Modern research by Eoghan Ó hAnnracháin claims that it is very doubtful if the regiments would also have been chanting in Irish, a language unknown to probably a majority of the brigade at the time. Others strongly dispute this, as over the course of 100 years new recruits were brought into the brigade mostly from the Irish-speaking regions of West Munster, the homeland of, among others the O'Connell family. Stephen McGarry also makes the point in his book Irish Brigades Abroad that Irish was widely spoken in the Irish regiments of France. Daniel Charles O'Connell was the uncle of The Liberator Daniel O'Connell and was the last Colonel of the French Irish Brigade in 1794 and rose to general rank. The O'Connells were native Irish speakers and members of dispossessed Gaelic Aristocracy. According to official French Army regulations, officers of the Irish Brigade regiments had to be Irish, half of whom had to be born in Ireland and the other half born of Irish descent in France. In practice by the outbreak of the French Revolution most serving officers of the Brigade fell into the second category. Seamus MacManus shows in his book The Story of The Irish Race (1921): "In truth, it was not the "Wild Geese" who forgot the tongue of the Gael or let it perish. We are told that the watchwords and the words of command in the "Brigade" were always in Irish and that officers who did not know the language before they entered the service found themselves of necessity compelled to learn it." End of the Irish Brigade The Brigade ceased to exist as a separate and distinct entity on 21 July 1791. Along with the other non-Swiss foreign units, the Irish regiments underwent "nationalization" at the orders of the National Assembly. This involved their being assimilated into the regular French Army as line infantry; losing their traditional titles, practices, regulations and uniforms. The initial (early 1791) restructuring of the army had already seen the Dillon Regiment become the 87e Regiment, Berwick the 88e, and Walsh the 92e. The 92nd Infantry Regiment remains in active service the French Army today, having seen action in the Napoleonic Wars, the Franco-Prussian War, and both the World Wars. The members of the Irish Brigade had historically sworn loyalty to the King of France, not to the French people or their new republic of 1792. In 1792 some