RARE 1860 IRISH MILITARY POPE\'S SERVICE MEDAL PAPAL / CIVIL WAR -HTF IN USA
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RARE 1860 IRISH MILITARY POPE\'S SERVICE MEDAL PAPAL / CIVIL WAR -HTF IN USA:
$326.05
I could only find two of these that have sold on the internet and both were in Europe and both sold for over $250.00. A great piece of Irish history. These medals were given to officers and enlisted men by Pope Pius IX after the Papal War. Missing ribbon, but in good condition. !In the spring and summer of 1860 more than a thousand Irishmen participated in an extraordinary adventure travelling to Italy to fight for the Pope, Pius IX in a little-known chapter of the Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement. This expedition has been called “The Last Crusade” because the volunteers’ motives for giving their arms, and a few their lives, were of a religious and patriotic nature. They made up an Irish Battalion named in honor of St. Patrick and fought courageously under the papal banner in all four of the principal engagements of the 1860 campaign: at Ancona, and Castelfidardo in the Marches and at Spoleto and Perugia in Umbria. A deep gratitude towards Pius IX for his help during the days of the Great Hunger (1848-49) was still felt in Ireland while the centuries-old tradition of Ireland being “married to the Church” prompted many to enlist to protect the Pope and the church’s temporal domains then threatened by the armies of Savoy King Victor Emanuel and of Garibaldi.
Fighting for the Pope also meant a chance to fight as Irishmen, and not as British subjects, just as the ”Wild Geese” had done for monarchs in Spain, Russia, Naples, France and Austria since the 17th century.
RARE 1860 IRISH MILITARY POPE\'S SERVICE MEDAL PAPAL / CIVIL WAR -HTF IN USA:
$326.05