The Standard Bearer was CRA member Perry Futer, who marched to music by the London Irish Rifles’ pipes and drums, and the band of the Irish Guards.
The Connaught Rangers, known as ‘The Devil’s Own’, were based in Galway from 1881, and were one of eight Irish regiments in the British army. In 1920, around 30 rangers stationed in India staged a mutiny in protest against British military atrocities in Ireland. Five Irish regiments, including the Rangers, were disbanded in 1922.
The Irish regimental organisations were addressed by the British Army’s chief of staff, General Roland Walker, a former Irish Guardsman with connections to Co Meath.
He saluted the legacy of Irish soldiers’ tenacity, and reputation for “the craic”, in a speech which commemorated Irish soldiers’ actions from the Napoleonic Wars to the present.
