The Calling of the Wild Geese

England’s Williamite wars of the late 1600s spilled into Ireland, with the forces of the warring King James and William of Orange battling at the Boyne and Aughrim, and with two sieges of Limerick. The defeat of the Jacobite Irish in 1691 led to the exile of the earl of Lucan, Patrick Sarsfield, along with the rest of the Irish military force to continental Europe, where they lived and died fighting other nations’ battles. This programme presents the sound world of these so-called Wild Geese, in Ireland and Europe, around 1700.