"Last push with Elizabethan Irish" Topic

Last push for the Irish ahead of forthcoming Partizan game:

link

Their feet must be as hard as horses' hooves!

Éirinn go Brách!

Jim

Holy sheet, they look more Arthurian than anything else to my uninformed eyes.

Cheers guys, Rocco, you are correct these figures are mainly dark age, however the gear they war barely changed and mixing these in with Tudor figures and the odd Morion Helmet gives a good approxomation of the Irish, as late as the 1580's the vast majority were bare legged with a javelin (Dart)and buckler.

If you think about it, the grotesquely baggy sleeves in which Irish warriors of this period are usually depicted are totally impractical combat wear, especially for skirmishing in the undergrowth. It seems most likely that such costume was reserved for 'Sunday best'.

This suspicion is borne out by the illustration on page 5 of the Osprey MAA on this conflict, which shows kern returning from a raid near Boulogne in 1544 wearing shirts with short or no sleeves, so Dark Ages Irish figures are probably closer to representing historical campaign wear than the dedicated ranges. The only glaringly obvious discrepancy is the shield, which should be the same style of studded targe used by Jacobite rebels in 1745 – but if it means you can use the same figures for both periods it's a fault that's probably not worth losing sleep over.

Cheers Henry Martini, most do have the studded targe, just a few of these older bucklers on show. The finished bases which will be on the blog very shortly have a great mix of troops, manufacturers and weapons on each base to give that irregular flavour, so some have the massive impractical baggy sleeves others not.