The Veteran Issue 5

"We Served"
Irish Guards
Bob Routledge Irish Guards
The Irish Guards were formed on 1 April 1900
by order of Queen Victoria to commemorate
the Irish people who fought in the Second
Boer War
The Irish Guards' first honorary Colonel-ofthe-Regiment
was Field Marshal Lord
Roberts, known to many troops as "Bobs".
Because of this, the regiment gained the
nickname "Bob's Own" but are now known
affectionately as
"The Micks" (although a generally derogatory
term if used in society, this term is not seen as
offensive or derogatory by the regiment.)
Major Richard
Joshua Cooper,
Grenadier Guards,
was appointed the
first Commanding
Officer on 2 May
1900 and 200
Irishmen from the
same regiment
were transferred as
the nucleus of the
new regiment.
Selected members
from other line infantry regiments were also
chosen to fill out the ranks of the new
regiment.
The regiment's first Colours were
presented by King Edward VII to the 1st
Battalion on 30 May 1902 at Horse
Guards Parade. A few Irish Guardsmen
saw action as mounted infantry in the final
stages of the Boer War. Otherwise, the
Irish Guards were stationed in the United
Kingdom for the first fourteen years of its
existence, performing ceremonial duties in
London during that time until the beginning
of World War I.One of the most famous
Officers of the Regiment was Jack Kipling,
the only son of Rudyard Kipling, who was
initially rejected from service due to his
poor eyesight. His father pulled strings in
order to allow him to join up with the 2nd
Battalion and he was killed in September
1915 at the Battle of Loos. His body was
never found and his devastated father
wrote the poem ‘My Boy Jack’ which was
also dramatised into a play.
During the First World War, the Irish
Guards were deployed to France and they
remained on the Western Front for the
duration of the war. During the course of
the war, the Regiment was awarded 406
medals 4 of which were Victoria Crosses
and lost over 2,300 officers and men.
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