Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, was title of the commander of the British forces in Ireland before 1922. Until the Act of Union in 1800, the position involved command of the distinct Irish Army of the Kingdom of Ireland.
Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, was title of the commander of the British forces in Ireland before 1922. Until the Act of Union in 1800, the position involved command of the distinct Irish Army of the Kingdom of Ireland.
Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, KB (7 October 1734 – 28 March 1801) was a British Army officer, politician and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Trinidad in 1797. Rising to the rank of lieutenant general in the British army, he also served as the Commander-in-Chief, Ireland and was noted for his military service during the French Revolutionary Wars, which included defeating the French invasion of Egypt and Syria. His strategies are ranked amongst the most daring and brilliant exploits of the British army.
The Irish Army or Irish establishment, in practice called the monarch's "army in Ireland" or "army of Ireland", was the standing army of the Kingdom of Ireland, a client state of England and subsequently (from 1707) of Great Britain. It existed from the early 1660s until merged into the British Army in 1801, and for much of the period was the largest force available to the British Crown, being substantially larger than the English and Scottish establishments. Initially solely under the monarch's control, from 1699 the army was jointly controlled by the monarch and by the Parliament of England. The Parliament of Ireland took over some responsibilities in 1769, extended after 1782 when it began passing its own Mutiny Acts. The army, funded by Irish crown revenues, had its own Commander-in-Chief.
For much of its history, only members of the Anglo-Irish Anglican Protestant minority could join the army, while both the Catholic majority in Ireland and Protestant Nonconformists were barred from enlistment. During the reign of the Catholic king James II (r. 1685–1688), Catholics were actively recruited into the army and quickly became a majority within it. When James was overthrown by in the 1688 Glorious Revolution, most Irish Army troops stayed loyal to him and fought on his side as Jacobites in the Williamite War in Ireland. Following James's defeat, many of these troops went into exile in France, where they became the core of the Irish Brigade.