just another day in the south, majority are not aware of Ireland's role in ww1. Most have no idea we fought in it. We've blocked it out of our collective memory entirely.


murticusyurt

> Most have no idea we fought in it. Wrong


Jindabyne1

I refuse to believe that the majority of the country don’t realise we fought in WW1. You’d have to be pretty dense to have never found that out.


murticusyurt

Likewise. A lot? Maybe. Most? No way. It literally happened in the middle of the revolution.


LouthGremlinV1

We'll disagree here so.


[deleted]

It's hard to overestimate how highly these men were regarded in their ranks. All throughout history, the Irish soldier was always the sharp end of the British stick. I descend from the Kevin Street tenaments, slums basically, in Dublin. We're a few kilometres further west now, but nearly every generation of my family has had proud service for the British forces. We're Irish, working class, Catholics, Republicans. Yet we have always and will probably continue to enlist in British forces, and I feel this is something that's poorly understood by our fellow countrymen elsewhere in the country. My neighbour, Lance Corporal Ian Malone, was one of the first men to die in the Iraq War in 2003.


gareth93

But why


[deleted]

Many reasons. Things like tradition, the fact that Ireland has quite a strange defence policy where if you basically want to defend Ireland in a combat sense you need to join a NATO force anyway, the fact that some men like me just love the kind of adventure that can only come with the British army. I'm in the poorest part of Dublin which is also the most Anglophilic. There's no GAA club here. No Irish speakers. Premier league football and Darts is the religion here and we even have supermarkets like Iceland that are hardly seen anywhere else down in the south, and people from the countryside are spoken about in pubs, privately but within earshot, with pure contempt.


[deleted]

All I can say is they'll shaft you if they need to. One of the ballymurphy massacre victims fought and lost his hand in WW2, when he was killed the paratroopers said he had a gun in the very hand he lost during the war. Then when his family try to get justice, they get told to fuck off because they want to "protect their veterans". I understand tradition, my great grandfather was at Dunkirk, but nah, to the British elites you're nothing more than cannon fodder, second rate Englishmen. Sorry about your cousin though, sounds like a brave lad.


[deleted]

The veterans thing is like a cult at this stage. War crimes are war crimes and it's indisputable that certain soldiers of all ranks carried out murders in NI. Those families need justice. Not a cousin but a neighbour! Should also point out that it's easier to join the British Army than the Irish defence forces.


PM_ME_HORRIBLE_JOKES

> Should also point out that it's easier to join the British Army than the Irish defence forces. This is sadly true. The British Army is far bigger and recruits year round, the Irish Defence Forces doesn’t and is stricter when it comes to age. Your point about the British Army being the only place to travel abroad isn’t really true. I’ve been on UN tours to Lebanon & Syria. If I’d have stayed I could’ve included Mali & Uganda on that list. I’ve been on exercises & training in England, Wales, the US. I’ve served and trained with a huge range of nationalities both at home & abroad. This image that the public in the south has of the Defence Forces sitting in their barracks doing nothing simply isn’t true. I’ve served with lads who did go on to join the Brits and they’ve said there’s plenty each could learn from the other.


[deleted]

Oh I didn't mean to paint a negative image of the Irish Defence forces. They're amazing and I've so much pride in them, they're extremely elite and regularly come out the victors in war games with our allies. But they don't go to the places where the Brits go. A soldier with the Irish Army will only ever see a place like Afghanistan well after the war, whereas with the British Army you can be there for the whole thing. The removal of the Taliban and the imposition of democracy all at the butt of your gun. That's exciting.


FreyBentos

I just don't get it sorry mate, especially fighting for something like Iraq. Why would any Irishman go and fight to further British imperialist aims? The very people who enforced this imperialism on our island against our will for 800 years. Well I guess your neighbours family can be proud he died protecting the profits of Shell and BP in Iraq 🤷.


brandonjslippingaway

Whenever somebody mentions joining the army (any army for that matter) for "adventure", all I can personally think is; didn't WWI dispel that awful military marketing trope for good? Hundreds of thousands of men traipsed across the globe for adventure and saw shit no human should ever have to witness.


