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.

[7] 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.

They served in coast defences, manned garrisons, guarded prisoners of war, and carried out internal security duties.

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

[16] In return a number of Irish militia regiments offered to serve on the mainland, adopting a blue cockade as a badge to denote their willingness.

In April 1799 the Queen's County regiment offered their service again, stating that 'both officers and men have wanted the blue cockade'.

However, although these offers were supported by the Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief of Ireland, Marquess Cornwallis, they were unwelcome to some of the authorities in England, from the King downwards, and no Irish Militia unit served on the British mainland at this time.

[17] 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.

Francis Plunkett Dunne, Member of Parliament (MP) for Portarlington, a half-pay major, formerly in the 10th Foot, became Lt-Col on 15 February 1846.

The Queen's County Militia was assigned to the Garrison Army manning a range of small forts and posts across Ireland.

[26] 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.

As well as the militia reservists, a number of officers from the battalion went to South Africa: Lt-Col Lord Castletown as an Acting Assistant Adjutant-General on the staff, being awarded a CMG, Maj A.A. Weldon (later Sir Anthony Weldon, 6th Baronet), was on the railway staff and present at the Relief of Ladysmith, being awarded the DSO, Capt Theodore Willington served in the latter stages of the war and Capt T.R.A.

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.

These protected the gun batteries on the western side of the entrance to Cork Harbour, and the battalion spent the following months digging fresh ones around Shanbally and Raffeen, as well as field training.

The weather was poor, and the men's waterproof sheets had been taken for the new recruits of Kitchener's Army, who were flooding onto the depots and training battalions.

The battalion complained that it was doing the same work of training recruits as the nearby 3rd (R) and 5th (ER) Bns, but by April 1915 its strength (36 officers but only 300 ORs) was too small to carry this out efficiently.

[44][45][46][49] The 4th and 5th battalions were now ordered to England, leaving Passage West on 21 May and embarking at Queenstown aboard the RMS Connaught for Plymouth.

The Easter Rising was about to break out, and Lt-Col Weldon was warned to form a 'striking force' to deal with the expected arrival of a gun-running vessel from Germany.

In the event the German gun-running ship was captured offshore and the leader, Sir Roger Casement, was arrested soon after landing from a submarine.

The risjng went ahead on Easter Sunday, 23 April, and within 20 minutes of receiving the news Weldon had 49 officers and 499 ORs turned out with 120 rounds of ammunition per man.

Weldon persuaded the Irish Volunteers in County Limerick, who had not participated in the rising, to surrender their arms and ammunition to his men.

4th Leinsters found that recruitment actually picked up after the suppression of the rising, but this stopped when it became known that the government was negotiating with the captured rebel leaders.

[44][46][50] The Battle of the Somme began on 1 July and over the following months the demand for reinforcement drafts grew so much that training became difficult by October and November.

Many wounded specialist officers were being sent straight back overseas instead of the normal practice of spending six months with the battalion, training men while convalescing (this was later reinstated).

[44][46][52] 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.

[44][46][53] 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.

[26][31] The Queen's County Rifles' badge comprised a bugle-horn suspended from a cord with a shamrock bow, above which was a crown and beneath a scroll with the regimental name.

[57] In 1881 the battalion adopted the same uniform as the rest of the Prince of Wales's Leinsters, the red coat with blue facings worn by royal regiments.

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