During World War I, as part of the Special Reserve, it trained thousands of reinforcements for battalions of that regiment serving overseas.

During the 18th Century there were various Volunteer Associations and local militia units controlled by the landowners, concerned mainly with internal security.

While most of the Regular Army was fighting overseas, the coasts of England and Wales were defended by the embodied Militia, but Ireland had no equivalent force.

The new Act was based on existing English precedents, with the men conscripted by ballot to fill county quotas (paid substitutes were permitted) and the officers having to meet certain property qualifications.

[1][2] Under the new Act County Fermanagh was given a quota of 356 men to raise as a battalion of 6 companies,[3] and on 3 May the regiment was ordered to be formed at Enniskillen.

In September a detachment of the battalion formed part of a 400-strong force including some Regular cavalry, infantry, and artillery, sent to prevent a planned review of the illegal Volunteers at a village outside Belfast.

In July the Fermanagh Militia was in camp at Lehaunstown when it was ordered to send a party to disperse an illegal gathering in County Kildare.

A large French expeditionary force appeared in Bantry Bay on 21 December and troops from all over Ireland were marched towards the threatened area.

When the militiamen of 1793 reached the end of their four-year enlistment in 1797, most of the Irish regiments were able to maintain their numbers through re-enlistments (for a bounty).

There was a large concentration of troops, and much marching about the country in pursuit of insurgents, but the Fermanagh Militia was not among the regiments engaged at the Battle of Vinegar Hill.

[10][11] By the end of 1801 peace negotiations with the French were progressing and recruiting and re-enlistment for the Irish Militia was stopped in October.

The men received the new clothing they were due on 25 December, but the Treaty of Amiens was signed in March and the warrant for disembodying the regiments was issued in May 1802.

[13][14] Over the following years the regiment carried out garrison duties at various towns across Ireland, attended summer training camps, and reacted to various invasion scares, none of which materialised.

[15] Napoleon abdicated in April 1814 and with the end of the war most Irish Militia regiments marched back to their home counties and were disembodied.

[4][21][25] War having broken out with Russia and an expeditionary force sent to the Crimea in 1854, the militia was called out to take over garrison and defence duties at home.

[28] The Crimean War ended on 30 March 1856, and the Militia were stood down in May, by which time the Fermanagh LI was stationed at Curragh Camp.

[29] When a large expeditionary force was sent to suppress the Indian Mutiny, many militia units were called out again, the Fermanagh LI being embodied at Enniskillen by December 1857.

[40] The Militia Reserve introduced in 1867 consisted of present and former militiamen across the UK who undertook to serve overseas in case of war.

For the Royal Tyrone Fusiliers this was with the 27th (Inniskilling) and 108th (Madras Infantry) Regiments of Foot in Sub-District No 64 (Counties of Londonderry, Donegal, Tyrone and Fermanagh) in Belfast District of Irish Command:[4][25] Although often referred to as brigades, the sub-districts were purely administrative organisations, but in a continuation of the Cardwell Reforms a mobilisation scheme began to appear in the Army List from December 1875.

[4][5] The battalion's commanding officer, Lt-Col Hugh Houghton Stuart, a former officer in the Royal Irish Rifles, served in South Africa, commanding 22nd (Rough Riders) Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry and 3rd (Militia) Bn Essex Regiment.

In April the merged battalion moved to Oswestry in Shropshire, England, where it remained for the rest of the war as part of the West Lancashire Reserve Brigade.

[4][25] Colonels of the Regiment included: Lieutenants-Colonel (Commanding Officer from 1875) included: Honorary Colonels:[21][25] Other prominent members:[25] During the American War of Independence the lords-lieutenant of the English and Welsh counties had drawn lots each year to determine the relative precedence of their militia regiments.

The badge on the 1880 Home Service helmet (below) features a light infantry bugle-horn superimposed on Enniskillen Castle.