Clare's Dragoons

Clare's Regiment, later known as Clare's Dragoons, was initially named O'Brians Regiment after its originator Charles O'Brien, Third Viscount of Clare.
Like other Irish regiments, such as Dillon's Regiment and Berwick's Regiment to name just two of them, Clare's Regiment remained loyal to the dethroned King James II and fought against the army of King William III, or William of Orange, during the Williamite War.

Clare's Regiment Standard
(courtesy of War Flags)

Most Irish regiments followed James II to France after being defeated by Williamite forces in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The leaving of these officers and soldiers triggered an unprecedented exodus from Ireland, which reached its peak after the final defeat of the combined French-Irish army, the so-called Jacobites, in the Battle of Aughrim and the introduction of the Penal Laws. Frustrated by discriminating laws Catholic tradesmen, domestic personal and craftsmen left Ireland and settled in France. In imitation of the migration of the Irish nobility after the Nine Years War, the Flight of Earls, the migration of the Irish middle class is known as the Flight of the Wild Geese and the regiments, among which Clare's Regiment, consequently became known as Wild Geese Regiments.

Although in the service of France the Wild Geese Regiments remained untouched until the end of the eighteenth century.
Throughout the tempestuous eighteenth century the Irish regiments established a reputation as the most fierce, famed and formidable soldiers of all Europe. This reputation yielded a compliment from King George II: "Cursed be the laws which deprive me of such subjects!"
Although Clare's Regiment, as all Irish regiments in French service, was an infantry regiment they acquired the honourable nickname Clare's Dragoons. Comparing footsloggers with heavily armed cavalry is a compliment indeed.

Tom Gregg, who maintains the War Flags website and kindly provided useful information in this matter, points out that there were two Irish regiments in French service that bore at some time the name of Clare and of O'Brien. The original O'Brien's Regiment was placed on the French establishment in 1689, and after being reamed as Clare's Regiment in 1691 it was renamed again in 1694 as Lee's Regiment.
By the references made to the 1706 Battle of Ramillies the song clearly refers to the second Clare's Regiment which was raised in 1696. To make things a bit more confusing this regiment too was briefly named O'Brien's Regiment. In 1775 this second Clare's Regiment was disbanded and with the incorporation of the troops into Berwick's Regiment the Clare's Dragoons left the stage of history once and for all.

The song Clare's Dragoons is a good example of how to turn a defeat in a victory. Bluntly speaking the Battle of Ramillies turned out disastrous for the French army, including Clare's Regiment. However, it is claimed by unverified rumours that the Clare's Dragoons managed to capture the colours of an English regiment. These colours were given into the safe keeping of Irish nuns of an abbey at Ypres in nowadays Belgium. During the First World War the Irish Dames of Ypres fled from Belgium and took up residence at Kylemore Abbey in County Galway, where the alleged captured standard is still on display.

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Clare's Dragoons

When, on Ramillies' bloody field,
The baffled French were forced to yield,
The victor Saxon backward reeled
Before the charge of Clare's Dragoons.
The flags we conquered in that fray,
Look lone in Ypres' choir, they say,
We'll win them company today,
Or bravely die like Clare's Dragoons.

Viva la, for Ireland's wrong!
Viva la, for Ireland's right!
Viva la, in battle throng,
For a Spanish steed and sabre bright!

Another Clare is here to lead,
The worthy son of such a breed
The French expect some famous deed,
When Clare leads on his bold dragoons.
Our colonel comes from Brian's race,
His wounds are in his breast and face,
The bearna baoghil is still his place,
The foremost of his bold dragoon.

Viva la, the new brigade!
Viva la, the old one too!
Viva la, the rose shall fade
And the shamrock shine forever new!

Oh! comrades, think how Ireland pines,
Her exiled lords, her rifled shrines,
Her dearest hope, the ordered lines,
And bursting charge of Clare's Dragoons.
Then fling your green flag to the sky,
Be "Limerick!" your battle-cry,
And charge, till blood floats fetlock-high
Around the track of Clare's Dragoons.

Viva la, the new brigade!
Viva la, the old one too!
Viva la, the rose shall fade
And the shamrock shine forever new!

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