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A scarlet volunteer tunic of the 1780sA scarlet volunteer tunic of the 1780s

The buttons are engraved with the title The Northern Rangers. Many volunteer units were called Rangers. The formation and structure of the eighteenth century volunteers reflected the impact made by the American Revolution in Ulster.

Who or what was a volunteer?

What did they achieve?

What has it to do with emigration?

Volunteers were recruited throughout Ireland from 1778 to defend the country against the threat of invasion from France, while British soldiers were fighting in the American War of Independence. Formed mostly from the Protestant middle classes they became a pressure group demanding more freedom for the Protestant Irish Parliament. They faded from the scene in the 1790s as conflict between Catholic and Protestant increased before the United Irishmen uprising in 1798.

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