The Gallowgiass
These were originally Scots mercenaries, but by the 16th Century their clans or 'septs’ had often been settled in Ireland for two or three centuries (the most famous were the Mac-Donalds and the McSweeneys); they were still mercenaries, but often owed loyalty to a particular noble (in fact in 1568 there were three septs of the ‘Queen Majesty’s Galloglasses’). They usually wore an iron bascinet, and either a mail shirt or a short cape of mail over a padded quilted coat called a ’cotun’ and their characteristic weapon was a heavy two-handed axe, up to six feet long, which could chop the enemy’s head off with a single blow (it was still used in 1588 when McLaghlin M’Cabb killed 80 Spaniards from the Armada with one).
Gallowgiasses were organised in ‘Battles’ of 80 or 87 men, but each gallowgiass was accompanied by two boys, who carried his supplies, armour, and his secondary weapons, three light Irish javelins or ‘darts’.
The Kern
The ordinary Irish foot soldiers, made up partly of ‘bonnachts’, or Irish mercenaries maintained by the various nobles, and partly of free peasantry called out to fight. The bonnachts might sometimes be dressed like the gallowgiasses, or else like the ‘rising-out’, as the peasants were called; that is, no armour, simply the traditional Irish dress of a linen tunic with very wide sleeves, often dyed yellow with saffron, usually wdrn over tight trews of a plain colour, and sometimes covered with a very short coat of goat’s hair or a large mantle or ‘shag-rug’, patterned, and with a long fringe of ‘an agreeable mixture of colours’.
Bonnachts might have been armed with the ‘sparth-axe’, but the usual weapons were javelins or ‘darts’ of which each kern had a handful; even the English admitted
An Irish chief, probably in a type of brigantine, prepares to mount for a raid (British Library).
That the Irish were extraordinarily skilled with this weapon, but said it was ‘More Noisesome, especially to the Horse, than deadly’.
A few of the kern also used the bow, and a sword or spear and shield might be carried; the shields were oval and convex, of wood or basket-work. Each man would also carry a 'skean' or long dagger. They were often clean-shaven but wore flowing moustaches and a mop of shaggy hair or ‘glibb’ falling over the forehead (banned by the English as making it difficult to recognise their 'thievish countenances’).
Their tactics were normally those of skirmishers, especially in difficult country where, often, no other troops could move, but they could also charge fiercely in the right circumstances, clashing their weapons together with a loud cry of ’Phar-rohl’ (probably really ’Faire' — ’Watch out!’; anyone who didn’t join in was popularly supposed to be wafted off to a mysterious valley in Kerry and Never Seen Again!). What they couldn’t do was to stand up against cavalry in the open.
The Catholic Confederates
After the defeat of O'Neil and the crushing of his followers there was no war in Ireland until the 1640s, when Catholic uprising became confusingly involved with the Civil War situation in England. In the 1640s, Owen Roe O’Neill, the ex-commander of an Irish regiment in Spanish service, led the army of a Catholic Confederation (claiming loyalty to King Charles) to considerable success against Scots and Parliamentary armies. The ’rebels’ this time included both ’Old Irish’ and Anglo-Irish, and were armed largely by Spain and organised on Spanish lines. The Anglo-Irish would probably wear English-style coat, breeches and hose (just like any English Civil Wartroops; while many of the ’Old Irish’ might still be in traditional dress.
At the Irish victory of Benburb (1646) Owen Roe had seven infantry regiments; his own and that of Alexander Mac-Donnel were of 15 companies (1,500 men) and the rest of ten companies (1,000 men). They were made up about half and half of pikemen and musketeers, and drew up in the usual fashion with pike in the centre and shot on their flanks. The pikes were longer and smaller-pointed than British ones.
There were also nine troops of horse, some at least of them being lancers after the Spanish fashion.
Later, at Dungan’s Hill, the Catholic army included four ox-drawn demi-culverins and 800 Scottish ’Redshanks’, armed chiefly with sword and targe. The Earl of Ormonde, who subsequently led all Royalist forces in Ireland, had among his Lifeguard a regiment of fusiliers with flintlock muskets.
World History
