The Irish Battalion in the Papal Army of 1860. Dublin: Talbot Press, 1929. Pp xxii, 254, uncut. Blue cloth boards, title in gilt to spine. A very good copy.

An account of the largely forgotten Irish Battalion of St Patrick who went to Italy to fight on behalf of the Pope Pius IX against the unification on Italy in 1860.

The Pope issued a call to Catholics throughout Europe for men and arms to raise an army in his defense of the Papal States, a territory situated like a wide belt across the middle of the Italian peninsula. The Papal War of 1860 ended after just eighteen days, with approximately 100 Irish soldiers thought killed or wounded in action during those few weeks in September, 1860.