The 88th was established in Connaught in 1793 and it bore on its colours and appointments a harp and a crown with the motto Quis Separabit ‚ "Who shall divide us".
It first saw service in 1794 in Flanders in the disastrous Walcheren campaign against Napoleon's troops and, despite their inexperience, the troops fought well, but hundreds perished in the British Army's winter retreat that year. The regiment later fought in the West Indies, Egypt, India and South America before it joined Wellington's army in the Peninsular in 1808. It was during the Peninsular campaign that the 88th distinguished itself as one of the finest regiments in what Wellington himself was later to describe as "that most astonishing infantry".
The 88th went on to give further great services throughout the Peninsular and the invasion of France through the Pyrenees. At the conclusion of the war in 1814 it was sent to Canada to participate in the unsuccessful invasion of the United States via Lake Champlain. Soon afterward it was recalled to Europe when Napoleon escaped from Elba but arrived too late to take part at Waterloo.
In 1854 the 88th was engaged in the Crimea as one of the regiments that made the frontal assault on the Heights of the Alma and later participated in the defeat of a Russian attempt to break the Siege of Sebastopol. In 1857/58 the regiment was sent to India to aid in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny. Later on they were committed to the Zulu Wars and served with distinction in World War of 1914-18. It passed into history with the emergence of the Irish Free State in 1921.