Our Regimental Museum at Connaught House contains many interesting artefacts, including the original Loos Football.
As the Museum is under developmental review, it is closed to visitors at the current time but if you do have any questions or to want learn more about the history of the London Irish Rifles please contact us on: webmaster@londonirishrifles.
Museum Curator, Alex Shooter, and his Assistants will also be available at all Regimental Association events when they will be able to provide further information on the History of the Regiment.
2025 Updates
It’s now been over 20 years since the move of the Regimental Collection from the Duke of York’s HQ to Connaught House – and we clearly remember the issues that faced the Curator, Tom Ball during the extended relocation period. The Museum team had been given sterling support then by Nigel Wilkinson, Eric Craig, Alan Roberts, Alex Shooter and numerous other Association members and together they were able to establish an excellent base in the outbuilding at the Army Reserve Centre at Flodden Road.
We are now at a stage where we believe that we need to refresh the displays in the Museum and this is especially timely as the main buildings are gradually being reconditioned to fit in with the updated outlook of No 15 (Loos) Company’s and its alignment with the Irish Guards. Available space within the Museum has reduced markedly reduced as items are brought over from the main building on the Flodden Road site.
We do recognise that we continue to be located within a small physical footprint and we are now looking at all relevant matters including the security of Museum access and we shall undertake a full inventory of all our array of valuable historical artefacts, portraits and archived papers as well as the hoard of Regimental Silver. We shall be undertaking a review of the whole collection, to ascertain what items can be put on display and what needs to be stored away securely. In addition, we are undertaking a wide-ranging strategic review of our future heritage outlook to include the re-setting of contingency plans and being able to safeguard our collection in case there are any changes to our circumstances at short notice.
In parallel, we continue to review items that may be added to the Regimental Collection – there was a recent possible very valuable addition from the early 20th century and we shall be able to say more about that next year. We also field a range of queries from families who are seeking to trace their forefather’s time with the London Irish Rifles during two World Wars – most of these now come through the website and these stories greatly add to the Regimental memory. Every day is a learning day for us.
As always, we welcome the support of our Museum Trustees and volunteers and we maintain close links with our friends at the National Army Museum, Army Museums Ogilby Trust (AMOT) and the London Military Museums Network, meetings of which we have recently attended at the Guards Museum and at the Fusiliers Museum in the Tower of London.
All in all, we look forward to a year of progress in continuing to develop a firm base to enable a fruitful, evolving development of our Museum and that it continues to be such a valuable resource for all of us for many years ahead.