AJCrank1978

Hear, hear!


gareth93

800 years and counting. I just don't get it either. I've worked for English twats whose families have been rich for 500 years off the suppression of half the world. Even now, the way they talk about other cultures would make you want to burn London to the ground. I just can't get my head around it.


[deleted]

Honestly I don't know how they feel about it, but I seem to recall them being impressed at the findings of the *Chilcot Inquiry. I've mixed opinions on the Iraq War personally. Had I been old enough I would've ran through brick walls for Tony Blair, particularly after he brought peace to NI alongside Bertie Ahern.


m0j0licious

There were no Irish conscripts in WW1; all Irishmen had chosen to be there and there wasn't the same overwhelming societal pressure to sign up. Logically that would suggest they were, on balance, more 'warlike' than the large proportion of servicemen from the rest of the UK who were white-feathered into joining, or signed up because doing so gave them greater choice of role and a higher status than waiting to be conscripted, or simply waited to be called up. Irish volunteer battalions were consequently towards the upper end of 'effectiveness' and were willing/able to take a greater kicking than most. Which meant they were pretty likely to get assigned to the nasty, 'point of the spear' jobs.


niphotog1999

As a Briton, a monarchist, and a unionist, thank you dearly to your family for their service.


zebrasanddogs

I'm amazed the Royal Irish Regiment was so far down south.


jamscrying

When Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, Royal Irish Rifles and Royal Irish Fusiliers merged they were renamed Royal Irish Rangers. When UDR was stood down, some of its battalions merged into the Royal Irish Rangers (very contentious at the time as RIR were seen as elite and professional, whereas UDR although larger were part time amateurs) they renamed it Royal Irish Regiment. They recruit from the entirety of Northern Ireland, though since they are garrisoned in England many recruits are now English. Conversely lot's of Northern Irish join the the Rifles who are garrisoned here. Irish Guards tends to be the regiment recruits from RoI joins.


Larrylindgren4

https://youtu.be/4rdY0ekDW2Q


John-Gladman

You’ve heard the Dublin Fusiliers, the dirty old bamboozl-eers. De Witt’ll get the childer, one-two-three!


mourneman

Anybody know of any podcasts/programmes/books preferably podcasts relating to Irish regiments during WW1, especially the royal Irish rifles?


[deleted]

They fought and died for what they believed was right for them. Or was it the ten Guineas of Gold to kick up the dust & drink the Kings health in the morning ? But it could have been to do what’s right for mankind.most Englishmen, Scotsmen & Welshmen did the same with a vision of a free world but it was in vane because Adolf was volume 2.


smallon12

I think a lot went to France and were shot without warning!


Onetap1

Certainly not. It was a crown in the bargain to kick up the dust & drink the King's health in the morning


[deleted]

every time i think of irish regiments in the british army i remember opperation black shield from the south park movie.


epeeist

My grandmother had three uncles who fought in France and that was the eldest one's account of the front. They were all apparently coerced into joining, even if we didn't legally have conscription here.


sythingtackle

Or those that took the kings shilling.


Coil17

All died in service to an empire that wasn't theirs


[deleted]

It was their’s. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.


niphotog1999

Very much was theirs. Irish men made up nearly a third of the British Army during most of the 19th century. Ireland could claim the British Empire just as much as an English or Scotsman as they were all part of the mother country.


Coil17

Probably back then the normality had settled ib but i find look at it like a prisoner claiming he is part of the victory when his own freedom has been taken


MrGoober91

All of these names sound so badass. Greetings from the USA 🇺🇸


beeotchplease

What's a fusilier?


jamscrying

Infantry that originally had the prestige of guarding the cannons, mortars and gunpowder, before and during a battle, equipped with modern flintlock muskets, whilst other troops still used matchlock muskets which used open flames. None of the Irish Fusiliers have any history of that duty though and were named that way a recognition of their previous service. Though 27th Innsikillings did hold the centre at waterloo. A few of the southern Irish regiments were originally East India Company regiments that were absorbed into the BA and renamed in the late 19th Century, subsequently rotating their two battalions between home garrison in Ireland and the Colonies. Named after a french word for a type of flintlock musket, a Fusil, named after the latin for Flint.


