In Desmond and Jean Bowen’s book ‘Heroic Option’ The Irish in the British Army they suggest that apart from Irish Regiments raised in Ireland some 159,000 Irishmen were integrated into Enlish Regiments in the period 1793 to 1815. This process started after the Duke of Marlborough’s Wars on the Continent and the practical abeyance of the Penal Laws. In 1774 by a statute an earlier religious test was replaced by an oath of allegiance. There was an immediate surge of Catholics enlisting in the British Army which is reflected in these records.
The list of the Irish Regiments
Infantry
Royal Irish Regiment (18th Foot)
Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers (27th Foot)
Connaught Rangers (88th Foot)
Royal Irish Fusiliers (the’Faugs’)
Royal Irsh Rifles
The Prince of Wale’s Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)
Royal Munster Fusiliers
Royal Dublin Fusiliers
Cavalry
6th Inniskilling Dragoons
4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards
5th Royal Irish Lancers
8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars
Service with Australian Forces:
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=8080012
Bantry
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=7980778
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=4519432
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=4516388
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=4420591
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=4377963
http://naa12.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=3131386&I=1&SE=1
West Cork History 