Redshank (soldier)

Redshank was a nickname for Scottish mercenaries from the Highlands and Western Isles contracted to fight in Ireland; they were a prominent feature of Irish armies throughout the 16th century.

There are records of men of other clans being hired, such as in 1564 when Somhairle Buidhe Mac Domhnaill procured a group of MacGregors, led by their chief, for a season's campaigning in Ulster.

[7] Mercenary hire was often founded on family links, with Shane O'Neill's alliance by marriage with the MacLeans and Campbells facilitating his importation of fighting men from those clans.

Despite this, the English never considered engaging the redshanks on a large scale themselves, although Lord Deputy Russell advocated it, and gallowglasses had been employed in the early years of Elizabeth's reign.

[5] In the mid 17th century, a large number of Scottish Highlanders, also often called "redshanks", fought in the Irish Confederate Wars, notably the clansmen serving under Alasdair Mac Colla, himself a member of a minor Hebridean branch of Clan Donald (a cadet family of Macdonald of Dunnyveg).