Page 253 - Demo

Chapter Seven 253
The treaty stone on which the Treaty of Limerick was signed
The Articles, or terms, both Military and Political, of the Treaty of Limerick were to prove contentious. Sarsield was a soldier, not a politician, and he was chiely concerned with obtaining terms for extracting his army from the country as a ighting unit. Nonethe- less, to the Catholics and Jacobites who chose to remain in Ireland, the terms did not appear too unsatisfactory. The terms permitted the Irish oicers and men to return to their estates, to enlist with the English, or to leave for France in transports which would be provided; that the Catholic religion should not henceforth be banned in Ireland, nor any one persecuted for his faith; and likewise, that the hated Oath of Supremacy, which was, for Catholics, a denial of their faith, should be superseded by a mere Oath of Allegiance.
These, indeed, were remarkably lenient terms for defeated commanders to wring from their conquerors; in fact the leniency of the terms outraged many Protestants, who with good cause, feared another Jacobite rising, and who, as a result, were determined to nullify the terms of the Treaty. It is recorded that out of 15,000 men, 12,000 embarked for France, 2,000 returned to their homes, and 1,000 joined William’s army under de Ginkle’s com- mand. These departing men were known collectively, and still are known, by the popular epithet borrowed from an earlier generation ‘The Wild Geese.’
Most of these ‘Wild Geese’ joined the ‘New Irish Brigade’ which was incorporated in the French Army, and for a full century afterwards, thousands more young Irishmen followed their example. It is said that some 500,000 Irishmen died in the service of France, alone,