Cap Badge - The Royal Irish Regiment This badge was sold by Jim Purdy for $50.00 on e-Bay in the Spring/Summer of 2017. This badge was deemed irrelevant to the museum. The money was used to purchase relevant badges for the collection. The Royal Irish Regiment, until 1881 the 18th Regiment of Foot, was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, first raised in 1684. Also known as the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot it was one of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland, its home depot in Clonmel. In 1881 as part of the Childers Reforms the regiment became the Royal Irish Regiment, and served as the county regiment of Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Kilkenny. Its garrison depot was at Clonmel. Militarily, the whole of Ireland was administered as a separate command within the United Kingdom with Command Headquarters at Parkgate (Phoenix Park) Dublin, directly under the War Office in London. It saw service for two and a half centuries before being disbanded with the Partition of Ireland following establishment of the independent Irish Free State in 1922 when the five regiments (The Royal Irish Regiment; The Connaught Rangers; The Prince of Wales' Leinster Regiment; The Royal Munster Fusiliers; The Royal Dublin Fusiliers and The South Irish Horse) that had their traditional recruiting grounds in the counties of the new state were disbanded.