disbanded irish regiments.

[west coast]

after 1922 ,when the irish regiments that were disbanded, where did the troops go who still had time to serve, and also would the troops who finished their time then, be subject to serve in the reserves of what could be termed a foreign ??army??. i`m speaking about irish born troops here.

cheers , mike .

[irishmen1916]

Hi Mike, I know that a lot them joined the new Free State Army, which must have been strange for them as most of the officers in the FSA then where former IRA men, who where not what you would call trained officers. After the Civil War the FS Goverment started to retire a lot of the ex IRA men and recruit more and more ex BA officers in order to make the FSA more professional, this did not go down well with some of the ex IRA men, and was part of the reason for the Army mutiny in the late 1920's . The Goverment held firm and thanks to that the Army we have today is professional and well respected world wide.

So you could say that the Free State Army/Irish Defence Forces was built on the back of the British Army.

Peter

[west coast]

thank you peter, it must have been quite a turbulent time then.

mike.

[Patrick ODwyer]

Quite a few of the Connaughts Rangers at least went to regular British Army units (I do not know how many were Irish born but I suspect they were obliged to complete their period of enlistment)

[linden]

[

So you could say that the Free State Army/Irish Defence Forces was built on the back of the British Army.

But then the British Army was built on Irish recruits ?

[west coast]

Quite a few of the Connaughts Rangers at least went to regular British Army units (I do not know how many were Irish born but I suspect they were obliged to complete their period of enlistment)

patrick,

you say that they may have been obliged to finish their time, but what if they prefered not to, would they have been forced by the irish authoritys to go. was there any arraingement made , or did the question arise. again i`m speaking about what would be irish born ,which most of the various regiments were. i`m not sure what the status of ireland was at the time apart from being a "free state".

mike.

[kildaremark]

It must be remembered that Ireland was involved in a Civil War from 1922 to the middle of 1923. The National Army was increased to 3,600 officers and 44,575 other ranks during the civil war to fight the ant-treaty forces. I don't think they were too worried about where they got the soldiers from if they could get experienced men.

It was also in the interest of the British authorities that the new state succeeded and that the ant-treaty forces were defeated - thus the British gave the new army artillery to shell ant-treaty positions in Dublin in June 1922. The loss of a few thousand men by the British army from the disbanded regiments would surely be well compensated for by the number of demobbed unemployed soldiers around Britain if replacements were required.

Mark

[irishmen1916]

[

So you could say that the Free State Army/Irish Defence Forces was built on the back of the British Army.

But then the British Army was built on Irish recruits ?

So very true................as well as Canals, railways and roads.

[James Blonde]

So very true................as well as Canals, railways and roads.

Very true, but they got paid in Sterling

Well, I reckon with me and my twin, both of us being Nottingham born and raised,

and then spending over 21 years in the Irish Defence Forces, as regular soldiers

its come full circle.

Connaught Stranger