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Newbridge
1868 - view of an English soldier
The garrison town of Newbridge, as seen by a soldier of
the King's Hussars when he arrived there from England
for the drill season of 1868, was 'chiefly occupied
by public houses, and low kinds of music and singing halls,
for the special recreation of the military.
There was one hotel, frequented entirely by non-commissioned
officers, its chief attraction being a billiard table. A
wonderful one it was, the bed being made of wood and the
balls of stone. There were no billiard tables in sergeants’
messes in those days, so this one was considered a discovery.
But while many of our non coms. enjoyed themselves with
the cue, I found a far pleasanter source of amusement fishing
in the Liffey. The sport is one of which I am passionately
fond, and nothing to interfere with my catching them, except
themselves.’
The memoirs of Sgt. Major Male were subsequently recorded
by Herbert Compton in A King’s Hussar: Memoirs of Troop
Sgt. Major Male (London 1893); including a few pages on
Male’s short stay in this country. Within an hour of
the steamer docking in Dublin in May 1868, the Hussars “were
ashore, saddled, mounted and ready for the long march of
twenty-five Irish miles to Newbridge. This was the station
where the regiment had been re-mounted after its return
from India, and I had heard a good deal about it from old
hands.”
The barracks, they found, “occupied an enormous extent
of ground, in fact, the whole side of the principal street
of the town, and were surrounded by a high stone wall, loop
holed for defence, and with a strong tower at each corner.
Two sides of the barracks were flanked by the river Liffey,
on the third side was the main street of Newbridge, on the
fourth and open space of waste land, colonised by a number
of unfortunate women, who were tolerated by the authorities,
and lived in thatched straw huts known as ‘wrens’
nests.”
The prostitutes were at that time being much discussed as
a pamphlet had just been published entitled The Wren of
The Curragh by London journalist who had heard “mysterious
little stories which were wafted to England, hints and glimpses
of a certain colony of poor wretches there as nobody else
in the tree kingdom lived, and died like most people who
do come within the bills of morality, tramps and others,
when they happened to perish of cold, want, and whiskey
upon the vast common.”
The newly arrived Hussars were soon introduced to the Curragh
“a beautiful and broad expanse of the loveliest turf
that horses’ hooves ever pressed. No matter whether
it rained in torrents overnight, the next morning regiments
of calvary and batteries of artillery might manoeuvre or
gallop over it without leaving mark, the turf being short
and elastic from the nibbling of thousands of sheep. Along
the centre of the extensive stretch of down, and running
from east to west, was a line of infantry huts, and in the
summer a large contingent of cavalry was encamped under
canvas at a place called Donnelly’s Hollow”.
Recalling many fine field days on the plain, there was one
involving five regiments of cavalry, double that number
of infantry and about forty field guns, which Male “would
never forget”. It occurred when two small bodies of
cavalry approached each other through the excitement of
the men and their horses, or though the impetus of their
gallop, instead of wheeling so as to come into the line
they rode ‘bash’ into one another, almost front
to front at the point of contact ... for a moment it seemed
like a regular battlefield, many of the horses being bowled
over, and others with empty saddles, dashing madly about.
As far as I myself was concerned, the feeling I had when
I saw a smash inevitable was “look out for Phil Garlic”
(a well known military mind yourself expression), and warding
off a thrust from a gallant Lancer, he received a whack
from my sword, and the next moment I came full tile against
one of his comrades, and we both rolled on the turf. This
untoward business occurred through the men being allowed
to go too fast, and getting out of hand and was the fault
of the officers. The general and all the infantry, who had
crested the ridge, were looking at us, as well as thousands
of spectators, and the former came down with his staff,
and when he arrived within shouting distance of our officers,
it was about the only time in my life that I felt no ambition
to be a captain.”
At the end of the season the Hussars proceeded to Dublin,
and were quartered in the Royal Barracks.
Courtesy of the Leinster Leader 12 July 2004
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