Confounding the Garibaldian Liars: The Letters of Albert Delahoyde, Irish Soldier of the Papal Battalion of St Patrick and Papal Zouave in Italy, 1860-1870

Abstract

Albert Delahoyde was representative of the strong sense of Irish Catholic nationalism that inspired young Irishmen to volunteer to serve Pope Pius IX in 1860. His experiences aid us in understanding how the Irish viewed Italy during the nineteenth century, especially as his lengthy stay in Italy meant that he witnessed the completion of Italian unification in 1870. In the wider picture, the relationship between Ireland and Italy at this point in the mid-nineteenth century was one of lost possibilities. Despite a number of commonalities in the respective situations of Ireland and Italy, the events of the 1860s demonstrated how the two countries negatively impacted on each other, as, due to the transnational dimension of Catholicism, their respective causes could no longer remain the same.