1881 – 1914 On 1 July 1881 the
27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot and the
108th Regiment of Foot were redesignated as the 1st and 2nd Battalions, The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, respectively. In 1903 the Regiment was granted a grey
hackle for their fusilier raccoon-skin hats to commemorate the original grey uniforms of the Inniskilling Regiment. The regimental district comprised the City of Londonderry and the
counties of
Donegal,
Londonderry,
Tyrone and
Fermanagh in Ireland, with its garrison depot located at
St Lucia Barracks in
Omagh. Under the Childers system, one regular battalion of each regiment was to be at a "home" station, while the other was abroad. Every few years, there was to be an exchange of battalions. In the period from the regiment's formation to the outbreak of the
Second Boer War, the two regular battalions were stationed as follows:
Second Boer War In October 1899 war broke out between the United Kingdom and the
Boer Republics in what is now South Africa. The 1st Battalion landed at
Durban, where they became part of the 5th (Irish) Brigade. The unit subsequently took part in the
Tugela Campaign before helping
relieve Ladysmith in early 1900. The regiment lent its name to "Inniskilling Hill", which was taken by the 5th brigade on 24/25 February 1900. The war ended with the
Treaty of Vereeniging in June 1902, and the 1st Battalion stayed in South Africa until January 1903, when 434 officers and men left Cape Town for home. The 2nd Battalion arrived in South Africa from India only in the late stages of the war and saw little action. Following the war in South Africa, the system of rotating battalions between home and foreign stations resumed as follows: In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the
Territorial Force and the latter the
Special Reserve. There were no Territorial units in Ireland; the three militia battalions were reorganised with the 4th (Royal Tyrone Militia) becoming the 3rd (Reserve) Bn, the 3rd (Fermanagh Militia) becoming the 4th (Extra Reserve) Bn, and the 5th (Donegal Militia) being disbanded. The 2nd Battalion landed at
Le Havre as part of the
12th Brigade in the
4th Division in August 1914 for service on the Western Front and was heavily involved at the
Battle of Le Cateau in August 1914.
Special Reserve The 3rd and 4th Battalions fulfilled their role of training reinforcement drafts for the 1st and 2nd Bns. Both were stationed in Northern Ireland until April 1918 when they moved to
Oswestry in the Welsh Borders and were amalgamated, at the same time absorbing the 12th (Reserve) Bn (originally formed from the depot companies of the 9th, 10th and 11th Bns). The
13th (Garrison) Battalion was formed in France in June 1918 from No 7 Garrison Guard Battalion, composed of 'B1' medical category men. After rigorous training it dropped the 'Garrison' designation in July, and then served as a frontline battalion in
40th Division during the final advance to victory. In 1937 there was an expansion of the army, and the 2nd Battalion was re-raised at Omagh, moving to
Catterick in the following year. The 2nd Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers was also reformed, and the arrangement of 1922 ended. of 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers being demonstrated, 4 November 1939. The 2nd Battalion, a Regular Army unit, was serving in the
13th Infantry Brigade, alongside 2nd
Wiltshire Regiment and 2nd
Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), part of
5th Infantry Division. It was sent to France in late 1939 after war was declared. The battalion, as part of the
BEF, was among those that were
evacuated from Dunkirk after desperate fighting as the rearguard to the retreating BEF. The battalion was reduced to 215 persons, all ranks. After re-fitting, the 2nd Battalion, with the rest of 5th Division, left England in 1942 for the East Indies. They traveled to Madagascar, where they fought the Vichy French in a
brief campaign in Madagascar to ensure that the
Japanese did not occupy the island to interdict Allied shipping. They continued to British India,
Persia and
Syria. They deployed for Operation Husky, the
invasion of Sicily, followed by that of
Italy, now serving with the
British Eighth Army in both. In July 1944, while resting in
Palestine after seeing
severe fighting at Anzio, the 2nd Battalion absorbed many personnel of the 6th Battalion and transferred to
38th (Irish) Infantry Brigade, of the
78th Battleaxe Infantry Division. It remained with this formation for the rest of the war. The battalion would see service in the battles around the
Gothic Line in August–September 1944, and later in the
final offensive in Italy in April 1945. The 5th Battalion was a hostilities-only unit raised in 1940. It never served overseas and remained in the United Kingdom for the war. It served as a home defence formation assigned to the
144th Brigade in the
48th (South Midland) Infantry Division, and briefly to the
199th (Manchester) Brigade in the
55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division. In 1944, the battalion became a training formation. It was also tasked with providing drafts for overseas fighting formations. In this capacity, it was assigned to the
45th Infantry Brigade and was initially part of the
80th Infantry (Reserve) Division and later part of the
38th Infantry (Reserve) Division. , during the
Allied invasion of Sicily, August 1943. The 6th Battalion was a war-service battalion created in October 1940. In early 1942 the battalion was assigned to the
210th Independent Infantry Brigade (Home), serving alongside 1st Battalion,
Royal Irish Fusiliers and 2nd Battalion,
London Irish Rifles. The brigade was under command of
Brigadier The O'Donovan and was later redesignated
38th (Irish) Infantry Brigade, which was part of the
6th Armoured Division. In February 1943 the 6th Skins, Irish Brigade included, was exchanged for
1st Guards Brigade and joined the
78th Battleaxe Division, considered to be one of the best divisions of the
British Army during the Second World War. It remained with them until disbandment in 1944. The 6th Battalion fought in Sicily and Italy,
most notably at Centuripe in Sicily, where its unexpected assault on the hilltop town took the Germans by surprise and earned the 78th Division great praise in their first battle with the
British Eighth Army. In Italy the battalion fought at the terrible
Battle of Monte Cassino and in the pursuit north of Rome, but it was disbanded after the battles at Lake Trasimene in June 1944 due to a shortage of manpower. Its place in the Irish Brigade was taken by the 2nd Inniskillings, from the 5th Infantry Division, which absorbed many of the personnel of 6th Inniskillings, with the rest of the men going elsewhere in the Irish Brigade. The 70th (Young Soldiers) Battalion was raised during the war for those young soldiers who had volunteered and had not yet reached the age to be conscripted. The battalion never saw active service abroad. It was disbanded in 1943, due to the British government lowering the age of consent for conscription.
Post War After the war, the 1st Battalion returned to India from
Burma. After a stay in Hong Kong, the regiment fought in the
Malayan Emergency against pro-independence and communist guerrillas known as the
Malayan National Liberation Army. In 1948 both regular battalions were amalgamated as the 1st Battalion, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. In 1949, after a brief spell at home, the battalion went to the West Indies. It returned to the United Kingdom in April 1951. In 1952 it was presented with the Freedom of Enniskillen, the town of its founding. Later that year it went abroad to the
Suez Canal Zone and afterwards to
Kenya, where it helped to suppress the
Mau Mau Uprising. In April 1968 the 1st Battalion had its final operational deployment, when Tactical Headquarters and B Company were ordered at short notice to
Bermuda to reinforce the
Bermuda Regiment in aiding the
Bermuda Police Force, with trouble brewing on the island due to a tense political situation. Following a peaceful election, the detachment returned to
Worcester in preparation, with the remainder of the battalion, for the final regimental chapter. At midnight on 30 June 1968, following a nostalgic ceremony, the regimental flag was lowered for the last time.
Amalgamation On 1 July 1968, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, the
Royal Ulster Rifles and the
Royal Irish Fusiliers became the
Royal Irish Rangers (27th Inniskilling, 83rd and 87th). The date of 1 July was chosen as it marked the fifty-second anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme, in which battalions of all three merging regiments fought. ==Regimental museum==