The North Irish Horse was a yeomanry unit of the British Territorial Army raised in the northern counties of Ireland in the aftermath of the Second Boer War. Raised and patronised by the nobility from its inception to the present day, it was one of the first non-regular units to be deployed to France and the Low Countries with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 during World War I and fought with distinction both as mounted troops and later as a cyclist regiment, achieving eighteen battle honours. The regiment was reduced to a single man in the interwar years and re-raised for World War II, when it achieved its greatest distinctions in the North African and Italian campaigns. Reduced again after the Cold War, the regiment's name still exists in B (North Irish Horse) Squadron, the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry and 40 (North Irish Horse) Signal Squadron, part of 32 Signal Regiment.
History Background The raising of Militia units in Ireland commenced with the "Militia Act 1793", which in Ireland was used in conjunction with the compulsory disbandment of Lord Charlemont's Irish Volunteers, who had become a political entity and "out of the scope of official influence".Doherty p1 The scope of the Militia was broadened by an act of the Dublin Parliament in 1796, which led to the raising of forty-nine troops of cavalry, later renamed yeomanry. A troop normally consisted of a captain, two lieutenants (commissioned by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) and forty men, along with a permanent sergeant and trumpeter. Troops were grouped together under the command of a regular army brigade major. The force was known collectively as the "Irish Yeomanry". Each man provided his own horse.Doherty p2 The falling need for this force eventually led to its disbandment in 1834.
With the advent of the Boer War, a parliamentary decision was taken to raise squadrons of Yeomanry Cavalry under the "Militia and Yeomanry Act 1901" for service in South Africa. Because of the pressing need to raise this force quickly, normal cavalry training with swords or lances (known as the arme blanche) was dispensed with and the new yeomanry was issued only with rifles in a break with cavalry tradition. This new force was called the Imperial Yeomanry. Six companies were quickly raised in Ireland, including the 46th (1st Belfast), 54th (2nd Belfast), 60th (North Irish), and the 45th (Dublin) (known as the Dublin Hunt Squadron) commanded by Captain the Earl of Longford. The 45th, 46th, 47th and 54th formed the 13th (Irish) Battalion Imperial Yeomanry. The 47th (Duke of Cambridge's Own) was raised from rich "men-about-town" in London by the Earl of Donoughmore and paid £130 each for their horses and equipment. The officers of the battalion included the Earl of Leitrim, Sir John Power (of the Powers whiskey family) and James Craig (later Lord Craigavon), and was known as the "Millionaires Own".Doherty p4
Formation Following the South African war, sixteen new yeomanry regiments were formed, two of these in Ireland. King Edward VII approved the formation of the North of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry and the South of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry in 1901. Their formation was sanctioned and gazetted on 7 January 1902. Recruiting for the North of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry did not begin until 1903, with four squadrons being raised: RHQ and A Squadron at Skegoneill Avenue in Belfast,Tardif, p. 2 B Squadron in Derry/Ballymena,Doherty p10 C Squadron in Enniskillen D Squadron in Dundalk.
The first training camp was held at Blackrock Camp, Dundalk in 1903; thereafter, camps were held every third year at the Curragh and other years at Ballykinlar, Dundrum, Magilligan and Bundoran.
The regiment became part of the special reserve in 1908 and its name was changed to the North Irish Horse as part of the Haldane Reforms, the formation of the Territorial Force, which created the Special Reserve of Militia and Yeomanry regiments in Ireland. The North Irish Horse, along with the other Militia battalions, remained on the Special Reserve list until 1953. This arrangement gave the Irish units precedence in the line over the Territorial Army regiments just after the Cavalry of the Line, but also guaranteed the use of the Militia and Yeomanry in overseas conflicts.Doherty p11
The first commander was the Earl of Shaftesbury, whose adjutant was Captain RGO Bramston-Newman, 7th (Princess Royal's) Dragoon Guards, from Cork. Senior NCOs from regular Cavalry of the Line units became the permanent staff instructors (PSIs). On 7 December 1913, the Duke of Abercorn was appointed as the regiment's first honorary colonel.Doherty p9
The First World War The declaration of war against Germany in August 1914 found the North Irish Horse at summer camp, as was its sister regiment, the South Irish Horse. The Expeditionary Force squadron (designated A Squadron) under the command of Major Lord Cole, consisting of 6 officers and 154 other ranks, along with its counterpart in the South Irish Horse (designated B Squadron) was assigned to the British Expeditionary Force. Both squadrons sailed from Dublin on the SS Architect on 17 August 1914. They were the first non-regular troops to land in France and be in action in the First World War. They were joined shortly afterwards by C Squadron of the North Irish Horse under the command of Major Lord Massereene and Ferrard DSO. Three more squadrons of the 'Horse' were to join the regiment in France landing on 2 May 1915, 17 November 1915 and 11 January 1916. A total of 70 officers and 1,931 men of the regiment went to war between 1914 and 1916.Doherty p16
