What exactly is a "garrison town"?

jayteecork

You always hear people saying "yeah it's always the same with those garrison towns" when you hear about some trouble somewhere

But I'm not sure what exactly they're referring to.

Is it just a own where soldiers had a barracks?

But then that's practically every medium or greater town in Ireland.

Anyone know?

Mickey H

A town that had walls and gates at one stage perhaps? Or else something to do with having a military stationed there.

starbelgrade

In before the "Suck my balls, Mr.Garrison" YouTube post.

kowloon

Wiki is your friend

say_who_now?

starbelgrade wrote: »

In before the "Suck my balls, Mr.Garrison" YouTube post.

M'kay

DEFTLEFTHAND

Templemore is one. A former British army barracks is slap bang in its centre.

Victor

jayteecork wrote: »

Is it just a [t]own where soldiers had a barracks?

Yes.

But then that's practically every medium or greater town in Ireland.

No, not really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Forces_%28Ireland%29#Bases

There are some ranges, training areas and operational locations (mint, Portlaoise prison) not listed there.

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/2160/221674.PNG

Seaneh

Athlone is a Garrison town.

Probably the best example really.

jayteecork

Victor wrote: »

Yes.


No, not really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Forces_%28Ireland%29#Bases

Errr they're current military bases ya twat

In Cork places like Midleton and Fermoy all used have a barracks.

mod:

banned.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Just to touch on Templemore again its interesting to note that on the day of the 1916 Rising, British reinforcements traveled to Dublin from their Barracks.

randylonghorn

Pretty much towns which have a military barracks / have a history of having a substantial military presence.

It doesn't really refer to towns where the British had a small barracks a century ago.

Victor

jayteecork wrote: »

Errr they're current military bases ya twat

In Cork places like Midleton and Fermoy all used have a barracks.

Where was the barracks in Midleton (unless you mean the police station)? http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,588118,573588,6,9

Well, based on:

jayteecork wrote: »

You always hear people saying "yeah it's always the same with those garrison towns" when you hear about some trouble somewhere

One would think that any laddish behaviour would stop once the barracks was closed.

Pride Fighter

Would have always thought it was a town with a British army barracks and where British sports were more dominant than in other parts of the country. Would think the likes of Longford, Athlone, Sligo where football has always been more popular than say the likes of Ballina, Wicklow Town and Dingle.

jayteecork

Victor wrote: »

Where was the barracks in Midleton (unless you mean the police station)? http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,588118,573588,6,9

Walk towards the Jameson distillery, take a right at McDaid's bar and the barracks is down there.

Victor

jayteecork wrote: »

Walk towards the Jameson distillery, take a right at McDaid's bar and the barracks is down there.

That is an FCÁ-era drill hall about the size and sophistication of a school gym: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,588071,573318,7,3

http://maps.google.ie/maps?q=55+Main+Street,+Midleton&hl=en&ll=51.911805,-8.17386&spn=0.000842,0.002642&sll=53.32432,-6.251695&sspn=0.208752,0.676346&oq=55+Main+Street+Midleton&t=h&hnear=55+Main+St,+Midleton,+County+Cork&z=19&layer=c&cbll=51.911897,-8.173818&panoid=NST4jDeuMYp1qZC9r5MhYg&cbp=12,84.98,,0,-2.6

mikemac1

Large military presence in Tipperary over the centuries

Templemore already mentioned

Clonmel recently closed

Nenagh had a barracks closed back in the 20's. There was talk of keeping the exterior but gutting the inside and building a modern office park during Celtic Tiger days.
A modern building but tastefully keeping the best of the old brickwork and design. Would have been great.
Never happened and it's falling apart now, it won't be there in 20 years. Roof has collapsed in a few places
Looking in a very bad way

Don't forget garrison games, it's a reference to that OP

Seanchai

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Would think the likes of Longford, Athlone, Sligo where football has always been more popular

Actually, soccer rather than football would be stronger in Sligo and other garrison towns of the British crown forces of occupation in Ireland. Football is much stronger outside those towns where people are too proud of being Irish to lower themselves to playing the garrison game, never mind slavishly watching it on Brit tv every night.

Qualitymark

Britain used to use Ireland to warehouse its soldiers. You can see it from the design of many railway stations - they're often outside the town, so soldiers can get off the train and assemble to march to barracks without getting tangled up with market day crowds and cattle.

Milk & Honey

Qualitymark wrote: »

Britain used to use Ireland to warehouse its soldiers. You can see it from the design of many railway stations - they're often outside the town, so soldiers can get off the train and assemble to march to barracks without getting tangled up with market day crowds and cattle.

Troops were kept in Ireland because it cost less to maintain them in Ireland than in Britain. In the vast majority of cases the railways were built after the barracks and the stations were near the barracks because the railway companies wanted the business.
Technically none of the towns in Ireland are "garrison towns". To be a garrison town the whole town has to be behind walls and defended by troops. The term has been applied to towns in Ireland which have or had a military presence. The British Army rotated troops around the empire with the result that may soldiers were not native to the region in which they were stationed. The GAA was only set up in the final decades of British rule in most of Ireland and because of the ban on foreign games under Rule 21 those who stuck with the games they were familiar with i.e. rugby and soccer did not play Gaelic games.

mike65

Garrison Town in political context is a term of light abuse - not quite as Irish as the town in question should be, if you are a republican.

aujopimur

Garrison town = lots of wimin riding

losthorizon

kowloon wrote: »

Wiki is your friend

Wiki is not your friend. It has to be taken with a large pinch of salt as virtually anybody can edit it. Facts on wiki are can be very dubious.

