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Piazza Pianciani. Spoleto

A letter home from the Papal War of 1860

Posted on December 11, 2016March 13, 2019 by Sharon Slater

In 1860 more than a thousand Irishmen took part in an extraordinary adventure travelling to Italy to fight for the Pope, Pius IX in the Italian unification movement. Among those serving in this Papal War was a Limerick man from Boherbouy who wrote to his parents in August 1860 from Spoleto, Italy. His letter was partially reproduced in the Limerick Chronicle:

We expect to be engaged now every week! but we’ll fight like the devils in the cause of the Holy Father! We’ll give the Garibaldians (sic) tally hi ho the grinder. We’ll show them Irish play. We thrash these ruffianly towns-fellows like chaff, and just as if we had them at ‘Pardy’s Corner’, on the Yallow-road (sic). I am preparing my soul every day for the other world. Rum is very cheap here and when we take a few glasses we leather the fellows for the fun of the thing, and to see them capriole, that is, to jump without going forward, would make you laugh. They are all lazy I – devils. The fleas are uncommonly large. I can only describe their size and agility by telling you that one of the, would cover the ground between Limerick and Bunratty in two jumps. Dr McLaughlin is our chaplain, and he keeps us in order spiritually, temporally, and -nabocklish.

Piazza Pianciani. Spoleto
Piazza Pianciani. Spoleto via Manuelarosi

On Sunday 18th December 1960 a wreath was laid at the foot of the Memorial Cross  in Mount St. Alphonsus, Limerick,  in honour the Limerickmen who served in the St. Patrick’s Battalion of the Papal Army in 1860 under Major Myles O’Reilly. The letter writer would have been one of these men.

papal war monument
Image courtesy of Limerick Museum

You can read more abut the Irish in the Papal War of 1960 in this report The pope’s Irish battalion, 1860 by Robert Doyle

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This website is a personal project of Sharon Slater, born from a passion for Limerick and its history. It has been maintained, updated and contributed to it independently and voluntarily. If you'd like to buy me a coffee to keep Limerick's history online, please know that all donations will go directly into the costs of hosting the website and the time and travel to research and write the articles found on the site.

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