Triumphant Failure: the return of the Irish Papal Brigade

In early 1860, Italian unification was gaining momentum and Pope Pius IX, the temporal ruler of large parts of central Italy, feared an invasion of his extensive territories by the troops of Victor Emanuel of Piedmont Sardinia. The Pope therefore appealed for aid and protection from the wider Catholic world in the hope of forming an army of volunteers to protect the Papal States. The Irish responded to this call to arms, and in the early summer of 1860 about 1,300 men went to Italy to join the Papal Armies.