Qualitymark

losthorizon wrote: »

Wiki is not your friend. It has to be taken with a large pinch of salt as virtually anybody can edit it. Facts on wiki are can be very dubious.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

Badly Drunk Boy

This month, Newbridge celebrated its 200th anniversary. It started out as a British garrison and soon after, shops started appearing around the garrison and it grew from there. Most of the army stuff is in the Curragh Camp these days.

Augmerson

Portlaoise is a barracks town.

entropi

Qualitymark wrote: »

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

Article from 2005. Get with the times.

Qualitymark

Master of Nothing wrote: »

Article from 2005. Get with the times.

Didn't realise that truth was subject to mould.

Capt'n Midnight

Qualitymark wrote: »

Britain used to use Ireland to warehouse its soldiers. You can see it from the design of many railway stations - they're often outside the town, so soldiers can get off the train and assemble to march to barracks without getting tangled up with market day crowds and cattle.

The train stations were outside the town so troops could get organised before marching to town to put down any insurrection.

ArtSmart

as others have mentioned, it's a slur, ie, local wimim dallied with the British army, giving rise to fatherless children who ran amok and fathered their own 'blood tainted' children, filling the town with tainted trouble makers, unlike the sweet natured Irish inhabitants.

bit of muck savage standard racism

(no offence to any muck savages) LOL

kowloon

losthorizon wrote: »

Wiki is not your friend. It has to be taken with a large pinch of salt as virtually anybody can edit it. Facts on wiki are can be very dubious.

Granted, I wouldn't want it in the bibliography of any major work on any topic, but it's usually fine for pointing you in the right direction or finding out something small quickly.

Wiki is great for all those little questions we ask, the ones that in the not so distant past would end up being answered with 'sure who knows?'.

Milk & Honey

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The train stations were outside the town so troops could get organised before marching to town to put down any insurrection.

The trains stations were in the towns because they were shared with the civilian population. In Athlone there are two train stations, one forming the North wall of the barracks and the other about three hundred yards from the centre of the town. Both stations were built long after the barracks.
In Tipperary the train station is about 100 yards from the main gate of the barracks.
Clancy Barracks, and Collins barracks are beside Kingsbridge station. Troops putting down the 1916 Rising were brought into Broadstone from Athlone, adjaent to the Linenhall barracks. McKee barracks is a short walk from Heuston and also the Phoenix Park tunnel and was the last barracks built by the British in Dublin.

losthorizon

Qualitymark wrote: »

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf

For instance here is an article on Aloysius Stepinac a Croatian Bishop tied in with a very famous football match in Dublin in the 1950s. This guy collaborated with the fascist government in Croatia during WW2. This article makes him out to be a saint (ahem).

No wonder all the references are from either Croatia or the Vatican virtually. Nothing is independent.

Read up on Hugh Butler who challenged this view and helped Jews escape from Croatia

LordSutch

Milk & Honey wrote: »

The British Army rotated troops around the empire with the result that may soldiers were not native to the region in which they were stationed.

Presumably then if this is true, you would have had Bermudians, Egyptians, Indians, Kenyans, Nigerians, Canadians, South Africans, and all manner of foreign soldiers marching around Ireland at the time, or did Ireland just have English soldiers?

Victor

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The train stations were outside the town so troops could get organised before marching to town to put down any insurrection.

If you want to sneak up on someone, you don't unload your soldiers at the local train station.

The railways had to be cost conscious in their construction, so were generally built in open countryside, not though the middle of towns, which would have meant more expensive land, demolition and more expensive construction, e.g. more road bridges.

Bandon, very close to centre of town: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,549509,555109,7,9

Mallow, on the edge of town - a suitable place to cross the river: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,555125,598716,6,9 and Ballinasloe: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,584056,731803,6,9

Portlaoise, the railway made the town: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,646880,698669,7,9

Templemore, outside the town, because it hadn't been intended to serve it, but they need to avoid a bog: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,611985,670848,6,9

Tralee, right at the edge of town: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,483954,614632,7,9 and Mullingar: http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,643379,752749,7,9

Milk & Honey

LordSutch wrote: »

Presumably then if this is true, you would have had Bermudians, Egyptians, Indians, Kenyans, Nigerians, Canadians, South Africans, and all manner of foreign soldiers marching around Ireland at the time, or did Ireland just have English soldiers?

They were Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh generally. The British would have left the others such as Indians in place. The Regiments were moved to and from various parts of the empire. A regiment might go to Egypt, return to Ireland and after a time go to India for example.

Dave!

My guess would have been that's it's from the days in the US when settlers were pushing West, and a garrison town would be a town close to the frontier, i.e. it's dangerous because Indjins could attack at any moment. So a garrison town in a modern context would be generally any town which is dangerous.

I guess I was wrong, but the rationale was sound enough!

Mint Sauce

Its also the name of a village in Fermanagh near the boarder of Ballyshannon in Donegal. Probably also an explanation for its name.

Qualitymark

There's a blog about Irish garrison towns http://irishgarrisontowns.com - only a couple of postings, though.

Oh no, I was looking at it wrong - there are a good few, including one on "What is a garrison town" http://irishgarrisontowns.com/what-is-a-garrison-town/