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In this video about Passchendaele at 0m45s you can see troops marching led by a band playing flutes . They look like F flutes to me. This is a British Army unit, so who were these troops likely to have been? Did non-Irish formations also use the flute marching band format back then or would this be a unit raised in Ireland, with all that that implied at that time?

I don't think the flute bands were typically or originally Irish. The way I always understood it the Irish flute bands were formed under the influence of British military flute bands.
The North Clare fluteband(s) were supposedly influenced by the garrison that was stationed in Ennistymon and the repertoire that survives there points also to a British influence.
The flutebands in the North aren't shy either about where their affiliations lie.

I have seen one of the flutes that was originally used by the old Kilfenora flute band. It was an F.