Introduction.

This is a website about the history of Custume Barracks the soldiers and building’s within. The purpose is to inform soldiers, Soldier’s families and friends, schools and colleges and history buffs military and civilian living in or near Athlone, about the barracks and its history.

Custume Barracks

Athlone Barracks, named Victoria Barracks in 1837, was re-named Custume Barracks in 1922 by General Sean MacEoin,Independence fighter and first GOC Western Command

Sergeant Custume was a hero of the great siege of Athlone in 1691, sacrificing his life in the defence of the bridge.

In 1698 the Irish parliament decided to build barracks to accommodate the 12,000 British troops in Ireland. Athlone was one of the selected locations. During the great siege the Williamite bombardment had destroyed most of the west town. This cleared the way for the construction, of an infantry and cavalry barracks, stables and a riding house on a site acquired from the earl of Ranelagh.

Of these original buildings, all but the infantry barracks are extant, although now converted to different uses.

For much of the eighteenth century the barracks, supplemented by the nearby castle, accommodated a troop of horse and from three to five infantry companies, although for a time in the 1770s the cavalry component rose to five troops and was predominant.

A barrack building added at that time is the present officers’ mess.

A detachment of artillery was stationed at Athlone from the 1790s.

The ordnance presence increased with the construction of nine large permanent batteries on the western perimeter of the town soon after 1800.

Rifled steel artillery made the batteries obsolete by the 1860s, when they were finally abandoned.