The Blue Hussars, officially called the Mounted Escort, was a ceremonial cavalry unit of the Irish Army established in 1932. It escorted the President of Ireland on state occasions, most famously to and from presidential inaugurations between 1938, when the first president took office, and 1948 when the Escort was disbanded. Newsreel shows the Blue Hussars escorting the remains of the U.S. Diplomatic Representative to the Free State. The name Blue Hussars is sometimes also used to refer to their successors, the motorcycle unit of the Cavalry Corps that has provided presidential escorts since 1948.
A uniform was originally designed by a committee that included Irish artist Seán Keating, consisting of a saffron léine with six rows of black braid and black cuffs, a blue brat, tight pantaloons and a black Balmoral cap with saffron feather. For reasons that remain unknown, the original designs for the uniforms were not adopted. The uniform design finally selected and produced for the unit consisted of tunic and breeches in a rich sapphire blue with gold frogging and lace of the near-standard international hussar pattern and black sealskin busbies with orange-yellow plumes. Contemporary rumour suggested that these distinctive hussar-style uniforms, which gave the unit its nickname, had been found in a cupboard in Dublin Castle in 1932 and dated back to British rule in Ireland. The story was that, rather than throw them out, the uniforms were used to dress up the army unit escorting the legate. While however the designs of the uniforms used were based upon British garments, files in the National Archives of Ireland show that £2,165 was spent on purchasing the seventy uniforms used by the escort. The basic pattern was identical to that of the 8th Hussars, but the bright blue colour differed from the dark blue of British hussar regiments.
Soldiers in the escort
The Mounted Escort had a total of eighty horses. The Escort consisted of an advance guard of two, a single connecting file, two flanking riders, and two troops of thirty. The bulk of the personnel comprising the Escort were drawn from the Artillery Corps, which in the 1930s was the only branch of the Irish Defence Forces employing horses in any numbers. The Escort was not permanently embodied but was brought together for public duties and rehearsals as required. In addition to ceremonial duties, the Escort performed at horse shows and gymkhanas.
Presidential escort
The creation of the presidency of Ireland in 1937 led to a decision to transfer the Blue Hussars exclusively to presidential ceremonial. Most notably they escorted President Seán T. O'Kelly, who travelled to the 1945 inauguration in the late Queen Alexandra's horse-drawn landau, the first time when a president went to his or her inauguration in a horse-drawn carriage rather than a car. In 1947, however, following a carriage incident at the Dublin Horse Show at the Royal Dublin Society the government of Éamon de Valera decided to abandon the use of carriages for Irish presidents. The following year the First Inter-Party Government decided to disband the Mounted Escort also, even though between 1938 and 1945 the Escort had escorted presidents as they travelled by car. The Minister for Defence argued that motorcycles would be "more impressive" than Irish horses. Patrick McGilligan, the Minister for Finance who successfully pushed for their abolition, defended his action in Seanad Éireann by saying Within the Irish army, their disbanding was blamed on a lack of suitable horses, a claim critics ridiculed given that Ireland was and is famed for its horses. This has the current result that, while crossbred Irish Draught and Thoroughbred horses are the mounts used by the British Household Cavalry for state and royal occasions, Ireland imports motorbikes to fulfill that role in its own ceremonial. Though the Blue Hussars were officially disbanded in 1948, 2 Cavalry Squadron took over their role and for a time was equipped with blue Honda motorcycles in honour of their predecessors. Due to this link, the unit was on occasion nicknamed the Blue Hussars.
