Irish troops

[potent mauve]

Ireland played a interesting contribution to world war one. Both sides in Ireland both fought and died together in the trenches, Irish nationalists and unionist battalions fought together against the Germans. The two famous battalions of old Ireland were the 36th Ulster division and 16th Irish division.

The 36th was a unionist battalion.

While the 16th was nationalist homerule supporters.

But tbh I just think seeing Irish troops in a ww1 game would be cool since they don't appear as much in these games.

I think for what to add is Irish accent maybe. A Dublin accent and then a Ulster accent.

Meanwhile for cosmetics I think it'd be nice to get a custom helmet paint that soldiers in the 36th sometimes painted on.

But sadly I think that's the end of cosmetics as unlike Scottish troop Irish soldiers wore mostly the standard khaki uniform.

Image is a example of what I mean by helmet paint job

[viral bluff]

Totally support this. Those Irishmen who fought in Flanders fields helped forge modern Ireland as we know it today

did they have caubeens during WW1? all the information I can find on them comes from the second war.

[potent mauve]

They didn't sadly

Closest thing I found was that the pipers had a early version of a Caubeen but I don't think they'll add the pipers as a skin, though I'm not a 100% sure

[viral bluff]

Found something for you, Irish cosmetic for the sniper class. Dress / traditional uniform of the Royal Irish Rifles, later renamed Royal Ulster Rifles. From what i’ve found, these would’ve been around up to and including 1914, but was not service dress. The uniform would later return for ceremonial purposes from 1920 to 1939.

Other rifle regiments had their own distinct dress uniforms going into WW1. I recommend checking out the Cameronians / Scottish Rifles. But I wanted to give the Irish a win here.

[viral bluff]

Also, i’d be supportive of them adding a piper skin for them but lack the time and correct level of uniform nerdiness to find out what that would look like.

The Irish Guards and London Irish Rifles both had pipers by 1915. They adopted the orangeish saffron kilt for them, and proto-caubeen bonnet like you say. But this is all second hand info that I cannot pin down

[viral bluff]

found another painted helmet for you, this one prominently featuring the Irish harp.

Red Hand of Ulster is also present on it. I recommend just using the harp however, because I don’t want all the helmets to be just Ulster cosmetics.

more of a commemorative piece but I think merits inclusion

[potent mauve]

Ohh thanks for this

[viral bluff]

many Irish regiments have prominent harp badges on their caps. the Royal Munster Fusiliers had their own badge with a large dark green cloth shamrock backing it.

these badges would be easy additions. slight edits of currently existing caps, while still being distinctive

[potent mauve]

Oh yeah forgot about this

[viral bluff]

Here’s a fella from the Royal Irish Rifles with a fur coat and green scarf. No guarantees on that, it was just colorized that way.

Also, the dress uniform of the London Irish circa 1910

[viral bluff]

okay, i’ve done some piper research. a little bit of a deep dive, but I think I can tell you with more certainty what they would’ve looked like during WW1.

here’s an Irish bagpiper of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers circa 1910. i’ve seen the tunic vary depending on specific regimental dress uniforms, but the things I want to note are the green socks, saffron kilt, and caubeen bonnet thing.

where this becomes relevant is that later on, during proper trench war, Irish regiments unite their resources to begin creating their own piper bands. colorful dress tunics are gone by this point, replaced by khaki service dress likely. but orangeish kilt remains, as do long green socks. they privately acquire early caubeens as well. i’ve also seen from second hand sources occasionally wearing khaki shorts in lieu of saffron kilts.

the end result likely looking something like this later illustration.

Speaking of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, here is a bonus brodie helmet featuring their insignia and an early production error, making it all wavy and weird