1. http://like-a-stone-wall.webs.com/ is an excellent website, with some lovely pictures of a Boyne game which was fought earlier this year
2. Brownsing the pdfs on Internet Archive (an excellent pastime), I have some choice quotes regarding the period, with a vague theme of uniforms:
"the scene passing in the Irish camp... was highly characteristic of the people and the cause they advocated. 'Twas the dawn 
of the Sabbath morning, and its advent was solemnized 
by those religious observances, the preparations for which 
had been made through the preceding night. And those 
ceremonies being ended, the troops were drawn out in the 
same order of battle in which they had, for the last two 
days, been awaiting the arrival of the enemy. As they 
stood in their mingled uniforms of red and green, with 
colors advanced, and their old battle-flag, bearing the 
emblem of an early civilization, and standing out above 
the long line of tents that formed the background, they 
made a most gallant show, which the import of the hour 
and the associations of the day and place rendered deeply 
solemn and impressive. "
From "The battle-fields of Ireland, from 1688 to 1691: including Limerick and Athlone, Aughrim and the Boyne" by John Boyle. Rather tantalising references to green uniforms and the mysterious 'emblem of an early civilization'
"It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the fire of 
the enemy's cannon ceased along the whole line, and the 
assaulting columns, in their v aricolored uniforms of buff, 
blue, and scarlet, moved down to the intrenchments as 
gayly as if on parade, and halted. The fire within the 
town also ceased, and an ominous silence settled over the 
scene, the combatants on each side, standing with bated 
breath, and as motionless as statues. An unusual drought 
prevailed, — not a drop of rain had fallen for three weeks ;* 
the weather was intensely hot, and the sun threw a flood 
of unobstructed light upon dome and spire, while the river 
glided away through its autumnal foliage, as placid as if 
peace had returned and war should revisit it no more. 
Some time passed on, and suspense was becoming pain- 
ful, when the signal : one ! two ! three ! pealed forth. The 
British grenadiers were over the palisades in a twink- 
ling, hurling their destructive missiles, and followed by 
the Dutch Guards, while the cannon rang out again 
along the whole front, excepting the point of assault."
As above. Mention of buff uniforms among a very evocative passage depicting the Siege of Limerick. 
"There happened to be 
a large accumulation of this grey cloth in the French 
warehouses, for in the winter of the same year a quantity 
sufficient for 20,000 uniforms was sent to Ireland. But 
there is one point that lends a piquant interest to the busi- 
ness of clothing the Mountcashell brigade. The Irish 
troops clamoured for red coats, and Lord Mountcashell 
received an assurance that when new uniforms had to be 
provided they should be in red. It is curious to find these 
poor Irish exiles, who had gone forth from their own land 
because they had been persuaded that England was their 
natural enemy, protesting that they would wear the English 
national uniform and no other. Their flag also was the 
English flag. It was St. George's Cross, with a lion in gold, 
and above it a golden crown in the centre. No one thought 
of the Green Flag or the Harp in those days ! "
From "The battle of the Boyne, together with an account based on French and other unpublished records of the war in Ireland" by Demetrius Charles de Kavanagh Boulger
"Each of the contending princes had some ad- 
vantages over his rival. James, standing on the 
defensive, behind intrenchments, with a river 
before him, had the stronger position, but his 
troups were inferior both in number and in 
quality to those which were opposed to him. 
He probably had thirty thousand men. About 
a third part of this force consisted of excellent 
French infantry and excellent Irish cavalry. But 
the rest of his army was the scoff of all Europe. 
The Irish dragoons were bad ; the Irish infantry 
worse. It was said that their ordinary way of 
fighting was to discharge their pieces once, and 
then to run away bawling " Quarter " and 
"Murder." Their inefficiency was, in that age, 
commonly imputed, both by their enemies and 
by their allies, to natural poltroonery. How 
little grounds there was for such an imputa- 
tion has since been signally proved by many 
heroic achievements in every part of the globe. 
