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CHAPTER 1

Construction and Consolidation of the Curragh Camp

Construction

In March 1854, Britain and France declared war on Russia in a bid to prevent the Russian state from expanding southwards and gaining control of the Black Sea. The Curragh Camp owes its existence to this outbreak of hostilities in the Crimea. In early 1855, General Sir John F. Burgoyne, Inspector General of Fortifications, issued instructions that a camp for 10,000 infantry be built on the Curragh of Kildare as a temporary emergency measure to enable a greater number of troops to be trained for action in the Crimea. The planning, layout and overseeing of construction were entrusted to Lieutenant Colonel H.W. Lugard, Royal Engineers. Making use of the elevated expanse running the two-mile length of Long Hill, the camp’s layout was to run east to west, fronting to the north. The south’s sunnier expanse was to be forfeited in favour of the vista to the north, the racecourse and the manoeuvre plain. The camp plans could only be realized, however, if Lugard could satisfy one of life’s essentials, a plentiful supply of water.

The Curragh Camp, looking west, circa turn of the twentieth century (courtesy of the National Library of Ireland).

The River Liffey, two miles distant, provided one possible solution. Plans to raise and filter water into a large reservoir above the height of the camp from which a flow could be run into thirteen 10,000-gallon tanks were considered. However, in the end, a deep shaft was sunk to a depth of fifty-four feet in a natural hollow in the northern vicinity of the proposed camp site by Messrs A. and G. Holme, and an inexhaustible supply was sourced from the Curragh aquifer below at a rate of about 200,000 gallons a day. With the supply of water assured, detailed planning could begin.

A precisely designed grid system was to dominate the overall layout of the camp, with a series of ten squares containing hutments for 1,000 men each in ten distinct barracks. Officers’ houses and offices were arranged according to precise measurements across the top of each barracks, with the rows of soldiers’ huts and buildings for storage across the bottom. All the buildings were to be made of American white fir timber for the sake of speed and cost, but this decision also reflected the fact that the camp was initially intended to be temporary.

Two contracting firms were engaged: Messrs Courtney and Stephens, Blackhall Place, Dublin, to build the huts for the non-commissioned officers and men, together with the stables, and Messrs A. and G. Holme, Liverpool, to build the officers’ quarters, messes and offices. A total of around 2,000 workers were employed by the two firms. Construction began on 18 March 1855. Broken into multiple teams, each team’s daily task was the construction of a single billet hut in which they would sleep that night. The following morning, military personnel, who had been accommodated in tents, would move into the hut, and so began construction on each new day. In this manner, accommodation for 5,000 troops was completed in four months, by 9 July 1855. The local economy benefited considerably from this brisk building schedule through the provision of goods and services in addition to the boost it received from local employment within the general labour force.

The Curragh Camp was to incorporate new features to improve the health and welfare of its occupants, prompted, no doubt, by public dissatisfaction at the time with the appalling conditions that soldiers were enduring in the Crimean War. For the first time, journalists on the ground were providing uncensored reports on these conditions. The best known of these journalists was Irishman William Howard Russell of The Times, who revealed that the hardships and suffering of the troops were due to a mixture of supply shortages, poor equipment, inadequate medical facilities and tactical folly. The impact of Russell’s reports was heightened by their immediacy, with telegraph being used to dramatically decrease reportage times. Much public criticism was quickly aroused, leading to demands for inquiries and official reports, the outcomes of which were beginning to come on stream as Lugard was in the process of laying out his camp. While remaining rudimentary, transitory and predominantly functional in nature, the camp’s design was, nonetheless, forward-looking and modern for its time. Provision was made for churches, both Catholic and Anglican, a school, post office and reading and recreation rooms, while the squares included married soldiers’ huts, washrooms, women’s privies and sanitation measures for toilets and drainage.

The Curragh Camp circa turn of the twentieth century (courtesy of the National Library of Ireland).

As knowledge and dissatisfaction about the distress of the soldiers in the Crimea grew, they also gave rise to the beginnings of the Nursing Corps, with ‘The Lady of the Lamp’, Florence Nightingale, and her nurses being allowed to render caring interventions at the front to sick and wounded soldiers. Illness and disease were killing more soldiers than the Russian Army, and many soldiers died of preventable infections to their wounds.