The North Irish Horse did not stay together as a unit, but squadrons were attached to different formations in the BEF as and when required: A Squadron – attached to GHQ until 4 January 1916, transferred to 55th (West Lancashire) Division. On 10 May 1916, along with D and E Squadrons, it was attached to VII Corps, forming the 1st North Irish Horse . Together they constituted VII Corps Cavalry Regiment. 1 NIH was transferred to XIX Corps in July 1917, and then to V Corps, September 1917. In March 1918, it was reroled as V (North Irish Horse) Corps Cyclist Battalion until the end of the war. B Squadron – was attached to the 59th (2nd North Midland) Division, August 1915. In June 1916, it formed, along with C Squadron and the Service Squadron of the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, the 2nd North Irish Horse. This battalion was attached to X Corps until August 1917, then disbanded. The men were sent to be trained as infantry and more than 300 of them joined the 9th (Service) (North Irish Horse) Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers. C Squadron – moved to France on 22 August 1914 and was attached to GHQ before being detached to 5th Division as the divisional cavalry squadron to replace A Sqn of the 19th Hussars. On 14 April 1915, it was transferred to the 3rd Division, and in June 1916 was sent to join B Sqn in the 2nd North Irish Horse which was later disbanded. D Squadron – was attached to the 51st (Highland) Division in early 1915, but in June 1916 joined A Sqn in the 1st North Irish Horse. E Squadron – was attached to 34th Division as part of the divisional mounted contingent from early 1915, and in June 1916 joined A Sqn in the 1st North Irish Horse. F Squadron – was attached to the 33rd Division from early 1915 until April 1916, before being briefly attached to 1st Cavalry Division, 49th (West Riding) Division, and 32nd Division, before joining X Corps in June 1916. It was redesignated B Squadron 1 North Irish Horse in May 1916.
On 25 May 1916, 2nd North Irish Horse was formed. This regiment included, as A Sqn, the Service Squadron of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, which had been formed on 2 October 1914 from volunteers of the Inniskilling Horse of the Ulster Volunteer Force. This squadron did not welcome the change and maintained its Inniskilling identity; being allowed to keep its precedence in the line coming just after the dragoons until 1919.Doherty p35
Records indicate that a third regiment was being formed at the depot in Antrim and it has been speculated that this had unofficially adopted the title "3rd North Irish Horse" but no official records exist to support this.Doherty p23
Cyclist Corps As the war in France and the Low Countries stagnated into trench warfare, the mobility of cavalry and other mounted troops was restricted leading to many cavalry regiments being dismounted and deployed on a range of tasks from that of infantry to menial tasks, including burying the dead. The loss of some of the squadrons' war diaries for the early part of the war means that much information is no longer available, but enough remains to know that some men were deployed on fatigues, enough to render the squadrons non-existent from a "military or fighting point".Doherty p22 The historian of the British Cavalry, the Earl of Anglesey, noted that "the cavalry were being used for every odd job where there was no-one else to carry it out". This led to many officers and men transferring to other arms because they felt they were not taking an active part in the war. The vast majority of "Horse" casualties in the Great War were when serving with other units during this period.Doherty p25
After conversion to a cyclist battalion, the regiment became part of the "Great Retreat of 1918" during the Operation Michael phase of the German Kaiserschlacht (or Spring Offensive).Doherty p26 Following the Armistice, on 13 November a supply of boot blackening and button polish was made available in the other ranks canteen and the regiment began handing in stores in preparation for moving back to Ireland. The regiment's location was close to le Cateau, not far from where it had started the war.Doherty p34 During the Great War, the "Horse" won 18 battle honours, and lost 27 officers and 123 men. One officer, Captain Richard West, was awarded the Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order and Bar, and Military Cross.
The Inter-war years By 31 January 1919, the regiment was preparing to reduce to a cadre of three officers, five senior ranks and twenty-seven other ranks who would oversee the rundown of the regiment and its departure from France. On 13 May 1919, the rear party left Vignacourt en route for Pembroke Dock; in Antrim, the regimental depot was closed and the remaining men there were transferred to the Curragh Camp prior to being demobbed.Doherty p38 The regiment's horses were transferred to the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars and the regiment was classed as "disembodied", which in British Army parlance meant that it no longer existed except as a name on the Army List with a complement (in this case) of an Honorary Colonel, Honorary Chaplain, a Brevet Colonel (EA Maude), six majors, six subalterns and the quartermaster although these officers had no peacetime training commitments.
The naming conventions changed as the commitment of the Territorial Force in Great Britain was rewarded by its renaming as the Territorial Army. The Special Reserve in Ireland was renamed "the Militia" on 1 October 1921. The Army List contained a section headed, "Cavalry Special Reserve – Irish Horse, North Irish, South Irish". In 1922, this changed to "Cavalry Militia" with precedence following the 17th/21st Lancers. By this time, however, the South Irish Horse had been disbanded on 31 July 1922, as a result of the partition of Ireland. Following the disbandment of King Edward's Horse in 1924, the North Irish Horse became the sole cavalry militia regiment on the army list and also the only militia regiment that had not been placed in suspended animation.Doherty p38-39