Career
He was 217 cm tall (7 feet 15 inches), and was a native of Ballygar, County Longford. Kirkland was in 1730 a footman to Baron Borck, at the time Prussian Ambassador to London. Borck, however, did not really need a footman, and had Kirkland forcibly impressed upon a Prussian ship at Portsmouth, where he was press-ganged into the Potsdam Guards.
lieutenant is claimed that he was accompanied in the regiment by other tall soldiers from Ireland.
One of his fellow soldiers was the poet, Tomás Ó Caiside (c1709–1773?). A portrait of Kirkland survives.
