 Under the new system , it was envisaged that one regular battalion would be based in the United Kingdom and one overseas . The 1st Battalion had been in North West England since the late 1870s and had been bombed while based at Salford Barracks in 1881 . The attack had been the first in a dynamite campaign instigated by the Irish Republican Jeremiah O 'Donovan Rossa . The barracks sustained only minor structural damage from the explosion , which killed a child and badly wounded its mother . Soon afterwards , rioting during mineworkers ' strikes in Chowbent , Wigan , and Warrington required the battalion 's intervention to prevent further disorder . In 1882 , the battalion moved to Ireland , based in the Curragh . During the otherwise uneventful posting , the 1st responded to riots in Belfast . The sectarian disorder coincided with the introduction of the 1886 Home Rule Bill in the British Parliament . The battalion returned to England three years later . 
