(Signed) “T. B. Arnold, Colonel,
“Royal Engineers, Commg. the Garr.”
1836
On the arrival of the Messenger steamer at the Cove of Cork, orders were received to convey the depôt to Kinsale, where it disembarked the 10th September, and went into barracks at Charles Fort, from which a company was detached to Bandon on the 14th. On the 6th October, the depôt was inspected by Major-General Sir Thomas Arbuthnot, K.C.B., commanding the southern district, who expressed himself highly satisfied with it in every particular. On 19th October, Assistant-Surgeon Douse, Lieutenant Mackie, with one serjeant, and twenty-one privates, proceeded to Spike Island, where (with the exception of Surgeon Douse, promoted to the 14th foot, who was replaced by Assistant-Surgeon Dalmage) they remained until the 9th February, 1836, when they embarked in the Bristol freight ship to join the service companies at Corfu. On the 31st March, a company was detached to Dunmanway.
The depôt received the route for Nenagh, and two companies, with head-quarters, marched from Charles Fort on the 19th of April, detaching, en route, a company to Killaloe, and relieved the depôt of the 27th regiment at Nenagh, on the 27th. The companies at Bandon and Dunmanway joined head-quarters on the 12th May, and the depôt was inspected by Major-General Sir James Douglas, K.C.B., commanding the south-western district, on the 14th, who was pleased to say, “he had seen no depôt of which he should make a more favourable report.”
A letter, of which the following is a copy, was received by Captain Rutherford, commanding the detachment at Bandon, on his departure from that town:—
“Bandon, 2nd May, 1836.
“Sir,—We the undersigned inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Bandon, having learned with regret that you are about to be removed with the detachment under your command of the Eighty-Eighth regiment, consider it but justice to express to you before your departure, our perfect satisfaction at the regular and strict propriety of conduct of the men of your distinguished corps while they have been stationed here, now upwards of seven months; thus proving to their friends at home, as they have often done to their enemies abroad, what can be effected by uniform steadiness and high discipline.
“We beg you to accept and express to your men, our very best wishes for yours and their happiness and success, and the great satisfaction we shall feel, should the Connaught Rangers at any future period be quartered among us.”
Signed by the Honourable Wm. Bernard, Provost of Bandon, eight Magistrates, ten Clergymen, and one hundred and forty-eight of the most respectable and influential inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood.
To the foregoing Captain Rutherford made the following reply:—