In 1666 Kirke obtained his first Army commission in Lord Admiral's regiment, and subsequently served in the Blues.

[1] That same year, he visited Meknes, where Moulay Ismail, as a gesture of goodwill, freed one of his English slaves and delivered him to Kirke.

[3] In the view of the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, he was "a military adventurer whose vices had been developed by the worst of all schools, Tangier....

[1] Brigadier Kirke took a notable part in the Glorious Revolution three years later, and William III promoted him.

He commanded at the relief of Derry, breaking the Jacobite Irish Army's siege of the city.