Patrick Geoghegan

speaker

1,107 appearances 10 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 7 Aug

Patrick Geoghegan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 4.

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Talking History with Patrick Geoghegan · The Irish Who Served In The British Army · 6 Aug 2026 podcast

Some maybe for reasons of, you know, what we'd call now nationalism, but for others it could be because of local grievance.

It could be for many different reasons.

And you have a very interesting chapter on criminality because sometimes the soldiers were arrested and charged with a variety of crimes from theft to assault to sexual assault.

So,

That's also an element of having these soldiers nearby.

Because if this was England at the time, going around in your red coat may have a certain attraction.

And even Wolftone, thinking of joining the British Army during the American War of Independence, one of the attractions for him was he thought it would make him attractive to women.

But I suspect having the red coat in Ireland, it was maybe you'd get much more mixed reactions.

Yes, I'm reading here about despite the stability of the service, marriage was discouraged and sometimes prohibited.

And whether it was a popish priest in their document, a Protestant minister or any other person whatsoever, if they marry a soldier enlisted in the king's army, that that's going to cause all kinds of trouble.

So they really did try to put these blocks and obstacles in the way.

And you have an incredible story of a soldier and his friend approached a priest wanting the priest to marry the soldier to a local girl and the priest refused.

And the soldier was so enraged, he stabbed the priest and it seems stabbed him to death because there was no hope of him recovering.

So this did lead to some considerable tensions.

You mentioned the American War of Independence and the fact that so many of the soldiers stationed in Ireland, they were really only there in a way to pass the time until they were needed somewhere more important.

Did that create tensions then in terms of the Irish elite, in terms of Irish politicians and even Irish society?

The fact that you had a lot of soldiers here, but at the first sign of trouble, they're going to be sent somewhere else.

Because then you have France entering the war in 1778 on the side of the American colonists.

That's leaving Ireland vulnerable.

And you have the Irish volunteer corps, companies setting up then.

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