The Flight of the Wild Geese refers to the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France, as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on October 3, 1691, following the end of the Williamite War in Ireland. More broadly, the term "Wild Geese" is used in Irish history to refer to Irish soldiers who left to serve as mercenaries in continental European armies in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
Read more about Flight Of The Wild Geese: Spanish Service, French Service, Austrian Service, Swedish and Polish Service, Italian Service, End of The Wild Geese
Famous quotes containing the words flight of, flight, wild and/or geese:
“One man’s observation is another man’s closed book or flight of fancy.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“When the flight is not high the fall is not heavy.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.”
—Emily Brontë (1818–1848)
“They yelleden as fiendes doon in hell;
The duckes cryden as men would them quell;
The geese for feare flewen over the trees;
Out of the hive came the swarm of bees.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)