The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1899-04-29
thorized. The feeling of the British for

thorlzed. lhe feeling OF the British for
her Guards is much like that OF the
Bellman in "The Hunting of the Shark
for his own statements: "What tell
you three times is true" So with the
Guards; when they are sent on foreign
service the great British public knows
that things are serious. The Guards were
sent to the Crimea; they were sent to
the Egyptian war, and occasionally one
battalion of the Grenadier Guards, the
ostensible English regiment, is sent
abroad to be punished for mutiny. AS
rule, the Guards are stationed in and
around London; the headquarters OF
each regiment is in the Horse Guards,
Whitehall, the army headquarters of the
empire. The men get higher pay than
those OF line regiments, as do the Off
GERS, and officers and men of other regi-
n:ents serving in London get Guards
pay while there.
In the line of the British army there
are eight Irish regiments, not counting
the 1rishmen who make up a large pro-
portion of the other non-Irish regi-
ments. These avowedly Irish regi-
ments are the Connaught Rangers, the
Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Inniskilling
Fusliers, the Royal Irish Fusilers, the
Royal Irish Regiment, the Royal Irish
Rifles, the Leinster regiment (origin-
ally the Royal Canadians) and the Royal
Munster Fusiliers. The Fifth Lancers,
by the way, is the Royal Irish, and the
Sixth Dragons is the famous Inns-
killing Dragons. These regiments
have their home stations in ireland, but
have no distinctive colors to indicate
that they are from the old sod. The men
of the Royal Irish Regiment wear on
their collars an Irish harp, but no other
Irish regiment has any distinguishing
badge, and men have been court-mar-
tailed for wearing sprigs of shamrock
on their tunics on St. Patrick's day.
These regiments not so long ago had
numerical titles instead OF territorial
designations. Thus the Connaught
Rangers were the Eighty-eighth Foot,
and won their reputation as such. They
also won the name of "Devips Own"
under the old designation. The Royal
Dublins were once the One Hundred
and Second and One Hundred and
Third; the Inniskilling Fusilers we're
the Twenty-seventh and the One Hun
dred and Eighth Foot; the Royal Irish
Fus;liers got their na,se of ''llts,:;saiickars"
while they fought as the Eighty-seventh
or Eighty-ninth Foot, those regiments
being now the first and second battalions
of the present regiment. The second
battalion, while it was the Eighty
ninth Foot, got the name Of
"Blaney's Bloodlounds The Royal
Irish Regiment was the Eighteenth
Foot, the Irish Rifles was the Eighty
third and the Eighty-sixth; the Lcins-
ter Regiment is made up OF the old One
Hundredth and the One Hundred and
Ninth Foot, and the Royal Munster OF
today fought as the One Hundred and
First and One Hundred and Fourth
Foot. So it is evident that there is
plenty OF good fighting material in the
British army at present drawn from
across the Irish Channel.
If the military authorities of Great
Britain are really thinking of fourth
and Irish regiment OF Foot Guards, it
may be that there is more in the propo-
sltion than appears on the surface. Or
one thing the Irisfmen may be sure
who enlist in the regiment-they'll get
their share of fighting when there's any
worth doing; and they'll do it with
neatness and despatch. They need never
fear to rust away in idleness in Yelling
ton or Chelsea barracks.