A little known fact is that there was a second group of nurses that was equally, if not more, effective – the fifteen members of the Irish Sisters of Mercy Order under the direction of Mother Mary Francis Bridgeman, Mother Superior of the Convent of Mercy, Kinsale, Co Cork. She and Florence Nightingale did not enjoy a good relationship, differing over issues of control and responsibility and approaches to nursing care and methodology. They agreed to work in separate locations, Florence Nightingale in Scutari, Mother Bridgeman in Koulali and later at Balaclava. There has been little awareness of their contribution until recently because of the unobtrusive manner and quiet zeal with which they went about their duties; they believed it unbecoming to circulate publicity about themselves. At the time they received no formal recognition for their participation, and upon return to Ireland they quickly re-engaged with the many demands made on them. Individual diaries have survived and their experiences have come to light. What set them apart from the beginning from Florence Nightingale was that the sisters considered it necessary to offer care not only to those suffering from battle wounds, but also those suffering from disease, diarrhoea and deadly fevers. Three quarters of those who perished died from illness, not injury. The sisters had a very definite, and different, view of what constituted nursing care, and it included ‘night duty’ or the ‘watching’ of patients overnight, administration of medicines, stimulants and food. This careful nursing also involved the cooking of ‘extras’ or special diets. Their approach was firmly rooted in their experience of disease gained during the cholera epidemic in Ireland in 1832 and of two decades of caring for the sick poor. Frostbite was another condition frequently encountered by the troops, and whenever cholera abated, typhus often took its place. Two nurses had to be sent home due to illness and two died from a malignant type of fever. Mother Bridgeman and her nursing sisters were well suited to nursing in military hospitals by virtue of their vows, class and morality and it is interesting that, while the Curragh Camp, which was to become such a military landmark in Ireland, was under construction, the Irish Sisters of Mercy were making such an impact on this most human aspect of war.

The Crimean campaign is perhaps best remembered for an event that became immortalized in a famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. During the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 the infamous ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ saw the 17th Lancers, the 4th and 13th Light Dragoons and the 8th and 11th Hussars mistakenly and ill-advisedly charge the wrong hill-top Russian gun positions. It was an example, as good as any in military history, of men’s blind obedience to orders – orders, as it turned out, that were likely to have been misinterpreted – and the tragic consequences that ensued graphically illustrate the horror and futility of war. Although the Light Brigade was decimated, during the twenty-five minute, half a mile charge, the gallantry and courage of the British cavalry as poetically conveyed in Tennyson’s poem caught the public’s imagination. Of its 673 horsemen, 114 were Irish. The 17th Lancers, who were in the front rank during the charge, were known for their lavish uniforms, skull and crossbones badge and distinctive square-topped ‘schapka’ hats of Polish origin. Their regimental mascot, a terrier dog named ‘Jemmy’, had followed the charge and survived. After the battle the Lancers voyaged to Ireland where a warm welcome awaited them in Cobh, Cork and Clonmel. In time they came to the Curragh where ‘Jemmy’ was to be seen roaming about the camp in their company. Of 111,000 men who fought in the British Crimean army over 37,000, or an estimated 40 per cent, were Irish. Of these, 7,000 were killed.

After the initial landing of the allied armies on the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian forces in the area withdrew into the city of Sevastopol, which was then placed under what would prove to be a long, drawn-out siege. Not supplied with clothing to withstand harsh weather, since those planning the campaign had not expected it to last long, the allied soldiers endured much hardship during the winter of 1854. Following a number of unsuccessful attempts by the Russians to lift the siege, the allies managed, on 8 September 1855, to capture the Malakoff fortress, and three days later the Russians evacuated the city. The fall of Sevastopol was celebrated as a major victory for the allied forces, and on 30 March 1856 the war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. When the British departed from the Crimea they brought with them, as campaign trophies, a number of Russian military pieces; one of these, a twenty-four-pounder naval gun from Sevastopol, is to be seen in the Curragh today, having formerly been on display in Naas Barracks.

