1798 Rebellion Project Part 5: a Mixed Bag of Rebels

This week I painted up another batch of United Irishmen. I added a few conversions and extra details to make them a bit more varied. I took inspiration from a few sources.

This figure was inspired by this article. A Canadian museum owns a Bronze Age Irish sword which they claim was used at the Battle of New Ross in 1798. A new handle was fitted to the weapon, and it shows signs of having been sharpened and used relatively recently. It is indeed possible that a 2500 year old sword was used during the rebellion! 

The sword is from a plastic Games Workshop skeleton kit. It's not exactly the same shape as the real sword, but it's fairly close. I bent the hands into shape using pliers. I was going to put something in his left hand, but thought the clenched fist pose looked cool. It's as if he's daring an opponent to come closer! 

This chap is armed with a fowling piece, a long barrelled gun which was used to hunt ducks. Such weapons were often used on the Wexford Slobs, and are best known from the song "John Kelly of Killann". Some had brass barrels. I cut the original barrel down, and glued on some paperclip wire in its place.

This banner features the Gal Gréine , the Irish Sunburst flag. This flag seems to have first been used in the 18th Century, and became very popular with Irish Nationalists from the 19th Century onwards. It harkens back to the legends of the Fianna, a group of heroes who sometimes referred to themselves as "Gal Gréine" or "sunbursts". I don't have any evidence that the flag was used in the 1798 Rebellion, and doubt that it made an appearance. But I think it's an eye catching design that's worth including.

Since I'm painting batches in packs rather than units, I had some extra gunmen left over. There are lots of them still to do, and they'll be mixed through all the pike blocks. I've made a few modifications to them as well. I changed some of their muskets into blunderbusses by cutting off the end of the barrels and adding a ball of Milliput.