It ought, indeed, even in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, to have occurred to reasonable men, that 
a race which furnished some of the best horse- 
soldiers in the world would certainly, with judi- 
cous training, furnish good foot-soldiers. But 
the Irish foot-soldiers had not merely not been 
well trained ; they had been elaborately ill 
trained. The greatest of our generals repeatedly 
and emphatically declared that even the admir- 
able army which fought its way, under his com- 
mand, from Torres Yedras to Toulouse, would, 
if he had suffered it to contract habits of pil- 
lage, have become, in a few weeks, unfit for 
all military purposes. What, then, was likely to 
be the character of the troops who, from the day 
on which they enlisted, were not merely per- 
mitted, but invited to supply the deficiencies of 
pay by marauding? They were, as might have 
been expected, a mere mob — furious indeed, and 
clamorous in their zeal for the cause which 
they had espoused, but incapable of opposing a 
steadfast resistance to a well-ordered force. In 
truth, all that the discipline, if it is to be so 
called, of James's army had done for the Celtic 
kerne had been to debase and enervate him. 
After eighteen months of nominal soldiership he 
was positively farther from being a soldier than 
on the day on which he quitted his hovel for 
the camp. 
William had under his command nearly thirty- 
six thousand men, born in many lands and speak- 
ing many tongues. Scarcely one Protestant 
Church, scarcely one Protestant nation, was un- 
represented in the army which a strange series 
of events had brought to fight for the Protestant 
religion in the remotest island of the West. 
About half the troops were natives of England. 
Ormond was there with the Life Guards, 
and Oxford with the Blues. Sir John Lanier, 
an officer who had acquired military experi- 
ence on the Continent, and whose prudence 
was held in high esteem, was at the head of the 
Queen's Regiment of Horse, now the First Dra- 
goon Guards. There were Beamont's foot, who 
had, in defiance of the mandate of James, re- 
fused to admit papists among them, and Hast- 
ings's foot, who had, on the disastrous day of Kil- 
liecrankie, maintained the military reputation of 
the Saxon race. There were two Tangier battal- 
ions, hitherto known only by deeds of violence and 
rapine, but destined to begin, on the following 
morning, a long career of glory. The Scotch 
Guards marched under the command of their 
countryman James Douglas. Two fine British 
regiments which had been in the service of the 
States-General, and had often looked death in 
the face under William's leading, followed him 
in this campaign, not only as their general, but 
as their native king. They now rank as the fifth 
and sixth of the line. The former was led by 
an officer who had no skill in the higher parts 
of military science, but whom the whole army 
allowed to be the bravest of all the brave, 
John Cutts. Conspicuous among the Dutch 
troops were Portland's and Ginkell's horse, and 
Solme's Blue Regiment, consisting of two thou- 
sand of the finest infantry in Europe. Germany 
had sent to the field some warriors sprung 
from her noblest houses. Prince George of 
Hesse Darmstadt, a gallant youth who was 
serving his apprenticeship in the military art, 
rode near the king. A strong brigade of 
Danish mercenaries was commanded by Duke 
Charles Frederick of Wirtemberg, a near kins- 
man of the head of his illustrious family. It 
was reported that, of all the soldiers of William, 
these were most dreaded by the Irish, for cen- 
turies of Saxon domination had not effaced the 
recollection of the violence and cruelty of the 
Scandinavian sea-kings ; and an ancient prophecy 
that the Danes would one day destroy the 
children of the soil was still repeated with 
superstitious horror. Among the foreign auxi- 
liaries were a Brandenburg regiment and a Fin- 
land regiment. But in that great array, so 
variously composed, were two bodies of men 
animated by a spirit peculiarly fierce and im- 
placable, the Huguenots of France thirsting for 
the blood of the French, and the Euglishry of 
Ireland impatient to trample down the Irish. 
The ranks of the refugees had been effectually 
purged of spies and traitors, and were made 
up of men such as had contended in the pre- 
ceding century against the power of the house 
of Yalois and the genius of the house of Lor- 
raine. All the boldest spirits of the uncon- 
querable colony had repaired to William's camp. 
Mitchelburne was there with the stubborn de- 
fenders of Londonderry, and Wolsely with the 
warriors who had raised the shout of " Ad- 
vance " on the day of Newton Butler. Sir 
Albert Conyngham, the ancestor of the noble 
family whose seat overlooks the Boyne, had 
brought from the neighborhood of Lough Erne 
a gallant regiment of dragoons, which still 
glories in the name of Enniskillen, and which 
has proved on the shores of the Euxine that it 
has not degenerated since the day of the 
Boyne. "
A great dramatic, if perhaps slightly opinionated, description of the opposing forces at the Boyne, from "Battle of the Boyne," no author given. Interesting to see the myth of a Finnish regiment repeated, and the description of the 5th Regiment as Colonel Cutt's, whereas I'm pretty sure it was Edward Lloyd's
Thursday, 26 November 2009
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