During the 18th Century there were various Volunteer Associations and unofficial 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.

[8]) The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars saw the British and Irish militia embodied for a whole generation, becoming regiments of full-time professional soldiers (though restricted to service in Britain or Ireland respectively), which the regular army increasingly saw as a prime source of recruits.

[3][6][11] In December that year a soldier of the Meath Militia was shot through the head by a woman in Skibbereen, and the men would have sacked the town had not their officers prevented them.

A large French expeditionary force appeared in Bantry Bay on 21 December and troops from all over Ireland were marched towards the threatened area: the Royal Meath was one of the first to arrive.

The captain and two subalterns, four sergeants and 94 privates of the regiment and gunners were killed and the guns were captured by the rebels, who drove off a second advance that afternoon.

[3] Thomas Pepper became the regiment's Lieutenant-Colonel on 14 June that year, and the acting commanding officer (CO) in the absence of the colonel on other duties.

[7][3] With the diminishing threat of invasion after 1799, the strength of the militia could be reduced, and the surplus men were encouraged to volunteer for regiments of the line.

The men were paid off at Kells on 16 March, leaving only the permanent staff of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and drummers under the regimental adjutant.

[5][20] Over the following years the regiments carried out garrison duties at various towns across Ireland, attended summer training camps, and reacted to various invasion scares, none of which materialised.

However, he offered personally to pay two guineas (£2.10) to compensate each man in the regiment who was affected, and this gratuity encouraged 90 men to re-enlist, while 20 had volunteered for the regulars, leaving only 20 cases unsettled.

The Royal Meath was one of the regiments that volunteered, and on 26 January 1812 it embarked from Cork, where it had been stationed since 1810, and landed at Harwich, proceeding to quarters in Ipswich.

[3] [26] On 7 April 1823 Thomas Taylour, Earl of Bective followed his father the Marquess of Headfort as colonel of the Royal Meath Militia.

Lieutenant-Col Pepper was finally succeeded on 12 December 1846 by Thomas Edward Taylor, a kinsman of the Marquesses of Headfort and former captain in the 6th Dragoon Guards.

In the Royal Meath these continued to be filled by the 2nd Marquess of Headfort and Thomas Taylor, but a large number of new officers were commissioned.

[27][32] The Crimean War broke out in 1854 and after a large expeditionary force was sent overseas, the militia began to be called out for home defence.

For the Meath Militia this was in Sub-District No 67 (Counties of Meath, Westmeath and Longford, and King's and Queen's Counties) in Dublin District of Irish Command:[32] 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.

[3] After the Second Boer War broke out in October 1899 an expeditionary force was sent to South Africa and the militia reserve was called out to reinforce it.

There were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers) to take their place in the six Army Corps proposed by the Secretary of State for War, St John Brodrick.

Training was hampered by the demands placed on the battalions for working parties to dig extensive trenches round the naval base of Queenstown and for guard duties.

[45][49] Also on 25 October the 5th ER battalion was ordered to send a draft of 130 other ranks to the 2nd Leinsters, which had suffered heavy casualties at Prémesques during the Battle of Armentières.

[50] 5th Leinsters moved from Shanbally Camp to Passage West on 29 October and remained there until 21 May 1915, when the 4th and 5th battalions were ordered to England, embarking at Queenstown aboard the RMS Connaught for Plymouth.

The leading platoon came under sharp fire as it passed the Lower Castle yard gate, but dealt with the snipers and occupied Dame Lane.

[52] Training was resumed at the Curragh, and the battalion undertook another recruiting drive with the pipes and drums through County Meath in September 1916.

In August it moved again, to dilapidated barracks at Boyle, County Roscommon, a Nationalist area where trouble was expected but did not materialise.

[53] The losses incurred during the German spring offensive of March 1918 led to increased demands for drafts from the training battalions, which became very depleted.

[45][47][54] With the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, all British Army regiments based in Southern Ireland were disbanded, including the Prince of Wales's Own Leinsters.

[61] On the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War the English counties had drawn lots to determine the relative precedence of their militia regiments.

An obelisk was erected at Forth Mountain in 1952, and in 1998 a group of bronze United Irish pikemen sculpted by Éamonn O'Doherty was placed by the road where the Royal Meath Militia were ambushed.