South Irish Horse
military unit
The South Irish Horse was a Special Reserve cavalry regiment of the British Army. Formed as an Imperial Yeomanry regiment in 1902 as the South of Ireland Imperial Yeomanry, it perpetuated a unit formed during the Second Boer War. It transferred to the Special Reserve (Cavalry) in 1908 and was renamed as the South Irish Horse. Having taken part in the fighting of World War I, it was disbanded after Irish Independence in 1922.
Imperial Yeomanry
Following a string of defeats during Black Week in early December 1899, the British government realised that it would need more troops than just the Regular Army to fight the Second Boer War, particularly mounted units. On 13 December, the War Office decided to allow volunteer forces to serve in the field, and a Royal Warrant was issued on 24 December that officially created the Imperial Yeomanry (IY). This was organised as service companies of approximately 115 men enlisted for one year. They were equipped to operate as Mounted infantry, armed with a Lee–Metford infantry rifle and bayonet instead of a cavalry carbine and sabre.
Among the units raised was the 61st (South Irish Horse (Dublin)) Company (also known as the 2nd Dublin) formed on 7 March 1900 at Dublin, which served in the 17th Battalion, IY, alongside the 60th (North Irish Horse (Belfast)) Company and two English companies. (At the same time the 74th (Dublin) Company was raised in 16th Battalion and the 99th (Irish) Company in 8th Battalion.
The public source identifies “South Irish Horse” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around South, Irish and Horse.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7567549. VIAF identifies the subject as 3345155832964133490003. The Library of Congress control number is no2019069606. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1902, 1908, 1922 and 1899.
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This entry incorporates text from “South Irish Horse” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.