During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the French Foreign Legion was deployed on metropolitan French soil for the first time in its history. As France struggled to raise fresh armies against the advancing German forces during the final phase of the Second Empire, the authorities also turned to foreign volunteers. Among the most distinctive initiatives was the planned formation of a regiment composed entirely of Irishmen – a project that, although it never fully materialized, produced a small combat company.
2nd Foreign Regiment (Irish)
Just as in 1855 during the Crimean War, Emperor Napoleon III ordered in 1870 the formation of a second Legion, or more precisely a second foreign regiment. While the Second Foreign Legion of 1855 was to be composed only of the Swiss, the second foreign regiment of 1870 was to consist exclusively of the Irish.
Thus, an imperial decree dated September 1, 1870 ordered the formation of a 2nd Foreign Regiment in France. The regiment was to be organized at Cherbourg and Caen in Normandy by a certain James MacAdaras, an Irishman claiming to be a former British army officer, who was appointed as a French lieutenant colonel. The new Irish regiment was to be divided into five battalions with eight companies each. The same decree also renamed the original Foreign Regiment in Algeria as the 1st Foreign Regiment. One of its units was already stationed in France: the 5th Battalion, raised in Tours to integrate wartime service foreign volunteers.
The proposed 2nd Foreign Regiment would have revived the long tradition of Irish regiments serving France, as had previously happened between 1690 and 1791. In practice, however, the scheme depended on recruitment from the British Isles and therefore immediately ran into political and legal obstacles. In August 1870, in order to preserve British neutrality, Parliament passed the Foreign Enlistment Act, which made recruitment into the service of a belligerent power legally problematic within the United Kingdom.
Therefore, the “Irish” 2nd Foreign Regiment was never really formed. Shortly after the decree ordering the formation of the regiment had been issued, in early September, the French Empire collapsed and a new republic was proclaimed, which continued the war. The regiment was disbanded ten weeks later, on November 16, while still in the process of activation.
After this failure, MacAdaras was attached by the new government to the staff of the French 21st Corps under General Jaurès, served in the Loire campaign until mid-January 1871, and then made a final unsuccessful attempt to raise a new Irish brigade at Le Havre before the armistice put an end to the scheme.
Irish Company of the Foreign Marching Regiment
Following the deactivation of the 2nd “Irish” Foreign Regiment, its volunteers established a combat company, commanded by Captain Martin Waters Kirwan, an Irish military man and journalist from Galway.
For context, these men had arrived in France in early October 1870 as part of a contingent of around 300 volunteers from Ireland, who subsequently served in field hospitals or francs-tireurs formations (read more about them in Other Foreign Volunteer Corps in the 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War).
Nicknamed the “Irish Company”, the new unit consisted of 93 men: their captain, two lieutenants (Cotter and McAlevy – himself a veteran of the Legion who had fought in Mexico), a medical officer (Dr. Macken), five non-commissioned officers, ten corporals, and 74 soldiers. They were assigned to the Foreign Marching Regiment, a provisional field formation composed of two Legion battalions brought from Algeria and the remnants of the aforementioned 5th Battalion. This regiment fought under the 15th Army Corps in the Loire campaign (for more on the Legion’s role in the conflict, see The Foreign Legion in the Franco-Prussian War).
On December 11, the Irish Company joined the 5th Battalion under by Major Béchet and became its 8th Company. It was considered an autonomous formation – formant corps – that was administered separately from the rest of the battalion. In late December, the Foreign Marching Regiment moved eastward as part of General Bourbaki’s Army of the East, which was attempting to relieve the besieged city of Belfort and cut the Prussian supply lines. The Irish Company’s men saw their first combat in mid-January 1871, at Montbéliard, near the Swiss border, during the final phase of the campaign. Not only this three-day battle, but also severe frostbite reduced the unit by the end of the month to no more than 65 able-bodied men. Then, on January 28, the Franco-German armistice was signed.
Two months later, in late March 1871, the company was disbanded and the Irish volunteers returned home. At least one of them, however, remained in French service. Lieutenant Patrick Cotter of the Irish Company chose to stay with the Legion and move to Algeria. A captain with the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Foreign Regiment (1er RE), he was killed in Indochina in March 1885, during the Sino-French War (1884–1885).
In 1873, a book dedicated to the Irish Company was published by its former commander, Martin Kirwan. Somewhat surprisingly, it remains among the earliest works, if not the earliest, to provide an account of the legendary 1863 Battle of Camerone.
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Main information sources:
Képi blanc magazines
Gen Grisot, Ltn Coulombon: Légion étrangère 1831 à 1887 (Berger-Levrault, 1888)
Martin W. Kirwan: La Compagnie Irlandaise: Reminiscences of the Franco-German War (Dublin: W. B. Kelly, 1873)
James McConnel and Máirtín Ó Catháin: A Training School for Rebels: Fenians in the French Foreign Legion (History Ireland 16, no. 6, 2008)
Various Authors: La Guerre de 1870-71 – La Défense Nationale En Province (R. Chapelot et Cie, 1911)
Various Authors: La Guerre de 1870-71 – Campagne de l’Armee du Nord – IV – Saint-Quentin (R. Chapelot et Cie, 1904)
Aristide Martinien: La Guerre de 1870-1871 – La Mobilistation de l’Armee – Mouvements des dépots (L. Fournier, 1912)
Ferdinand Lecomte: Guerre franco-allemande en 1870-1871 – Tome III (Genève et Bale, 1872)
Alexandre Dupont: Les volontaires espagnols dans la guerre franco-allemande de 1870-1871 (Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez Nº 45, 2015)
Amédée Le Faure: Histoire de la guerre franco-allemande 1870-71 – Tome I (Garnier frères, 1875)
Gustave Schelle: Œuvres de Turgot – Tome III (Librairie Félix Alcan, 1919)
Google.com
Wikipedia.org
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Cet article en français : Compagnie irlandaise (1870)
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Discover the Foreign Legion’s history:
Foreign Legion in the Balkans: 1915-1919
French Foreign Legion in World War II
Hohenlohe Regiment (1815-1831)
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The page was updated on: March 20, 2026