Formed in 1755 as The
Artillery Company of Ireland, it soon became The Royal Irish Artillery.
They were recruited in Ireland and trained in Dublin Castle or in Woolich,
England. Some units were sent to Canada with General Burgoyne for his attack
down the Champlain Valley. Royal Irish Artillery buttons were dug up at
the Winter Hill Prison Site in Somerville, Massachusetts where the Convention
Army was held before being sent south. Other units came out of Halifax,
Nova Scotia when the Regulars took Castine, Maine in 1779. R.I.A. buttons
have been dug up on the site of Fort George at Castine. Still other gunners
were shipped directly to New York under General Pattison. Pattison’s papers were reprinted
by the New York State Historical Society for 1876, which is a wonderful
source of information on this subject. Pattison, being head of the British
Artillery in North America during part of the American Rebellion, had much
to say about his Irish. They were "his diminutive warriors",
"bare breeched", "were lower than serpents". He said
that they were "incorrigible, ill mannered, and unkempt". He
told his recruiters back home to only raise units in England or Scotland
and forget Ireland. When a large number of new Irish gunners coming into
New York deserted, Pattison wrote, "it was bad enough that they had
deserted but what was worse was that the rest didn’t go with them".
When asked what to do with some new but mildewed uniforms, Pattison wrote,
"give them to the Irish". Yet in spite of all the derogatory
remarks, the Royal Irish Artillery was awarded white leather stocks as
a mark of their good gunnery. In 1801, with the Federation of Ireland into
the United Kingdom, the R.I.A. was made part of the Royal Artillery and
ceased to exist. They became part of the 2nd Battalion of Artillery.Contact the Unit