With the cessation of the Crimean conflict, the majority of the militia was dispensed with, and as the very purpose that the camp had been created for no longer existed, its future lay for a while in the balance. In any event, Lieutenant Colonel Lugard did not see his project through to the end as he was sent to the Far East, where he was attached to the Chinese Expedition. Before leaving, he requested that Captain G. W. Leach, Royal Engineers, oversee its completion. Colonel Lugard was to die in Hong Kong in 1857 but beforehand he wrote a record of the building of the camp along with his recommendations, thus providing a blueprint should there ever be such a requirement again. He entitled it, ‘Narrative of operations in the arrangement and formation of a camp for 10,000 infantry in the Curragh of Kildare’.

The camp was completed under the direction of Leach as per Lugard’s directions and its construction was the cause of immense change in the Curragh and its surroundings. It affected the physical environment of the historic plain hugely, and locally there were positive trade and recreational implications.

After forty years of relative peace, war in the Crimea had made demands of the British army to a degree far and above the martial requirements involved in the many ‘little wars’ around its colonies, mostly characterized by the quelling of unrest amongst primitive native peoples. In the wake of Wellington’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Europe enjoyed a prolonged period of peace. With much of the British army stationed abroad, collective tactical training witnessed little change or innovation. Indeed, there existed little need for European armies to modernize; success had set the standard, and training for conventional battle on a large scale was measured against an out-dated benchmark belonging to the Napoleonic era. Consequently, the campaign in the Crimean War had been misjudged and utterly mismanaged; incompetent leadership, inferior equipment, inadequate administration and overall organizational disarray were ill-matched when taking on a foe like the Russians. The consequences were 18,000 British dead, mostly from disease, unnecessary hardship and want, and much money wasted, with the Exchequer £41 million worse off.

In some respects the Crimean War, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 30 March 1856, and the Indian Mutiny shortly afterwards, confirmed the utility of existing drills – basic as they were – disciplines and tactics, but overall there were significant and sharp lessons learned. Reforms were needed even in the area of training and such changes required an associated infrastructure. The future of the Curragh Camp, as a camp of instruction for all-arms training (cavalry, infantry and artillery combined), similar to Aldershot in particular but also Shorncliffe and Colchester, was copper-fastened and changes proceeded accordingly. A bill dated 13 March 1861 details spending of £192, 821 14s 2d on huts, roads and ranges.

Training in the ‘Art of War’

‘Range, one hundred paces, at your targets in front, in your own time, fire.’ The recruit class firing detail in the lying position, on receiving the order, immediately cocked their weapons, pulled the safety catch to ‘off’ and took careful aim. With the butts of their rifles nestled firmly into their shoulders, their open eye aligned the rear sight with the tip of the foresight and onto the four-inch patch in the centre of the target. They concentrated hard on getting their breathing right, keeping a firm grip on the weapon but without being too tense. The many hours of instruction over, the necessary elementary training successfully passed, this was it – the time for live fire to be put into effect. Live rounds were about to leave the barrels of their weapons. The sensation of actually firing a rifle for real, which many of the recruits would have wondered about, was about to be realized – the synchronized union between weapon and handler, making the rifle operate as it was designed to, attempting to ensure that the shot met its intended target, had but one purpose: to kill or to wound.

The need to train necessarily involved instruction in the use of military equipment. As the principal tool of the soldier’s trade, the rifle had seen significant innovation over the decades and centuries, from the likes of the muzzle-loaded ‘Brown Bess’ and Minié, the breech-loaded Martini-Henry to the magazine-fed .303 Lee Enfield and on to the automatic FN and Steyr rifles. All had been or were to be fired and tested on the Curragh’s rifle ranges on the south-eastern exterior of the camp. The existence of the ranges had long caused a certain strain in relations with the local residents who were worried that the shooting put their lives in danger. Eventually, in the late nineteenth century, the introduction of rifles with increased power required the necessary temporary closure, during firing practices, of the road from Ballysax to Donnelly’s Hollow.

