History
The regiment's history dates backs to the reign of King George III. In 1793 the British army expanded to meet the commitments of the war with the French First Republic. As part of that expansion it raised two new Regiments of Foot, the 83rd and the 86th. At the same time the counties Antrim, Down and Louth Regiments of Militia were raised.
In 1881, under the Childers Reforms, the 83rd and 86th were amalgamated into a single regiment, named the Royal Irish Rifles. It was one of eight regiments raised and garrisoned in Ireland and was the county regiment of Antrim, Down and Louth, with its garrison depot located at Belfast. Militarily, the whole of Ireland was administered as a separate command within the United Kingdom with Command Headquarters at Parkgate (Phoenix Park) Dublin, directly under the War Office in London.
Read more about this topic: Royal Ulster Rifles
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)