taking two colors from the enemy.  This was a French victory.  Not so the great battle of Blenheim, August, 1704, when Marlborough and Prince Eugene severely defeated the French and Bavarians.  Three Irish battalions shared in the disaster.  In 1705 at Cassano in Italy an Irish regiment, finding itself badly galled by artillery fire from the opposite bank of the Adda, declared they could stand it no longer, and thereupon jumped in, swam the river, and captured the battery.  In 1705 Colonel O’Mahony of Cremona fame distinguished himself in Spain.  In the next year at the battle of Ramillies, in which Marlborough with the Dutch defeated the French under Villeroi, Lord Clare’s regiment captured the colors of the English Churchill regiment and of the Scottish regiment in the Dutch service.  In the same year and the next, the Irish Brigade fought many battles in Spain.  One cannot pursue the details of the engagements.  Regiments ever decimated were ever recruited by the “Wild Geese” from Ireland—­the adventurous Catholic youth of the country who sought congenial outlet for their love of adventure and glory.  Many Irish also joined the French army after deserting from the English forces in Flanders.

It was, however, at Fontenoy, May 11, 1745, that the Irish Brigade rendered their most signal service to France.  The English under the Duke of Cumberland, son of George II., with 55,000 men including a large German and Dutch auxiliary, met the French under Marshal Saxe, and in the presence of the French king Louis XV., near Tournai in Belgium.  Saxe had 40,000 men in action and 24,000 around Tournai, which town was the objective of the English advance.  Among the troops on the field were the six Irish regiments of Clare, Dillon, Bulkeley, Roth, Berwick, and Lally, all under Charles O’Brien, Viscount Clare, afterwards Marshal Thomond of France.  After fierce cannonading on both sides and a check to the allies on their right and left, a great column of English veterans advanced on the French centre, breaking through with sheer force.  They had thus reached high ground when some cannonading halted them.  It was at this moment of gravest peril to the French that the Irish regiments with unshotted guns charged headlong up the slope on their ancient enemies, crying, “Remember Limerick and British Faith!” The great English column, already roughly handled by the cannon, broke and fled in wild disorder before that irresistible onslaught, and France had won a priceless victory, but the six Irish regiments lost one-third of their gallant men by a single volley as they followed their steel into the English lines.

When Charles Edward, the Stuart Pretender, landed in Scotland in 1745, he was followed by a small French force, including 500 Irishmen from the Brigade.  Colonel John O’Sullivan was much relied on by the prince in his extraordinary campaign.  Sir Thomas Sheridan also distinguished himself.  There were 475 Irish at the battle of Culloden, that foredoomed defeat of the Stuart cause, and two days later a score of Irish officers were among those who surrendered at Inverness.