An article of mine in the latest issue of History Ireland magazine (March/April 2024) spotlights a polychromatic band uniform with an equally colourful provenance. The nineteenth-century journalist and antiquarian John G.A. Prim rescued the headdress, coatee and pantaloons of a Kilkenny Militia musician from the ignominious fate of adorning a garden scarecrow. In 1872, he presented the artifacts to the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland; they now take pride of place in the “Soldiers and Chiefs” military history exhibition in Dublin’s Collins Barracks.
Read the article below (or on the History Ireland website) for some reflections on the wider story of military music in late Georgian Ireland.
1812 and all that 