IN Ireland they're well known as the Wild Geese, but in France very few people have heard of the wave of Irish refugees who arrived three centuries ago, leaving many French families with Irish names to this day.

This Friday those emigrants will be celebrated in a glittering Wild Geese Ball in Paris the night before the France Ireland rugby international. Hosted by the Ireland Fund of France, its guests will include the Tanaiste, Dick Spring, and some of the aristocratic descendants of those original settlers, such as Philippe de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta. A Wild Geese Award will be presented to a contemporary Irishman who made his fortune outside his country, Michael Smurfit.

The Duke of Magenta himself, whose vineyards produce 60,000 bottles of burgundy a year, once tried to play up his Irish roots by feat tiring wild geese on the label. "It didn't work," he said sadly. "Nobody had any idea what they were'." His own ancestor, Patrick MacMahon, of Dooradoyle, Co Limerick, achieved fantastic social success by marrying a wealthy widow, whose Chateau de Sully near Autun is still occupied by the Duke today, six generations later.

If the aristocratic immigration of the Irish Jacobites (followers of the abdicating King James II) is little known in France, it is probably because the Wild Geese assimilated so successfully into French society. The O'Quins Hennessys and MacCarthys of today's France are thoroughly French, even if some of them are intrigued by and often proud of their Irish origins.

Patrick Clarke de Dromantin (57) is the eighth generation of Jacobite Clarkes who arrived in France from Co Down in 1691, after James II's defeat at the Battle of the Boyne. Still living in the port of Bordeaux, where his ancestor John Clarke established himself in maritime trade, Mr Clarke de Dromantin is a law lecturer at Bordeaux University.

He is also a historian with a passion for the Jacobite influence on France, recently publishing a book tracing his own family's integration into French society.

"The Irish were the biggest foreign community in Bordeaux at the beginning of the 18th century," he explained. "There were four Irish families there at the end of the 17th century and 80 by 756. The Jacobite influence was completely beneficial for French society."

Fleeing anti Catholic persecution, the well connected and educated merchant families were determined to make a success of their new lives in a country which had just chased out its own Protestant minority, the Hugenots. They entered trade and developed industry with a dynamism that revitalised the established French aristocracy, then became part of that aristocracy by showing proof of their Irish nobility.

Installed in the wine trade, Mr Clarke de Dromantin's ancestors established their own Chateau Clarke vineyards (now owned by the Rothschilds), as did the Lynches (Chateau Lynch Bages) and MacCarthys (Chateau MacCarthy). "I sometimes drink a bottle, but it's very expensive," he said ruefully. It was his grandfather, fascinated by genealogy, who added the de Dromantin to the family name in 1912, in memory of the original family estate in Co Down.

The present Mr Clarke de Dromentin says he watched the peace process in Northern Ireland from afar, never more so than in recent days following the Canary Wharf bombing.

"I always felt that the war in the North was a tragedy," he said.

"It was very sad to realise that three centuries alter my ancestors were chased out, they, were still fighting over the same cause.

Perhaps the most famous once Irish family in France are the Hennessys who gave their name to the world's biggest cognac company (30 per cent of cognac sold in the world last year was Hennessy). It is still managed by the same family, though it is now part of the LVMH luxury goods group.

Maurice Hennessy (45), responsible for the company's foreign trade, said his ancestor, Richard Hennessy, came to France as a Wild Goose from Co Cork to join Louis XV's Irish Regiment. After that service, he established himself in Cognac.

Maurice Hennessy's great grandfather bought back the original family estate in Co Cork, which Mr Hennessy now owns. "I feel completely French but in love with Ireland," he said. "All my family are very proud of their Irish ancestry." Mr Hennessy, who also runs his own vineyard in Cognac, is often in Ireland, and was heartened by the new atmosphere in Belfast during the suspension of violence.

He was fascinated by the peace process and like other members of the Wild Geese is hoping this week that recent violent events won't derail it.