24 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



ability, makes worse figures than those that are put out, confirms 

 their jealous apprehensions. "^ But though the composition of the 

 corps was largely altered, and the principal positions confided to 

 officers of Tyrconnel's way of thinking, there does not appear to 

 have been any general surrender of commissions by the old officers 

 ■who escaped immediate dismissal, and these appear to have remained 

 in the regiment down to the landing of "William III. at Torbay, 

 when, with their Colonel, Lord Ossory, they embraced the cause of 

 the Prince of Orange. 



From the sweeping changes inaugurated by Tyrconnel, it resulted 

 that, notwithstanding that the Colonel, Lord Ossory, who, in 1688, 

 succeeded to the Dukedom of OiTQond, and had been left undisturbed 

 in his nominal command, went over to William III. as soon as he 

 landed at Torbay, the regiment took part with James 11. in his 

 struggle for the Crown of the Three Kingdoms, though in numbers 

 considerably short of its proper strength. The colonelcy was then 

 given to Dorrington, ander whose command the Guards took part 

 in the siege of Deny, and subsequently were present at the Boyne 

 and Aughrim. In the latter battle Dorrington was taken prisoner, and 

 Barker, who had been appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, was killed ; and it 

 does not appear under what officers the last services of the Irish Guards 

 ou Irish soil were rendered at the defence of Limerick. After ih.e 

 capitulation of that city the Boyal Eegiment of Guards was the fore- 

 most of those which made choice of the cause of King James and exile, 

 and in that dramatic scene, so powerfully painted for us by Macaulay, 

 when the garrison of Limerick was ordered to pass in review before the 

 rival commanders, Ginkell and Sarsfield, and those who wished to remain 

 in the Ireland of King William were dii'ected to file off at a particular 

 spot, all but seven of the Guards, marching fourteen hundred strong, 

 went beyond the fatal point and embraced the alternative of exile. 

 Kot all of these, however, adhered to their resolution, and only five 

 himdred appear to have been included in the thousands, who, in the 

 language of the historian, "departed to learn m. foreign camps that 

 discipline without which natural courage is of small avail, and to 

 retrieve, on distant fields of battle, the honour which had been lost 

 by a long series of defeats at home."- 



Reference has been made above to the fact that the career of the 

 Irish Guards was not closed with the defeat of the cause with which 



1 Clarendon State Papers, i., p. 485, July 6. 

 ^Macaulay's Sistory of England, chap. XTii. 



