What made them any better than other mercs?
Hardy and resourceful, came from a culture were they would have been fighting since children, badass Celtic warriors, why would you not want to hire that?
>>891449
I wonder how bizarre they must have looked to continental Europeans
>>891449
Mercenaries were in demand. Case closed.
>>891450
>Hardy and resourceful, came from a culture were they would have been fighting since children, badass Celtic warriors, why would you not want to hire that?
Muh heritage: the post.
>>891449
>What made them any better than other mercs?
contemporary sources I saw said generic meme shit. Hardy due to poverty, fierce due to barbarism, etc. The real reason might hqve been that they were veterans of rebellions who were wanted by the crown and had no choice but to fight, nothing to lose etc.
>>891496
Muh heritage post: Is actually accurate. Irish and Scots were hardy bad assess whilst the soldiers and mercs on the mainland were faggots more concerned with extravagant fashion than fighting.
>>891449
Often the best cannon fodder came from ethnic groups that were systematically crushed by the empire, then groomed as cannon fodder, where their desperation made them easy marks for flattery for “bravery” in the service of the empire that had destroyed their people. The Prussian Army recruited heavily among the Poles, Belarussians, Lithuanians and other Slavic groups. Slavs were excluded from Prussian institutions, which worked out very nicely, guaranteeing recruiters a steady supply of men of military age with no other option. And if they didn’t speak German, they could be taught by the rod.
That’s the horrible logic of recruiting the lowest of the low: The worse their lives become, the easier it is to sign them up as cannon fodder. If you look into the history of the most famous, illustrious military units, you find their origin in a minority ethnic group that’s been brutalized, walled off from the civilian economy, and then offered a chance to take the king’s shilling. Since European armies loved elaborate uniforms, these units would be “honored” with headgear or some other ethnic marker. And sure enough, whip-sawed by desperation and flattery, these units performed heroically, generating more flattery and a tradition of joining up, making the recruiter’s job even easier.
Which is why certain highly-decorated British regiments wear kilts. The Highland Scots, now extinct, scared the life out of Britain in 1745 by wading through better-equipped regular-army units staffed by English soldiers at Prestonpans. The Highlanders weren’t cute, quaint, or beloved in the minds of the London elite, when they heard how the Scots had charged out of the fog, swinging huge broadswords and screaming in Gaelic. The Highlanders were alien monsters—and Papists to boot, the worst crime of all in 18th-c. Britain.
>>891548
After the inevitable defeat of the small, disorganized, half-armed Scottish invaders, the Empire pursued a classic two-phase plan. First, the extinction of the Highland Scots’ culture. The Earl of Cumberland, in charge of this phase, issued a classic “No prisoners!” order covering all Gaelic-speaking men of military age, armed or not. Anything associated with the rebel ethnic group was banned. Wearing tartan and playing the bagpipes were capital offenses in Scotland in 1746.
So how did it happen that this brutalized ethnic minority ended up marching in the Empire’s parades, decked out in tartan, with the pipes blaring, all through Victoria’s long century? That was phase two, and it worked very well, as it usually does. Once the insurgent ethnic group has been destroyed, it can be made quaint. Its markers—tartan, the pipes—can be used to flatter young Highland men into taking the king’s shilling. And best of all, the utter devastation of their homeland gives them no other options. And that’s always been the bottom line for getting good-quality cannon fodder: Make sure they have no other options.
You’ll find that grim sequence behind every military unit recruited from a crushed ethnic group.
Americans, fixated on skin color as a “racial” marker, tend to understand what the empires did (and do) to non-European groups like the Sikhs but miss how the technique—crush’em, then recruit’em and flatter’en—worked on other “white” European minorities just as well. “Race” in Europe never meant skin color. In fact, some of the targeted groups, like the Highland Scots, products of centuries without sun, were whiter than white, downright phosphorescent. That didn’t make the Empire any more squeamish about crushing and then recruiting them.
>>891550
A century later, the same Empire used the same technique to crush and recruit another rich vein of cannon fodder from another pale, Gaelic-speaking group of desperate paupers: The Irish peasantry.
In the mid-19th century, Ireland was systematically depopulated by artificial famine, emigration, and epidemics, eliminating another despised and feared source of Papist insurgencies. Once that group was thoroughly destroyed, survivors were recruited by the Empire, using the same old techniques: denial of any alternative to military service and sentimental flattery for the alleged bravery and “fighting spirit” of the despised group. It’s a sad joke to think of all the Midwestern Notre Dame fans cheering “The Fighting Irish,” with no clue that the whole concept of Irish military prowess was a recruiting gimmick by an Empire always hungry for cannon fodder.
The Irish have only one real claim to distinction in military history: Michael Collins and his perfection of the strategy of urban-guerrilla war. And that, of course, has nothing to do with all the “fighting Irish” nonsense. Collins trained his “flying squads” to shoot their targets with no chivalry whatsoever—while they were sleeping, if possible, and from behind by preference, on a crowded Dublin sidewalk with a good alley to slip into once the target was down.
>>891553
It was the Empire that cranked out songs and poems praising the "Fighting Irish," most intensely during the Great War, when the German machine guns created non-stop opportunities for entry-level cannon fodder. All those kooky songs like "It’s A Long Way to Tipperary"? Recruiting songs, wartime flattery for a despised ethnic minority. "...Tipperary" begins with one of the old jokes about a dumb mick:
Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly-O,
Saying "If you don’t receive it, write and let me know..."
The recruiting songs aimed at Paddy often featured the traditional slurs, before adding flattering. Empire welcomed the survivors into its army with the legend of the “fighting Irish” like the one that concedes that Paddy is “foolish and very often wrong,” before buttering up his martial valor by concluding that, whatever else is wrong with Paddy, he’s brave: “there never was a coward where the shamrock grows.”
[...]
He doesn't mention the 16th-17th century Irish but I imagine the same factors that made Celtics good recruits applied to them as well.
>>891449
They worked for potatoes.
Gaelic clothing reminds me a bit of kimonos
dem sleeves
>>891550
>>891553
>>891558
I don't think it's fair to paint the Empire as looking for cannon fodder. Especially prior to industrialized warfare, cannon fodder is counter-productive. If I'm campaigning in Northern Italy in 1635, I need to preserve my forces as much as possible because famine/disease/hunger/exposure/etc. are already causing my numbers to dwindle. Making that even worse by feeding bodies into a meatgrinder is against my interest. Yes, recruiters will do all sorts of things to get people under arms and the nation they work for will do all sorts of things to placate and assimilate minority groups but you make it seem like it was just to get them killed.
Also, not all elite units are born out of oppressed minority groups. Swiss mercenaries are a good example, as is the German soldier trade of the 18th century, as is the early Roman army. Sometimes people are good at warfare because they're well-trained, motivated, and patriotic. In addition, frequently the oppressed and poverty-stricken ethnic groups make some of the worst soldiers. The Austro-Hungarian army relied heavily on that type of soldier and they performed really, really poorly.
>>891558
great read. thanks
>>891548
>>891550
>>891553
>>891558
>>891550
That's cool but it doesn't apply to Ireland in the 16/17th centuries. The Irish mostly served in continental armies and the English encouraged this to lessen the chance for rebellion. This changed in 1745 when serving in foreign armies became illegal, after this the Irish began to make up large parts of the British army. Wellington's army at waterloo was like 1/3 Irish IIRC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA6kthE9vSU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6ryTqvvtQI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJIr6bPedLM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXL5Mr8OeEA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMDLD-wzss8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcLjdSdvnoM
they were cheap.
exceptionally cheap.
Poorly educated, not conversant in local languages, so therefore harder to bribe to turn. Happy to be paid shit even by the standards of mercenaries, because they had shit equipment.
>>891535
>this
>>891449
Ive heard many people say this but I haven't found them in continental warfare during the 15th and 16th century. They got absolutely shrekt at Stoke's field.
>>891625
Nigger if you're going to post music post relevant shit.
Some Irish war marches from the 16th century
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p6zx1lDVoU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtOjce6AVf4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvDtHbPcsXU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owF60WWWrks
There's so much muh heritage in the comments kek.
>>891629
That is not true at all Gallowglasses and Kern mercs would have been well educated by the standards of the time, most of them would have been from noble families. They weren't cheap.
>>891449
You could pay them in whisky instead of real money.
What is the difference between gallowglass and kern?
>>891962
Gallowglasses were professional soldiers, kerns were just militia
>>892039
I should add that Gallowglasses were originally Norse-Gael mercenaries from the western Isles, but they gradually became the standing armies of lords. Kerns were levied.
>>891449
Because you could hire them for the price of pint.
>>891962
Kerns (right) were lightly armored if they were armored at all and generally occupied a skirmisher/light infantry role, usually armed with a spear, some javelins, and muskets later on
Gallowglasses (left) were heavily armored shock troops usually armed with an axe, a two handed sword, or in some depictions a bow, though the Irish were never especially big on archery
as
>>892039
>>892063
says at the beginning Gallowglasses were generally mercenaries but this changed over time
>>891623
Don't forget that there were many Irishmen in Napoleon's army as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Legion
The Irish Legion was the only foreign legion to be awarded an Eagle.
>>891629
That's wrong. Most Irish mercenaries in that period were nobles who spoke Latin or French, though probably not English.
>>894581
English only really became a common spoken language in Ireland after the Famine.
>>891623
>That's cool
no its not it's bullshit
>>891667
>>891449
what are these pics from?
>>895579
i think op might bring durer
>>891608
Don't bother, he thinks hes stumbled onto some great theory of history here, let him soak up his ego.
>>891449
>lmao those feet
fucking potato niggers
I think it was largely two factors -
1. Poverty: the Irish (and lesser extent the Scottish) were willing to take someone else's coin and fight for them, it was also cheaper to hire the average poor faggot from Ireland
2. Experience: the Gaelic Irish were actually incredibly modern in their tactics and equipment, they implemented new developments from the continent rather quickly. It was easier to hire an already trained, already-experience rebel than to build a new soldier from scratch.
>>895579
>Galloglaidh
Galloglaigh is multiple. Galloglach is singular.
>>891449
Only needed to be paid in tatters instead of gold