For the first-time firer, whatever the type of weapon held in his or her grip, the priority was to master the situation, to hold one’s nerve, to rely on the training received and one’s self-belief as one squeezed the rifle’s trigger. Once fired, a milestone on the journey from civilian to soldier was reached. There were many other milestones to be passed on that journey, of course, but the overarching requirement was the subordinating of one’s individuality and freedom of choice to obeying orders, to becoming part of a team, a unit in a chain of command, where unerring conformity was demanded. It is the creation of this cohesiveness through training that is at the essence of the story of the Curragh Camp.

The nature of military training has evolved over the centuries, led in most cases by the need to understand how new technology can be best employed to win battles. The advent of gunpowder was probably the most significant development, demanding a complete rethinking of tactics and strategy. Fire-power was the most decisive factor on the battlefield, and whoever brought the most of it to bear invariably won. More precisely, it was the effect that massed, well-packed lines of infantry produced by steadily delivering a constant out-pouring of volley fire that mattered. In short, it was its ‘stopping power’ that was important. Fighting formation brought fire-power to bear. The singular soldier, a trained man with his muzzle-loaded, smooth-bore flintlock ‘Brown Bess’ musket, was virtually useless alone, but with others he could be highly effective. The rate of fire, range and accuracy determined the musket’s effect. These were slow, short and inaccurate, respectively. Combined, continuously discharged volumes of volley fire in groups, however, could be harnessed to deadly effect, especially if fire was held until the enemy had closed to within fifty yards or less.

To achieve the effective use of all available muskets, or the greater part thereof, a defensive formation appropriate to the circumstances combined with steadiness in the ranks was key. Individual mastery of weapon handling was crucial and it was here that the highly trained British soldier had earned a reputation for a steady, well-practised proficiency. The ‘Brown Bess’ had a barrel length of 39 inches, a total length of 55 inches (1,400mm) and weighed 9.5 pounds (4.3kg) unloaded. A long rifle enabled the muzzles of the second rank of soldiers to project beyond the heads of the men in front, thereby being sufficiently long when fitted with a bayonet to be effective against cavalry. To achieve a high rate of fire, three rounds per minute, without wavering, the soldier had to be highly trained, well drilled and disciplined. The ‘Brown Bess’ or ‘Indian Pattern’, being a muzzle-loaded weapon, required the soldier to stand up to reload and since it was a flintlock, the mechanics of firing were somewhat involved. Suffice to say that loading, aiming and firing was a complicated process, requiring twenty individual movements to fire each round. The overall objective was to achieve three rounds per minute or twenty seconds per round, thus allowing one second per movement. It took a steady nerve to keep firing in the face of an approaching enemy or a line of men changing formation less than 100 metres away, ready to open fire. Reliable infantry in separate entities of a cohesive whole were trained to fire at the same moment, or to provide a continuous running volley, the entire formation delivering their murderous execution by maintaining a steadiness in the ranks and a consistency in volume. To achieve this effect in battle, well-trained infantry needed to be well led.

Prior to the Cardwell Reforms, officers in the British army received their commissions by purchase, while advancement was secured by payment, seniority or patronage. A vacancy had to exist and he who sought it had to have money to buy it. Merit or talent had little bearing on the matter. The sons of landed gentry provided their fair share of officers to the army and navy, and these ‘gentlemen’ were literate, could ride and shoot and possessed a naturally authoritative air and an innate sense of fairness. So the system worked. The aristocracy, contrary to popular belief, was by no means all-pervasive among the officer ranks; sons of professionals, ‘gentlemen in trade’, smaller landowners and farmers along with sons of serving or retired officers all rose to officer ranks. Land, wealth and education were the all-important factors but, above all, the ability to read and write proved the great social divider.

To position the firepower of the fighting formation to best effect required movement and ‘manoeuvrings’. Troops had to be drilled into the adoption of such concentrated formations. The sight and sound of soldiers marching in unison is mesmerizing, perhaps above all because of the evident absence of anxiety, replaced ironically by an almost casual concentration that only comes from perhaps hundreds of hours of repeated drilling on barrack squares.

