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I never did like Sergeants, nasty beggars always shouting and roaring and giving people a hard time! I think that the collective for that horrible rank should be a "Bellow" of Sergeants? Those daft looking Pillbox hats make them look different but I suspect that he is the man on the left front on the right side of the officer with the sword.

From this informative site , I found "a subtlety of sergeants at law", but I think that refers to some sort of a fancy lawyer, and there's nothing too subtle about these sergeants.

At a guess (and after a few mins of Google-fu), these chaps are from the Royal Horse Artillery.

Some have the Royal Artillery badge above their stripes. All are wearing snake belt buckles with blanco on the belt. Here are some earlier uniforms of the RA. www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyuniforms/britishartill... "The Sam Browne belt was ordered to be gradually introduced from 1898 to replace the white pouchbelt and binoculars case."

Is it me or do they all look very, very like one another around the facial area as in the image of one another? Look at their eyes!

A group of Redmondite volunteer Non Commissioned Officers in full regalia! I don't think I've seen anything like this before. All patriotic and well meaning and caught out by the Rising in 1916 and the decision of their leaders to support Britain in WW1 in the hope of gaining Home Rule by peaceful means. Many of them joined the war effort in Europe and lost their lives and many more changed over and took an active part in the war of independence. They are surprisingly well equipped with rifles, those are Lee-Enfield Mark II riflles the standard issue to the British Army at that time though they are sporting Boer War bandoliers.

Swordscookie Thanks, Sean, for condensing 10 turbulent years of Irish history into a few lines, and for the techie information. I've tagged from what you've said. You say "surprisingly well equipped". The rifles may have been up to date, but I wonder how many of those rifles the Volunteers had - not just those that would be displayed for PR reasons in a photo like this?

Swordscookie Pigsticker = Bayonet??

National Library of Ireland on The Commons Of course. The chap near the pointy end better not move in a hurry or he'll be bleeding like a stuck pig!

Swordscookie Thank you for that eloquent and evocative descripion! :)

Description from Catalogue of Photographs and Stereopticon Slides , March 1 to June 1, 1918, p.11: " 4174 FOOT INSPECTION . Marines preparing for foot inspection." Catalogue of Photographs and Stereopticon Slides United States Committee on Public Information. Division of pictures U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918 books.google.com/books?id=DYxDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA25&lp... A French government archive has this as well: "Le soin porté aux pieds par les soldats est très important : lavage après un entraînement et avant une inspection" ["The care taken of feet by the soldiers is very important: wash after training and before an inspection"] the archive dates this as taken on 3-27-18 www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/memsmn_fr?ACTION=RETRO...