Irish Army (Kingdom of Ireland)

The Irish Army was the standing army of the Kingdom of Ireland which existed between 1541 and 1801. It was amalgamated into the British Army following the Act of Union, although some roles continued to exist separately. Its origins were in the traditional royal garrisons of the old Lordship of Ireland. Numbers were low during peacetime, and during the sixteenth century the force would be supplemented by assembling militia in the The Pale and the raising of troops by loyal Gaelic chieftains during emergencies. It was financed by votes in the Irish Parliament, although this was sometimes supplemented by subsidies by London. The principal task of the Army was to defend Ireland from internal disorder and invasion by foreign powers.

During the Scottish Crisis of the early 1640s, a separate force known as the New Irish Army which dwarfed the "old" Irish Army in size. Mainly drawn from the Catholic Gaelic inhabitants of Ulster, it was rumoured that Charles I planned to lead the New Irish Army against his enemies in the English Parliament in the months before the outbreak of the English Civil War. When the Irish Rebellion of 1641 broke out, the Irish Army was too small in size to cope. Many soldiers of the New Irish Army had joined the rebels, who were able to seize large swathes of Ireland.

Following the accession of James II in the 1680s, the Viceroy Tyrconnell conducted a purge of Protestant officers of the Army, replacing them with Catholics who had previously been generally excluded because of the Penal Laws. Elements of the Irish Army fought on both sides during the Williamite War that followed. The Catholic regiments went into exile following their defeat and served in Continental European Armies as "Wild Geese”. They continued to wear the red coat of the Irish Army.