1842
On the 13th August, 1842, the regiment received a sudden order at half-past seven o’clock P.M., to proceed to London by an early train the following morning. Accordingly, on the 14th of August, the head-quarters, consisting of one lieutenant-colonel, one major, nine captains, ten subalterns, three staff, twenty-seven serjeants, eleven drummers, and five hundred and twenty-four rank and file, left Portsmouth at eight A.M., and proceeding by the South Western Railway to London, arrived at the Nine Elms Station, marched to the Birmingham Railway Station, and proceeded forthwith to Weedon, where it arrived at twelve at night; sudden disturbances in the manufacturing districts were the cause of this unexpected movement.
On the 16th August, three companies left Weedon for the disturbed districts, and on the 17th two more companies proceeded in the same direction. These were detached at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Wolverhampton, and Stafford; other companies were detached to Birmingham, and during the autumn of 1842, the head-quarters were moved to Northampton, all the ten companies being on detachment at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Burslem, Hanley, Stafford, Wolverhampton, Bilston, Birmingham, and Coventry.
The companies were subsequently withdrawn from Bilston and Stafford; but the others remained as above described until the 4th August, when the entire regiment was collected together at Weedon. At this period the strength of the regiment was as follows, viz:—One colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, two majors, ten captains, twelve lieutenants, eight ensigns, one paymaster, one adjutant, one quartermaster, one surgeon, one assistant-surgeon, forty-seven serjeants, fourteen drummers, and eight hundred and one rank and file.
1843
During the year 1843, political agitation was carried to such an extent in Ireland, as to induce Her Majesty’s Government to take measures for putting down the demonstrations of physical force which had been made in that country.
For this purpose, additional corps were ordered from Great Britain to Ireland. The Thirty-fourth Regiment, on this emergency, was ordered on the 4th of October to be removed by railroad to Liverpool. The regiment quitted its station at Weedon early in the morning of the 6th of October, and arrived at Liverpool on the same day. It was embarked on the afternoon of the 7th of October in steam-vessels for Dublin, where it arrived on the following morning, and being disembarked, it marched to Clontarf[16] (a village situated about two miles from the capital, on the Bay of Dublin), where a numerous public meeting had been advertised to be held, but which was prohibited by Government proclamation as illegal. A large body of troops had been concentrated in the neighbourhood in apprehension of a breach of the peace; but the assemblage having separated without disturbance, the troops returned to their quarters in the evening.
1844
The regiment remains in Dublin at the period to which this record is brought.