"The Irish Brigade 1670–1745" Topic

"Irish troops had fought for Louis XIV in the 1670s, under Irish officers who had little choice but to fight in foreign service, with the blessing of Charles II. With the accession of James II, and the religious politics of who might earn the English crown, they became embroiled in the Jacobite succession crisis, fighting in Ireland, then sent to France under Lord Mountcashel in 1689. With the fall of Limerick in 1691, Patrick Sarsfield led the second 'flight' of 'Wild Geese' to the continent, to fight in a war for the French, against the Grand Alliance of Europe, in the vain hope that their loyalty might warrant French support in a return to Ireland under a Jacobite king."

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Amicalement
Armand

I bought this book after reading the author's excellent biography of Lord Mountcashel. I was really looking forward to reading this. Sadly, it was, for me at least, a great disappointment. The coverage of the actual Wild Geese does not begin until 80 percent through the book. One chapter each is devoted to 9YW and the WSS, and most of those chapters have little to do with the Irish. Most of the book is devoted to 17th Ireland itself, with a chapter on the siege of Derry, one on the Boyne, one on Newtonbutler, one on Aughrim and the siege of Limrick. The book has some interesting info on the Irish in the mountains of Savoy and the Pyrenees in the 1690s, but makes no mention of the several Irish regiments at Marsaglia, a battle to which one sentence is devoted.

Finally, the editing is very poor. On at least separate occasions the author repeats a quotation at length a dozen or pages or so later. The author is continually repeating himself throughout the book. It's as if he wrote each chapter assuming that the reader has not read the prior ones.

Many thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand