This post is a little niche – more so than usual – but it gives a useful insight into how we have worked to find out information about specific barracks. I will be discussing how one single word, typed in connection with Castlebar and lost in a seemingly uninteresting 86-page long official document, shed light on a very important aspect of the British Army’s history. Firstly, some context. Castlebar is a market town in County Mayo, near the west coast. There was a strong military presence in Castlebar from the seventeenth century all the way to the early twenty-first century. One might argue to an extent that the town’s military history started all the way back in the Middle Ages, when a stronghold named Barry’s Castle (after the Anglo-Norman family which commissioned it) was built in 1235 – hence the town’s modern name. The town very much developed around the castle and then the garrison, and was incorporated by James I in 1613.
The project team have used lists of army barracks in various official sources to identify army barracks. Information that we’ve found in these lists for Castlebar tells us there was a cavalry barracks there from 1828, a short-lived artillery barracks from about 1830, and an important infantry barracks set up following the 1798 Rebellion (with the current building operational from 1834 through to 2012). But while most lists record the infantry barracks as just that, ‘infantry’, there is one exception in a barracks return from 1847 where the unit type is recorded as ‘line’.
This was the first time we had encountered the term in our sources. We knew that this must have been a reference to the infantry barracks but we felt it warranted further investigation.
We suspected that it might be a reference to the concept of ‘line infantry’ as opposed to ‘light infantry’. Light infantry refers to these units on foot which are routinely deployed to gather intelligence, scout the enemy, or launch swift attacks. They are highly mobile and fast, and can work independently of other units. It is what most people would think of when they hear the term ‘infantry’. This type of infantry has always existed, but it is only since the late nineteenth century that it had become the primary type of infantry. Up until then, line infantry was the default military unit. As its name indicates, line infantry consisted of men moving in linear motions, normally in front of the rest of the troops. The different formations and battle strategies that line infantry were taught were limited, but included learning to gain ground by moving swiftly in columns, square formations aimed at containing enemy units such as cavalry, and synchronised firing in volleys. Their main goal was to pierce enemy lines at the very beginning of a confrontation. It is clear why line infantry eventually fell out of use. Casualties were extremely high, and the increasing use of artillery and heavy cavalry made the role redundant, as one unit could be decimated in an instant. The term ‘Forlorn Hope’ initially refers to these men who were tasked with breaking enemy lines with virtually no hope of coming out of it alive.
It was therefore slightly surprising to see a regiment specifically identified as line infantry as late as 1847. That said, line infantry regiments were in active service during the First Boer War in 1880-1. By that point, their weapons and tactics had evolved and they were much closer to what is now considered light infantry. Further research confirmed that in fact, most infantry units stationed in Castlebar had initially been line infantry regiments.
Similarly, most other infantry regiments stationed in Ireland were, in fact, line infantry. What we should wonder then, is not why Castlebar’s garrison was listed as line infantry in 1847, but instead why the term was not more frequently used. The answer may be that it was obvious to military administrators of the nineteenth century that most infantry regiments were line infantry, but also that as line infantry’s nature changed, it increasingly resembled light infantry, and therefore a distinction was not required. Or it could be because the writer in charge of listing Castlebar’s barracks in 1847 was simply being pedantic, for a reason unknown to us.
It is only in 1881, when the Childers Reforms reorganised the British Army, that the number of line infantry regiments was dramatically reduced. Elsewhere in Europe, bar for the odd nostalgic commander – France’s Napoleon III made a point of maintaining archaic units out of national pride despite technological advances – linear tactics had all but disappeared by the early twentieth century. Numerous British regiments retain the title out of tradition, while some modern armies such as in the United States have given the term a slightly different meaning. The term ‘line companies’ is still used to differentiate support units from infantry units on the ground.
by Caroline Wilhelmsson
Further Reading
‘A Return From Each Barrack in the United Kingdom’, House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, vol. 36, paper 169 (1847), pp. 64-67.
Chandler, David and Ian Frederick William Beckett (eds), The Oxford History of the British Army (Oxford, 1996).
Kitzmiller, John M., “Forlorn Hope”: A Comprehensive Guide to Locating British Regiments and Their Records (1640-WWI), Volume II (Miami, 1988).
Haythornthwaite, Philip, British Infantry of the Napoleonic Wars (London, 1987).
Westlake, Ray, British Infantry of the Napoleonic Wars (Uckfield, 2020).
Army Barracks of Ireland 