Flags of French Irish Regiment Rooth

Although I now have a number of new Prussian Rossbach flags almost ready for publishing here, I decided to finish the set of French Irish flags for regiments that served in Europe (I may do Lally eventually though) with the flags of Rooth, so here they are. I was not happy with much of the secondary information on the appearance of these flags but managed to track down an online copy of the 1721 French flags manuscript on the website of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, which offers, I think, a more authoritative version of how the flags probably appeared.

These flags were carried 1698-1718 by Dorrington, then 1718-1766 by Rooth, then by Roscommon and Walsh to the Revolution in 1791.

This regiment traced its origins to a regiment raised by Charles II in 1661 which subsequently supported James II and went into exile in France in 1689.

In the Seven Years War its history was similar to that of most of the other Irish regiments. The first 3 campaigns it spent on the fronter of Flanders then joined the army of Germany in 1760. It was at the defence of Marburg and in the battle of Vellinghausen in 1761. In 1762 it was in garrison at Cambrai and was at Valenciennes when the peace was signed in 1763.

And here is the uniform as it was in 1756: