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.

[4] John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn, a prominent figure in Co Tyrone politics and a friend of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, was commissioned as Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant, and he appointed his officers during May, with Lt-Col the Hon Thomas Knox, MP, as his second-in-command.

[8] There was some difficulty in providing arms for the new regiments (many were bought second-hand), and in September a corporal's guard of the Royal Tyrones had to hand their seven muskets over to their reliefs when they went off duty.

During this training period, the regiment was quartered at Strabane, Co Tyrone, and in March the men were commended by Lt-Col Knox and their officers and by the town officials for their discipline and good conduct when they were called out to deal with the 'criminal and highly improper behaviour' of the militia of a neighbouring county.

The regiment, including its battalion guns and a detachment of the Royal Artillery, were ordered to be on high alert in case of a French invasion.

The additional men were to be found by voluntary enlistment where possible, and in March the regiment sent recruiting parties back to various towns in Co Tyrone: Dungannon, Strabane and Newtownstewart, and later to Augher, Clogher and Aughnacloy.

However, the regiment had marched to Dublin by November 1795, quartered in various barracks around the city and with detachments at Dunboyne, Rathcoole and Swords that were rotated monthly.

The regiment underwent field days and inspections in the summer of 1796 and on 1–2 November it marched to winter quarters at Kells (HQ), Cootehill, Oldcastle, and Trim.

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

Recruiting parties left for Co Tyrone to raise the additional men, who were to be enlisted for the duration of the war and for two months afterwards and were paid a bounty.

The Marquis of Abercorn encouraged Esprit de corps in the Royal Tyrone Militia by instituting a badge of merit for the best soldiers with over three years' service.

[16][17] Between June and September 1797 the regiment was distributed from Limerick to towns across County Kerry: Castleisland, Dingle, Killarney and Tralee, with HQ at Tarbert.

Tensions were building in Ireland, and the authorities endeavoured to seize illegal arms caches and billet troops in disaffected areas; in April the regiment was ordered to send out three detachments accompanied by Yeomanry Cavalry.

Several houses in which soldiers were quartered were set on fire and in the attack seven dragoons and four militiamen and Lt McFarland of the Royal Tyrones were killed in the Battle of Ballymore-Eustace.

Meanwhile, Lt Eadie and a party of 23 of the Royal Tyrones who had been stationed for some months at Ballitore had been ordered to join the rest of the company at Calverstown.

[23] The regiment remained in barracks at Cork throughout 1799, though in May and August it was ordered to be ready, with full ammunition pouches, to march at short notice if another French invasion appeared.

At the beginning of 1800 there was a call for volunteers from the militia to join the Regular Army, and 227 men from the nine companies at Cork did so in January, almost all to the 1st Battalion, Royal Scots, at Newry.

The warrant for disembodying the regiment was issued on 5 May, and the men were paid off on 13 May, leaving the permanent staff of non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and drummers under the adjutant.

In early August a party went to Dublin to draw camp equipment, and during the month the regiment marched by 'divisions' of three or four companies to Limerick, which was believed to be in danger from a sudden French attack on the River Shannon.

Almost the whole of the Royal Tyrone Fusiliers accepted this, the remainder soon agreeing rather than be called 'Black belts' (the derogatory term applied to those regiments that refused to volunteer).

In February 1814 the regiment was sent to Clonmel, with detachments scattered widely over Co Tipperary, HQ moving to Cashel in July and then to Tullamore in September.

[35][36] Napoleon abdicated in April 1814 and with the end of the war a number of Irish Militia regiments were marched back to their home counties and disembodied.

Here the men who had served over five years were progressively discharged, though recruiting parties with the band continued to tour the towns of Co Tyrone to obtain replacements to keep it at its lower (pre-augmentation) establishment strength.

For the first reduction, in 1822, the Earl of Caledon selected the senior sergeants who were eligible for a pension, and arranged for the younger corporals and drummers to join the new police force in the Province of Munster.

During the Fenian Rising of 1867 the permanent staff of the Royal Tyrone Fusiliers mounted guard on the regimental armoury and recruitment and annual training were suspended until 1871.

[60] 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.

[6][7][48] After the disasters of Black Week at the start of the Second Boer War in December 1899, most of the regular army was sent to South Africa, and many militia units were called out to replace them for home defence.

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.

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.