Forming lines from close column, retreating in line only to then advance 100 paces, going from hollow squares into line again, this time four ranks deep instead of two – these and more were all sequences intended to encompass much of what would be required on the battlefield, the fundamental order of infantry, a uniform system of manoeuvre. They had been written up in a manual in 1788 by ‘Old Pivot’, General Sir David Dundas, when stationed in Dublin. Known as Dundas’s Principles of Military Movement, this manual became mandatory when an amended version was officially issued four years later in June 1792 as Rules and Regulations for the Movement of his Majesty’s Infantry by the Adjutant General, William Fawcett. This unified system of drill formed the basis of British infantry tactics in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–14) at Waterloo and even later during the Crimean War so it is safe to say that the Curragh Camp would have seen its fair share of drills and manoeuvres along these lines. The ‘Brown Bess’ musket was replaced by the newly designed Enfield Pattern rifle-musket in 1853 and this was the firearm which saw service in the Crimea from February 1855. More than a half million of them were produced over the following fourteen years. Rifle-barrelled and muzzle-loaded, its range and accuracy was a big improvement on the ‘Brown Bess’. The same length as the weapon it replaced and with seventeen inches of a stabbing blade fixed to a musket, it could stop a horse dead in its tracks, even one advancing at pace. Singularly, even collectively, troops in line were fatally vulnerable to cavalry assault. A viable defence against a cavalry charge, however, was to form a four-deep hollow square facing outwards. The front two of this four-deep rank formation would kneel with their muskets sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees, the tip of their bayonets held at horse-chest height. Psychologically, horses would not advance on this barricade of bayonets. If those forming the four faces of the square maintained their nerve, this barrier of bayonets could indefinitely deter attacking cavalry. This defence was, of course, complemented by the two rear-standing ranks firing for effect over the heads of those kneeling. Heavy cavalry attacking at pace was a formidable and hugely frightening prospect. The natural survival instinct of those within was to break ranks and run for cover. However, by its simple yet clever design, a tightly-packed, four-sided square provided a mutually supporting formation where each man covered the back of his comrades. This interdependence allied to discipline and leadership were critical to the integrity of such a formation and survival of those within it. A battalion formation of eight companies or more formed a square. Inside the hollow square, or rectangle, were the regimental colours, the rally-point around which the square was formed. Gaps appearing in the square as a result of casualties were filled immediately to prevent the enemy cavalry probing this vulnerability. The wounded were also pulled into the inner space and, if possible, were assisted before being taken to the rear for medical aid, such as it was. Often this function in the square was performed by the battalion’s musicians.

Fire-power was, of course, also provided by artillery. The Royal Engineers and the Royal Artillery trained their officers before giving them commissions, and only then on passing their exams. A rigid adherence to seniority meant promotion was slow and would have been more so had it not expanded threefold between 1791 and 1814. A close-knit group and largely centred in Woolwich, the Royal Artillery shared a strong, proud ethos and it was a family affair. Many of these men were the sons of gunner officers and there was much inter-marriage with sisters and daughters of fellow gunner officers. Their purpose, however, was far from social. To inflict death, disorientation and disorganization was the aim of artillery. Used effectively, it could support or defend against cavalry and infantry attack. Artillery pieces themselves were of two types, both fixed line-of-sight, fired directly at the enemy by cannons guns or lobbed in an arched trajectory by howitzers which had a shorter barrel. A British battery normally had five cannon guns and one howitzer. Round shot, shell and canister were employed by most of the European armies of the post-Napoleonic era. Shot, a solid iron ball – six, nine or twelve pounders – could travel 1,200 yards and bounce further on dry ground. Shell, a hollow iron sphere filled with explosive was detonated by means of a fuse cut to length, which was lit before it was fired. The fuses, however, were frequently inaccurate and prone to blowing out. Canister was a cylindrical tin case filled with small iron balls that scattered immediately on leaving the cannon’s muzzle in a short-range, shot-gun-like effect; it was hugely detrimental to closely packed infantry columns. Secret to the British artillery was a projectile called shrapnel, a mixture of canister and shell, an iron sphere filled with small balls and pre-set fuses that allowed air-bursts to target enemy in cover behind hills.

