Ironside was a nickname given to a soldier in the cavalry troop formed by Oliver Cromwell early in the English Civil War; these soldiers would form the nucleus of the New Model Army.

The Ironsides' use of armour and their disciplined formation and obedience to their commanders, at a period when the majority of both armies consisted largely of ill-equipped rabble, made them virtually invincible.


Ironside is the name of a television series starring Raymond Burr as former Chief Detective Robert Ironside, who has become a consultant to the San Francisco police department after a sniper's bullet paralysed him from the waist, thus confining him to a wheelchair. The show ran from 1967 to 1975