Why has 'Ballyragget' been dedicated to UK's King Charles?

On a rainy, summer morning in the centre of London a small town in Kilkenny took a fleeting but starring role in a major military pageant.

The official birthday of the monarch of the United Kingdom is always celebrated in June, regardless of their actual birthday.
It is marked with great pomp and ceremony with a tradition known as Trooping the Colour, when a regimental flag is paraded on Horse Guards Parade.

During the parade, the King’s Colour (regimental flag) is ‘Trooped’, that is carried aloft by one of the regiment’s most junior officers, through the ranks of soldiers.

It is one of the biggest ceremonial events on the calendar, in the UK, dating back to 1748, and these days includes more than 1400 parading soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians as well as a fly-past from the Royal Air Force and a 41-gun salute!

While the Irish Guards are a common sight in the parade, with their Irish Wolfhound mascot, this year there was an additional and special Irish element to the pageant - a new march called ‘Ballyragget’ performed in the Massed Band’s quick troop.

How a new piece of music, written especially in honour of King Charles this year, came to be named after a piece of North Kilkenny is curious. In fact, it is named after a famous battle tank that in turn was named after the town of Ballyragget!

The Irish Guards are an infantry regiment of the British Army that has a tradition of naming armoured vehicles after towns in Ireland.
During World War II the regiment saw the creation of the Guards Armoured Division, the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards.
In June 1944 this division landed in Normandy for Operation Overlord, a few weeks after D-Day. One of the tanks in the division was named ‘Ballyragget.’

The ‘Ballyragget’ was commanded by 2Lt John Gorman, from Omagh, who later served in the RUC and as an Ulster Unionist Party politician. He was knighted in 1998.

While taking part in Operation Goodwood, in Normandy, in 1944, Lt Gorman’s group of tanks suddenly came upon a group of German Tiger II heavy tanks, just 270 metres away.

Knowing that his Sherman tank’s gun would have little effect on the Tiger’s thick armour, Gorman ordered his tank driver to ram the German tank, to prevent it from firing on Allied positions.

Both tanks were disabled by the collision and both crews immediately abandoned their vehicles.
Gorman then ran to a Sherman Firefly tank, fitted with a 17 pounder anti-tank gun, and completed the destruction of the Tiger II.
He was awarded the Military Cross for his actions and later a Croix de Guerre.

While this account is contested by the German tank’s gunner, who said that his commander ordered to back up, hitting the Sherman with its rear, Gorman and other members of his crew were honoured with medals for their actions.

On June 15, his year, a month shy of the 80th anniversary of Ballyragget’s heroics, the march named in honour of the military adventure, was part of Trooping the Colour for the first time.

Describing the ‘quick troop’ tune (or quick march) Ballyragget, the official Trooping the Colour description by the British Army says: “The clash of tanks is a visual and audible highlight of the music, shown by a fierce crash of drums and cymbals as the musicians smash them in the air.”