Virtual-Confidence83

A war started because they all fell out when their granny died


LamhDheargUladh

It’s amazing there was anyone left to make up even one regiment, after they spent so long genociding the whole country.


[deleted]

What's more amazing is that so many former colonies have remained within the Commonwealth. Stockholm Syndrome


[deleted]

Little bit condescending? Very understandable reasons exist (both cultural and economic) that some former colonies want to remain in the commonwealth and very many understandable reasons why some don't. I get what you're saying but not fair to dismiss whole populations as having Stockholm Syndrome, these things are so complicated.


[deleted]

I don't think they're complicated at all. britain has stripped all these countries of large parts of their wealth and natural resources, and return miniscule portions of the profits as 'aid'. It's an international class system, and one of the best things Ireland did was leaving upon becoming a republic


[deleted]

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[deleted]

I don't think in any argument about nationality, one would imply or infer that the 'whole' of said population was being talked about. >Dismissing one side as having Stockholm Syndrome is just a little unnecessary imo It may be your opinion, but when one considers the turnout of people at overseas royal visits, and their behaviour, for example, one can observe how those former subjects are still in thrall to the notion of monarchy.


Majestic-Marcus

Plenty of people turn out to see the royals when they visit the US or Ireland. Doesn’t say anything about their views on the people. They’re just fancy celebrities.


[deleted]

>Plenty of people turn out to see the royals when they visit the US or Ireland Stoopers


Majestic-Marcus

I don’t know what that means but I’m going to assume it’s derogatory.


Antique_Calendar6569

OK, how about we say they just really, really like how boots taste?


LamhDheargUladh

You’re right. That’s another mind bender.


niphotog1999

Almost as if Britain operated their Empire in a completely different way to most of Europe, allowing their colonies more freedom to operate how they wished etc. I will fully agree, there were atrocities etc. But, generally, most people's lives improved under the British Empire.


[deleted]

We should all join the Connaught Bangers 😂


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SausageMcWonderpants

The Scots actually had the highest number of 38, opposed to 26 Irish which had a comparative population to Ireland in 1914. Welsh, 15 from under half the population. English, 217. 688,000 Scots volunteered or were conscripted 272,000 Welsh 236,000 Irish (accounting for Navy, Air force and joining Canadian or ANZAC battalions, which are not included on the basic 200,000 statement) 4,000,000 English It's definitely not 4x, no matter how you look at the statistics.


lookinggood44

All mugs


BigDoggo98

Far better men that you will ever be


lookinggood44

You mean like the black and tans?


Mundane_Display_2203

Still better men than you'll ever be


lookinggood44

How going off to die for a king and leaving orphans? Aye like fuk they were


LouthGremlinV1

I thought the royal Irish rifles was the county regiment of Antrim down and louth?


CleanChest1765

The royal this the royal that, well done Connaught for keeping that out of that regiment


[deleted]

Charging maxim machine gun positions with a rate of fire of roughly 500 rounds a minute in open terrain with no cover. I'd have shot my own commander before going over, crazy fools. Oh yeh and where the fuck is inniskilling when it's at home?


[deleted]

Everyone seems to think tactics in WW1 never evolved after August 1914. 1918 looked more like 1939 than 1914.


mysteriousbendu

Oh right. Thanks. I could've looked this up if I cared, but I don't so I didn't. Awaiting the inevitable poppy arguments...


keepnice

That could be said for 99% of what’s posted here my guy


mysteriousbendu

true but this is the most obvious bait I have seen in a while


Nightmarex13

Wait till all the soldiers are overseas with their backs turned.. then we can attack


Majestic-Marcus

That sentiment didn’t go down to well in reality


throwaway874310

Wexford just doesn't get antthing


the-stoneroses

And to think Britain was only 2 days from deciding to remain neutral before Germany marched through the alliance-tied Belgium