The civil use of the army is considered under ‘Law and order’ and ‘Local government’ above. It was the country’s chief security under normal circumstances. Abnormal circumstances, when the army was most needed, tended to see a reduction of its strength in Ireland. Ireland had a separate military establishment consisting of British regiments stationed in Ireland and paid for out of the Irish Revenue. In addition there were some regiments on the Irish establishment serving abroad.

The Irish parliament certainly did not share the ambivalence of the eighteenth-century imperial parliament towards the army, and the Irish army was comparatively large, with a much higher ratio of officers to men than was usual in British regiments. After peace was signed at Ryswick in 1697, the British parliament, always fearful of a standing army in time of peace, insisted on a reduction in the size of the army to 7,000 men, while 12,000 were placed on the Irish establishment. This remained the official size of the Irish army in peacetime until 1769, when, after a major constitutional crisis, it was raised to 15,236, with 12,000 always to remain in Ireland.

The army was stationed throughout the country in units of varying size. The erection (see 10 Will. III, c. 4) and maintenance (see 11 Geo. II, c. 13) of these barracks was an important consideration and also an important source of jobs. A number of statutes attempted to provide a framework for the movement of troops throughout the country (e.g. 3 Geo. II, c. 10; 4 Geo. II, c. 7) or to reconcile military and civil demands (e.g. 28 Geo. III, c. 19).

Various forms of non-professional soldier appeared from time to time, either the militia or an equivalent. A fencible regiment could be raised and equipped in time of emergency by a local magnate with government support. Militia arrays were held in 1708, 1715, 1719, 1727, 1745 and 1756. Officially all men from 16 to 60 were liable for militia service, but substitutes could be provided. In 1793 under a new militia bill, 33 Geo. III, c. 28, all men from 18 to 45 regardless of religion and chosen by lot were to serve a four-year enlistment period within Ireland but outside their home county.

Apart from those who, like Arthur Wellesley (2210), later Duke of Wellington, made the army their career, many Irish gentlemen spent a few years in the army, either before embarking on public life or early in their parliamentary career. This experience contributed to the success of the Volunteer movement during the American war. It gave added value to the patronage of small jobs suitable for civilians with some military experience, although it also made the Barrack Board a source of sometimes rather dubious patronage. It was also a source of much sought-after military titles.

In 1778 the American war denuded the country of troops, and the government of money. Originally the Volunteers were a patriotic response to a national emergency that had left the country defenceless and threatened to undermine law and order. At this time the Volunteers, an independent, unofficial protestant militia, were formed to carry out the functions of the regular troops.

This was neither the first nor the only appearance of Volunteers, who from time to time – for instance during the Seven Years’ War – had undertaken some of the duties of the depleted military establishment, but it was the most widespread manifestation of this type of civilian support. However, troops outside the control of the government had their dangers.

The Volunteers of the American war soon realised their independence and their potential power, and began to exert extra-parliamentary pressure on the British government to grant commercial and legislative concessions. By 1784 the most pressing concessions were granted and the emergency was over. Consequently, the Volunteer movement gradually declined, only to stage a brief revival at the beginning of the French revolution.

In Belfast in the early 1790s it took a distinctly revolutionary turn, commemorating the fall of the Bastille and passing resolutions on the rights of man and similar topics. In other parts of Ulster it took on a sectarian aspect against the Defenders: one man stated as his reason for volunteering ‘that he would never allow Ireland to become a popish country’. On this occasion the British government pressed for a militia as a safer, if more expensive, alternative to the independent Volunteers.

Westmorland urged a protestant militia on the grounds that it would quieten Protestant fears, which had been aroused over British pressure for Catholic enfranchisement and other concessions. However, Pitt and Dundas, lobbied by the merchant-dominated Catholic Committee, refused to believe the fears of the Protestants and were anxious to conciliate the Catholics in what they rightly felt to be an internationally explosive situation.

Dundas’s letters took on a hectoring, even a bullying tone, and the majority of Irish politicians were convinced that Britain either had forsaken them or was exacting vengeance for their constitutional and commercial demands coupled with their behaviour at the time of the Regency Crisis. The fears of 1641 and 1689–90 were burnt on the Protestants’ minds in a way that the British government could never grasp.

The Militia Bill, 33 Geo. III, c. 22, made service by ballot selection compulsory, with the potential threat of service overseas. It was now the turn of the Catholics to be upset, as they considered that in making them eligible for the militia, the government was exacting its price for the concessions that they had just received. The country, already subject to agrarian unrest in a number of areas, became further alienated as serious disturbances broke out in the three Catholic provinces – Leinster, Munster and Connacht – and to a lesser degree in Ulster.