Cavalry were designated as ‘heavy’ and ‘light’, called dragoons and hussars respectively, depending on the role they were designated to undertake. Heavy cavalry was used primarily for ‘set-piece’ charges, for the injection of shock and collision in the attack to give momentum and gain the initiative when closing in on infantry. The role of light cavalry was raiding, reconnaissance and rendering advance posts to protect against surprise as well as sending out patrols. Since Waterloo the British had adopted a third cavalry designation: lancers. Their eleven-foot-long lances allowed them to spear opponents and present a fearsome sight, especially terrifying to the inexperienced. In relation to their employment against infantry, if even a few of the enemy kneeling ranks could be successfully speared, the lances could be dropped and the lancers would press in upon the enemy with sabres over the wounded men.

These, then, were the assets of infantry, artillery and cavalry, the elements with which to do battle. It was the combined use of this panoply of ‘moving parts’ and the effects they could create at crucial times that was the ‘art of war’, an art perfected by practice, and the Curragh plain provided an excellent environment for such practice.

The most common ploy in dealing with the enemy was first to pound them with artillery or harass them with light infantry or ‘skirmishers’ whose task was to cause disruption by sniping at officers, at colour parties or other ‘opportunity targets’, attempting to goad them to fire their first fuselage before advancing the more formally organized infantry columns. Having marched forward to within 100 yards or so, these columns would form into a line and begin to pour fire into the enemy who, if their ranks had not already wavered, would be assaulted with bayonets and their position overrun. The advancing infantry would be accompanied by cavalry and horse artillery support, the latter periodically deploying quickly to give artillery support fire. Such an attack was all about firepower, momentum and timing, more precisely its accurate co-ordination at critical moments. Effectively executed, it was near to impossible to defend against. However, if the defender could upset the sequencing of this execution, particularly with the defending troops remaining steady and delivering a consistent firepower, allowing the artillery to use the devastatingly lethal canister on the advancing cavalry, then they could send into the ensuing disorganization cavalry of their own, thus catching the attacking infantry while still in closed ranks. This kind of counter-charge could change the outcome. It was all to play for in the midst of the melee where control, courage and clear-headedness counted. The side which applied its plan best, won.

It is the primary role of any army at any age to train. Wars interrupted such training. When not actually fighting, armies prepare for war, and training in the aftermath of the Crimean War continued apace on the Curragh, having changed to encompass the effect of the increased range, accuracy and lethality of the newly introduced Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle musket. The aim was a cohesive effect from all arms (infantry, artillery and cavalry) and it was training at the Curragh plains that helped the British army to achieve this.

Consolidation

In March 1857, just a year after the end of the Crimean War, Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, who was general commander-in-chief of the army issued a dictum that the encampments at Aldershot and the Curragh were to be the principal summer (April to September) training grounds for the regular and reserve armies in England and Ireland. The Curragh, the largest military station in Ireland, became the training ground for the battlefields of wars and military operations conducted by the British during the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century; most of these were colonial in nature and included the Indian Mutiny, the First Afghan War (1878), the Zululand War (1879), the Egyptian Campaign (1882) and the Boer War (1889–1902).

Now ordained as a permanent camp of instruction, the economic and social links between the camp dwellers and their civilian neighbours were maintained and set to strengthen. Each year thereafter the lives of the local people and the economies of the surrounding towns, villages and farmsteads became increasingly intertwined with the camp, either on a business basis, through employment or recruitment, or on social terms. Every year a great number of regiments from the home stations in Ireland arrived at the Curragh for training, while the camp’s permanent garrisons developed the new training establishment into a self-sufficient community, but one that maintained a strong relationship with the townspeople of Newbridge, Kildare and Kilcullen and with its neighbours at Brownstown, Maddenstown and Ballysax on the fringe of the Curragh plain.

The age-old practice of combining fire and manoeuvre needed new impetus. New capabilities with developing weaponry required new tactics that would both maximize and mitigate against their effects. Large numbers of British units required collective combined training as part of larger formations. Training for conventional war-fighting, combining cavalry, infantry and artillery, received a new focus, and the Curragh, with its large plain and a camp that could accommodate large numbers of troops, proved to be the place for this. The summer months, with their better weather and longer days, became known as the ‘drill season’. When the camp could not accommodate the numbers involved, the plains played host to tented villages, the excess numbers living ‘under canvas’ for the duration of the season.

