On a day in which things Irish are generally celebrated, some posters for the battalion my great grandfather and his sons helped organize and equip. . .the Irish Canadian Rangers.
They were recruited from Irish Canadians in Montreal, but they were not able to bring the unit up to full strength. Therefore they ultimately also recruited in Ireland. In the end, they were folded into an other Irish unit in the Empire's forces.
Definitely a slice of days gone by. World War One saw the last of the privately raised, privately equipped efforts in the Empire, and the same is true in the US in regards to just prior to the war. Theodore Roosevelt would have repeated his Spanish American role of raising a special unit if allowed, but Woodrow Wilson disallowed it, and the Army frankly wasn't keen on it being done.
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