I am working on several short essays on the composition of Irish forces and soldiery for Saint Patrick’s since we are beginning to include the more militaristic aspects of the late sixteenth century Irish. Here is a piece I put together on the use of the Musket in Ireland:

The Musket in Ireland

"Two new infantry weapons had been introduced since Shane O’Neill’s time, the musket and pike. More than half the infantry now had firearms and were known collectively as ‘shot.’ These firearms were of two types, the caliver and the musket. The caliver, or military form of arquebus, weighed about twelve pounds, fired twenty or thirty balls each weighing and ounce or and ounce and a half for an expenditure of a pound of gunpowder., had an effective range of less than 100 yards, and bore a name derived from the French attempt to standardize the caliber of service weapons. The musket was originally a special arm of Spanish origin. Longer than the caliver, it weighed some twenty pounds and was fired from a rest. It had an effective range of about 150 yards and fired from eight to ten balls, each weighing two ounces, to a pound of powder. The average English foot company had four times as many calivers as muskets; but muskets increased in numbers, and grew lighter and more manageable as time went on. They eventually supplanted calivers.

Crude, cumbersome, and uncertain; slow firing, and wasteful of powder and slow match; the firearms of the sixteenth century nevertheless revolutionized warfare-in Ulster as elsewhere."

"… Sir Edward York said ‘that in no place wheresoever he had served in all his life he never saw more readier or perfecter shot ‘ than the Irish. They had Irish horse, seconding each other, hung like terriers to the column; they pressed all arms of the English together and never gave them a chance to spread out and shake them off." (Describing Hugh O’Neill’s attack and use of Irish forces at the battle of Clontibret 1595)

"The weapons of the Irish were as up-to-date as they could possibly make them. Their ‘shot’ had matchlock calivers and muskets like the English. In 1595 they were said to have 4,000 such men, together with a thousand pikemen and a thousand horse. English statements of O’Neill’s numbers were largely the result of guesswork, but the proportions are interesting. The number in a detached force of O’Neill’s in 1594 is equally impressive – 400, against 180 pikemen, 200 horse, and (further evidence of the militarization of Tyrone) ‘two hundred churls with darts and skeins’, or daggers. Of the 400 some we are told, ‘were furnished as kern with pieces’. that is, no doubt, they had light calivers."

"… The result was acknowledged by Lord Deputy Mountjoy, who said in 1602 that Irish fighting men, ‘so far from being naked people, as before times, were generally better armed than we, knew better the use of their weapons than our men, and even exceeded us in that discipline which was fittest for the advantage of the natural strength of the country, for that they, being very many, and expert shot, and excelling in footmanship all other nations, did by that means make better use of those strengths [that is, their own wild terrain], both for offence and defence, than could have been made of any squadrons of pike or artificial fortifications of towns.’

(Source: Irish Battles: A Military History of Ireland by G.A. Hayes-McCoy

"Hugh Roe O’Donnell had thrown off the mask and joined Hugh Maguire in investing Eniskillen in June. Fitzwilliam had prepared an elaborately equipped relief force under Sir henry Duke and Sir Edward Herbert, in strength forty six horse and 600 foot, with a train of carts and pack-horsescarrying provisions to revictual the castle. O’Donnell already had at his disposal great strength in mercenaries, some 3,000 of whom landed in Antrim in July; but he sent a message to Tyrone calling for aid. Once again Tyrone hung in the wind. O’Donnell’s action appeared to him rash. At the last moment his brother Cormac joined the rebels with 100 horse and 300 musketeers. Even the Irish are not prepared to say whether he was acting with Tyrone’s assent but he had taken a step towards committing him."
(Detail of the Battle of Arney Ford ‘Ford of the Biscuits’ from SOURCE: Elizabeth’s Irish Wars by Cyrill Falls)

"The newly arrived English companies, of which Bingham had received several, were so clumsy in the handling of their arms that the officers took their powder and ball from them and gave them to the Irish musketeers, who did good service."

"Tyrone’s force was covered by a bog, across which his sharpshooters passed with their usual great agility." [on the battle of the Yellow Ford 1598]

"… no such fortune awaited them. After crossing the trench, the regiment came under still heavier fire … it was already becoming disorganized by the loss of its musketeers and gaps in the array of pikemen. It wheeled about in disorder, was charged by bodies of Irish horse and foot, broke up, and was destroyed in a few minutes. Bagenal, commanding the whole and the whole vanguard in particular was with the second regiment, his own, which he had persisted in leading though told his place was with the main body. He led it forward to the support of Percy, and himself dashed up with a small body of horse; but as he reached the scene of the disaster he was shot through the head and killed.
… Such was the disaster at the Yellow Ford, the worst that has ever been suffered by the English in Ireland.
[disposition of the English Army to Irish attack at The Battle of the Yellow Ford 1598]

(SOURCE: Elizabeth’s Irish Wars by Cyril Falls)

"The use of firearms by the Confederates was well-suited to their defensive style of warfare. Fynes Moryson, in his history of the war, claimed that 600 composition troops trained by six ‘butter’ captains had formed the nucleus of the earl’s forces…
… Whatever the long-term preparations, most of the training needed to weld together an effective army would have taken place during 1595 and one intelligence report gives us the vivid picture of O’Neill mustering his own troops and beating those who were not ready with a truncheon."

(Source: Tyrone’s Rebellion by Hiram Morgan)

In short, the musket revolutionized the Irish armies of the latter sixteenth century. There are countless reports from English officers during O’Neill’s time remarking on the accuracy and skill of Irish Musketeers. In one instance Lord Mountjoy was struck by a bullet in the breastplate, knocking him from his horse. He was aided and eventually helped back to his feet by his Irish horseboy.

Muskets in Irish armies were provided from several sources which include: English merchants (obviously more concerned with the sale than the potential for use against their own countrymen), The Scots (Tyrone was said to have two lowland gunsmiths in his employ and he frequently traded with Highland clans for firearms, the Spanish who frequently sent large coffers of gold, pikes, armor, helmets, powder, muskets, swords, and other weapons of war to fuel the Irish rebellion with the promise of an eventual Spanish landing to aid in defense of the cross. Other more limited suppliers included the French, Dutch, Italians and Germans. On occasion, Irishmen would train for the Queen’s armies in Dublin and once their training was complete would desert their ranks and join the rebel armies retaining their arms and equipment.

The Irish soldiery perfected the use of this weapon and were by all accounts more ready and skilled in the use of the weapon than any of the English contemporaries of the time. As a historical representation of the Irish fighting men of the late sixteenth Century, the Musket is the superior choice of the Irish Historical Reenactor.

Thanks to Daniel Hendrix!