Sir, – While Maolsheachlainn Ó Caollaí makes a good point (June 30th), it is worth remembering how Ireland stood by France in her various times of need and the sacrifices made.
It was the Abbé Mac-Geoghan in his Histoire de l'Irlande ancienne et modernewho tells us that "from calculations and researches that have been made at the war-office, it has been ascertained, that from the arrival of the Irish troops in France in 1691, to 1745, the year of the battle of Fontenoy, more than 450,000 Irishmen died in the service of France". This figure has been questioned by some, but the Abbé Mac-Geoghan had the honour of being chaplain to the Irish Brigade and also had access to the war office and libraries in Paris. In his The Story of the Irish Race, Seamus MacManus writes that "Cardinal Manning states that another half-million shed their blood for her [France] during the half century that followed [Fontenoy], until the dissolution of the Brigade (1792)".
Lecky in his History of England in the Eighteenth Centuryclaimed that this was an extraordinary assertion, but the industrious Protestant statistician, Newenham, in his valuable work On Population in Irelandremarks: "Upon the whole I am inclined to think that we are not sufficiently warranted in considering the Abbé Mac-Geoghegan's statement as an exaggeration". John Cornelius O'Callaghan goes even further quoting from a French MSS, Souvenir des Brigades Irlandaisesputs the figure at 480,000, but this includes all the Irish who served in France and not just those who served in the Irish regiments only.
Kipling put it in his inimitable style when in the first World War the Irish Guards distinguished themselves fighting again in the fields of Flanders: “We’re not so old in the Army List,/ But we are not so young at our trade, /For we had the honour at Fontenoy Of meeting the Guards’ Brigade./’Twas Lally, Dillon, Bulkeley, Clare, /And Lee that led us then, /And after a hundred and seventy years/ We’re fighting for France again!” Kipling does not need to explain that the Irish Brigade took a mere seven minutes to destroy the Allied armies.
However, it is unfair to say that France does not remember the gallant Irish gentlemen who served her so well, every year on May 11th (the anniversary of the battle of Fontenoy) the French government lays a wreath at the Celtic cross of blue Kilkenny limestone in the little Belgian village where the Irish Brigade fighting under its own command won its most famous victory and the avenged the betrayal of Limerick. The villagers of Fontenoy are enthusiastic in looking after the monument and fly the Irish flag with great pride. Also, I seem to remember President Sarkozy sending some of his Presidential Guard to Ireland to mark the anniversary of the battle. – Yours, etc,