"More Furies Than Men: The Irish Brigade" Topic

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has purchased this title yet and if so, your thoughts? Looks intriguing and states that the author has delved into many primary sources regarding the study of the French Irish Brigade. I have quite a few books regarding the IBoF and am wondering if this would be a nice addition. A little pricey but maybe worthwhile. Look forward to any comments.

Cheers!

Sorry for the double click post. My apologies.

I have it, WG. I like it and it's worth the money, I think. Short summary:

1. The author also did the plates and while they're serviceable, they lack the detail and "feel" of the cover artwork.

2. The author debunks a few myths, especially about how welcome the Irish were in France and exposes some of the political machinations of the leadership. What stands out is that nepotism ran rampant through the leadership.

3. The difficulties in recruiting are discussed in depth and explain the lengths the regiments had to go to, to achieve a fighting strength.

4. There's too much discussion of Fontenoy and the SYW is glossed over (somewhat understandable as, apart from Lally in India, the Irish weren't involved much).

5. It's a history, not a uniform study, but the plates and descriptions cover the uniforms and flags pretty well.

6. Yes, the author has done a lot of research in French, British and even Irish archives (not much comes from the latter, understandably), and he footnotes his sources throughout the book- and that's a major plus from my point of view.

I think it would be worth adding to your library, mate.

Hi Dal,

I thank you for your detailed response. It is much appreciated. I have decided to take the plunge and purchase for my library. I have quite a few books regarding the Irish Brigade and Irish in European military service in general, including O' Callaghan's ‘bible' (albeit dated bible) on the Irish Brigade/brigades. Most of them seem to cover the same general info including some of the newer titles. Hoping this one fills out some of missing gaps/info that I'm seeking. As for the Fontenoy section, I guess I figured that it would probably receive a lot of attention being that it was the pinnacle engagement in which the Irish Brigade fought.
I agree that the footnotes that you stated, might worth the price of the book itself. Looking forward to receiving it soon hopefully.

Cheers, John

I don't think you'll be disappointed, John. I've got O'Callaghan and a couple of newer histories, and Coudray is less "gung ho" and more discriminating, though not revisionist. The foot notes are very detailed, mate- and give you an excuse to visit France, the UK and Eire "for research". :-)

link

More Furies Than Men', The Irish Brigade in the service of France (1690-1792)
By Pierre-Louis Coudray

My interest for the military presence of Irishmen within the French army started when I was a freshman studying Irish culture and history at the University of Rennes in the late 1990s. Because of the imminent Good Friday Agreement, the lectures covered in great depths the Troubles and contemporary Ireland. Yet in most of the documents used, martial aspects of the Irish experience were reduced to mere footnotes. Such a situation always bothered me since Ireland had constantly been the focus of Britain's military preoccupations until 1922 and also because I started reading Irish authors who offered glimpses of a fascinating belligerent past largely ignored in French academic circles. I just wanted to know more.

Besides, being Breton made me aware from an early age of the special relationship established between Ireland and western France, but the local archives of my hometown lacked documents illustrating that supposed centuries-old friendship often saluted in books devoted to Franco-Irish links. To my surprise, letters and manuscripts held in western France depicted the Irish landing there in the late seventeenth century in derogatory terms. This discrepancy between historical facts and the received narrative of the Irish diaspora in France inspired me to confront the lore of the Irish Brigade in national and international archives. This book is a synthesis of this work and gives a more realistic image of the Irishmen who fought under the golden lilies.

First, I focused on French local records before travelling to both Britain and Ireland to gather elements from the viewpoint of British authorities and personalities of the time. Since the Brigade's past is full of repetitions, factual errors, exaggerations and omissions, it took me years to sift through the many primary and secondary sources available to make a new story emerge. The battles of Cremona and Fontenoy, two critical events in the life of these Irish units, obviously appeared as major stopping points that also had to be re-examined in this renewed military history of the Brigade. But beyond the day-to-day lives of Irish soldiers and officers fighting for France, I also wanted to show how the story of the Brigade itself came into being.

Years down the line, I can now assert that what we know about the Irish regiments in the service of France is obviously based on the brave actions of generations of fighters, but also rests on what was carefully crafted by legions of writers. First, people directly connected to the Brigade itself in the eighteenth century wrote to remind French people of the sacrifices made by the Irish Jacobites in the service of both the Bourbons and the Stuarts. Their version of events both corrected French misconceptions about the Irish regiments and produced a new narrative attached to these units and their connection to the Stuart family. Then, nineteenth-century Irish authors cemented that same narrative, rendering it almost immutable, but this time to create a distinctive Irish military history. They wanted to prove that the island and its inhabitants were strong enough to exist outside of Britain's sphere of influence. Meanwhile, London also appropriated this military story for its own purposes by enrolling the experience of Irish soldiers abroad within the global and loose concept of ‘Britishness'.

This book illustrates the idea that the pen is truly mightier than the sword by showing the reader how these different storylines were slowly merged into a single narrative that transformed the Irish Brigade serving France into a military legend.

Thanks for posting that link, Lilian. Mr Coudray has done everything he set out to do.

On an unrelated matter, are there any military bookshops in Paris since COVID? We're probably going to be staying in St Germain (I know how to find Gibert Joseph- my hotel was in Rue Champollion on my last trip).