The camp itself also saw regular changes in personnel. The policy of the War Office was that, in principle, regiments should change stations after a year, but that cavalry units could remain longer. The intention was to prevent undue fraternization which might lead to unions between the men and local women. Although the official policy was not always strictly adhered to and many regiments stayed for longer periods or returned again to a particular station, the nature of military service ensured that there was a constant rotation of men and their families. The excitement generated by the arrival or departure of troops, often from or to exotic stations throughout the empire, and the regular weekly financial stimulus of the soldiers’ pay-packets into the shops and public houses combined to create the special atmosphere of a garrison location and led to the formation of a less inward-looking resident community. If other ranks sometimes found companionship locally – the non-commissioned officers with the tradesmen and contractors with whom they had contact, and the troops with their counterparts in the general population – the officers were automatically welcomed by the landed gentry whose activities they came to share. The highly stratified military society was reflected in life beyond the camp boundaries and social interaction flourished accordingly.

In times of war, the expansion of forces would bring monetary gain to the locality. Not only ‘war finances’ but ‘war fever’ gripped the civilians as they waved the soldiers off to battle, mourned the dead or celebrated returning heroes. Their lives became interwoven monetarily, socially, emotionally and politically with those of the troops, underlining the extent to which the county came to depend on the military presence, something that was reflected in the reaction of the local people to the fortunes of the soldiers during times of war.

The impact on the surrounding area of a permanent camp, and the consequent military manoeuvres, weapons’ practice and the huge and rapid growth during ‘drill season’ from April to September, raised a number of issues that needed to be addressed. The loss of a great amount of grazing for sheep, for instance, as well as rights of way for residents and the traditions of the Turf Club and the racing fraternity, had all to be balanced against the needs and interests of the army. It was also necessary to ensure that none of the Curragh’s users damaged the grass surface of the plain irretrievably through practise cavalry charges, movements of artillery such as gun carriages and heavy usage by infantry troops. In May 1866, a Bill to make better provision for the management and use of the Curragh was circulated in the House of Commons. Before its second reading, the Board of Treasury announced that the government intended to appoint a commission to inquire into the question on the spot, with a view to introducing legislation for the following session. On 14 September 1866 the Curragh Commission, as it was called, sat at Newbridge Courthouse and, over eight days, heard evidence from the interested parties, including land owners and local residents. Lord Strathnairn was to the fore amongst the military representatives, while the Turf Club, County Grand Jury and Naas Board of Guardians all had an input.

The findings of the Commission determined that the area should come under the control of the War Department and the making of bye-laws should be authorized (promulgated in 1868); the Turf Club’s status was confirmed and all rights of common pasture, rights of way and other rights were guaranteed to continue as before. Some 400 claims on the Curragh plains were considered in January 1869 by three commissioners convened at Newbridge; six months later, just over 50 per cent of these applicants had their rights affirmed with awards, and an act to confirm these was effected in 1870.

During the same year (1866) as the Curragh Commission was in session in Newbridge Courthouse, on the Curragh plains the Countess of Kimberley presented new colours to the 1st Battalion 24th Regiment of Foot (2nd Warwickshire’s) who were stationed in the camp at that time. Thirteen years later on the 22 January 1879 many of the battalion members present at the presentation were wiped out by a massive Zulu warrior onslaught at the infamous Battle of Isandlwana (Anglo-Zulu War, 1879) in what was one of the British army’s most devastating defeats of the Victorian era. The colours themselves were bravely taken from the field by Lieutenants Teignmouth Melville and Neville Coghill, the latter from Castletownsend, Co. Cork. Neither survived the incident but both were later posthumously awarded the VC. Later that day the dramatic defence at Rorke’s Drift, a tiny hastily fortified supply station, occurred. Irishmen were prominent, amongst those who successfully conducted a stirringly epic and heroic action against overwhelming odds. A victory that is remembered as one among the most famous soldierly last stands in military history. Disciplined courage, steadfastness and soldierly skills learned on training grounds like the Curragh plains and barrack squares like those in the Curragh Camp contributed significantly to this outcome.