Flight of the Wild Geese The Flight of the Wild Geese refers to the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France , as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on 3 October 1691 , following the end of the Williamite War in Ireland . More broadly , the term " Wild Geese " is used in Irish history to refer to Irish soldiers who left to serve as mercenaries in continental European armies in the 16th , 17th and 18th centuries . 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 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 . In 1598 Diego Brochero de Anaya wrote the Spanish King Philip III : " that every year Your Highness should order to recruit in Ireland some Irish soldiers , who are people tough and strong , and nor the cold weather or bad food could kill them easily as they would with the Spanish , as in their island , which is much colder than this one , they are almost naked , they sleep on the floor and eat oats bread , meat and water , without drinking any wine . " The unit fought in the Netherlands until 1600 when it was disbanded due to heavy wastage through combat and sickness . Following the defeat of the Gaelic armies of the Nine Years ' War , the " Flight of the Earls " took place in 1607 . The Earl of Tyrone Hugh O ' Neill , the Earl of Tyrconnell Rory O ' Donnell and the Lord of Beare and Bantry , Donal O ' Sullivan , along with many chiefs , Gallowglass , 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 English Protestant rule of Ireland . The regiment was led by Hugh O ' Neill ' s son John . Prominent officers included Owen Roe O ' Neill and Hugh Dubh O ' Neill . A fresh source of recruits came in the early 17th 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 such as 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 to 1621 and developed close links with Irish Catholic clergy based in the seminary there , creating the famous Irish College s most notably , Florence Conroy . 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 . During the 18th century , Spain ' s Irish regiments saw service not only in Europe but also in the Americas . As examples , the Irlanda Regiment ( raised 1698 ) was stationed in Havana from 1770 to 1771 , the Ultonia Regiment ( raised 1709 ) in Mexico from 1768 to 1771 , and the Hibernia Regiment ( raised 1709 ) in Honduras from 1782 to 1783 . At the time of the Napoleonic Wars all three of these Irish infantry regiments still formed part of the Spanish army . Heavy losses and recruiting difficulties diluted the Irish element in these units , although the officers remained of Irish ancestry . The Hibernia Regiment had to be reconstituted with Galician recruits in 1811 and ended the war as an entirely Spanish corps . All three regiments were finally disbanded in 1818 on the grounds that insufficient recruits , whether Irish or other foreigners , were forthcoming . 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 . France recruited many foreign soldiers ; Germans , Italians , Walloons and Swiss . André Corvisier , the authority on French military archives , estimates that foreigners accounted for around 12 % of all French troops in peacetime and 20 % of troops during warfare . In common with the other foreign troops the Irish regiments were paid more than their French counterparts . Both Irish and Swiss regiments in French service wore red uniforms , though this had no connection with the redcoats of the British army . The crucial turning point came during the Williamite War in Ireland ( 1688 – 91 ) , when Louis XIV gave military and financial aid to the Irish Jacobites . In 1690 , in return for 6 , 000 French troops that were shipped to Ireland , Louis demanded 6 , 000 Irish recruits for use in the Nine Years War against the Dutch . Five regiments , led by Justin McCarthy , Viscount Mountcashel formed the nucleus of the French Irish Brigade . A year later , after the Irish Jacobites under Patrick Sarsfield surrendered at the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 , 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 . The main difference between the Irish Brigade and the Wild Geese was that the Brigade was already formed up and serving in France by 1691 , but the Wild Geese comprised a disparate group of individuals with similar aims that served in the armies of several countries , not just France . In time the distinctions became blurred , as Irish recruits joining the Irish Brigade in the 1700s were sometimes known as Wild Geese . In 1718 - 20 the Wild Geese in the French service found themselves allied with their arch - enemy Hanoverian Britain during the War of the Quadruple Alliance . Up until 1745 , Catholic Irish gentry were allowed to recruit soldiers for France in Ireland . The authorities in Ireland saw this as preferable to the potentially disruptive effects of having large numbers of unemployed young Catholic men of military age in the country . However , after a composite Irish detachment from the French Army ( drawn from each of the regiments comprising the Irish Brigade and designated as " Irish Picquets " ) was 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 . During the Seven Years ' War efforts were made to find recruits from among Irish prisoners of war or deserters from the British Army . Otherwise , recruitment was limited to a trickle of Irish volunteers who were able to make their own way to France , or from the sons of former members of the Irish Brigade who had remained in France . During the Seven Years War the Irish Regiments in French service were : Bulkeley , Clare , Dillon , Rooth , Berwich and Lally . Additionally , there was a regiment of cavalry , Fitz James . By the end of the 18th century even the officers of the Irish Regiments were drawn from Franco - Irish families who had settled in France for several generations . While often French in all but name , such families proudly retained their Irish heritages . Following the outbreak of the French Revolution the Irish Brigade ceased to exist as a separate entity on 21 July 1791 when the 12 non - Swiss foreign regiments then in existence were integrated into the line infantry of the French Army , losing their distinctive status , titles and uniforms . Many left the service in 1792 when Louis XVI was deposed , as their oath of loyalty was to him and not to the French people . Napoleon Bonaparte subsequently raised a small Irish unit composed of veterans of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 . This " Irish Legion " was primarily composed of Cavalry units . Count Paul Francois O ' Neill , the French 5th Comte de Tyrone and his two sons , Jacques and Francois , all joined the Legion for four years . Italian service . Despite being less studied , the ancient and traditional " " mestiere delle armi " " in Italy was also a well - known profession by the Irish . The " " tercio " " of Lucas Taf ( around 500 men ) served in Milan towards 1655 . The Army of Saboya included also Irishmen , but in Italy the Irish were organized basically by the Spanish administration . In 1694 , another regiment in Milan was exclusively composed by Irishmen . Around the 3 - 4 % of a total of 20 , 000 men were Irish in the Spanish Army of Milan . It is not a high figure , but it was important as regards quality . In this context , James Francis Fitz - James Stuart ( 1696 - 1739 ) , Duke of Berwick and of Liria is just one example of this success . He began to serve the Monarchy in 1711 and succeeded in becoming General Lieutenant ( 1732 ) , ambassador in Russia , in Austria and in Naples , where he died . In 1702 , an Irish grenadier company led by Francis Terry entered Venetian service . This company of Jacobite exiles served at Zara until 1706 . Colonel Terry became the Colonel of a Venetian Dragoon Regiment , which the Terry family mostly commanded until 1797 . Colonel Terry ' s Dragoons uniforms were red faced blue in the Irish tradition . The Limerick Regiment , of Irish Jacobites , transferred from Spanish service to that of the Bourbon king of Sicily in 1718 . 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 , a Field Marshal in the Imperial Russian Army , whose son Franz Moritz Graf von Lacy excelled in the Austrian service . General Maximilian Ulysses Graf von Browne , the Austrian commanding officer in the Battle of Lobositz , was also of Irish descent . Recruitment for Austrian service was especially associated with the midlands of Ireland and with the Taaffe O ' Neillan and O ' Rourke gentry families . However , Count Alexander O ' Nelly ( O ' Neill ) came from Ulster . He commanded the 42nd Bohemian Infantry Regiment from 1734 to 1743 . Much earlier , in 1634 , during the Thirty Years ' War , Irish officers led by Walter Deveraux assassinated general Albrecht von Wallenstein on the orders of the Emperor . In the 19th century , further Irish officers served in the Habsburg Empire , so Laval Graf Nugent von Westmeath and Maximilian Graf O ’ Donnell von Tyrconnell , who saved the life of Emperor Franz Joseph I during an assassination attempt . Gottfried von Banfield finally became the most successful Austro - Hungarian naval aeroplane pilot in the First World War . Swedish and Polish service . In 1609 , Arthur Chichester , then Lord Deputy of Ireland , deported 1 , 300 former rebel Irish soldiers from Ulster to serve in the Protestant Swedish Army . However , under the influence of Catholic clergy , many of them deserted to Polish service . The Catholic Irish troops in Protestant Swedish service changed sides during a battle against largely Catholic Poland , the only European country with statutory freedom of religion at the time . The Irish then served in Polish service for several years during the Polish – Muscovite War ( 1605 – 1618 ) , until their wages went unpaid . End of the Wild Geese . Irish recruitment for continental armies dried up after it was made illegal in 1745 . In 1732 , Sir Charles Wogan indicated in a letter to Dean Swift that 120 , 000 Irishmen had been killed and wounded in foreign service " within these forty years " , with Swift later replying : " I cannot but highly esteem those gentlemen of Ireland who , with all the disadvantages of being exiles and strangers , have been able to distinguish themselves by their valour and conduct in so many parts of Europe , I think , above all other nations . " It was some time before the British armed forces began to tap into Irish Catholic manpower . In the late 18th 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 Force including such famous units as the Connaught Rangers . Several more Irish units were created in the 19th century . By 1914 specifically Irish infantry regiments in the British Army comprised the Prince of Wales ' s Leinster Regiment , the Royal Dublin Fusiliers , the Irish Guards , the Royal Irish Regiment , the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers , the Royal Irish Rifles , the Royal Irish Fusiliers , the Connaught Rangers and the Royal Munster Fusiliers . With the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922 five of the above regiments were disbanded , with most of the remainder undergoing a series of amalgamations between 1968 and 2006 . The United Kingdom still retains three Irish regiments : the Irish Guards , the Royal Irish Regiment , and the London Irish Rifles .