PRIVATE ROBERT KAVANAGH, ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT. India General Service Medal 1854, 1 clasp,

PRIVATE ROBERT KAVANAGH, ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT. India General Service Medal 1854, 1 clasp, Pegu (officially impressed: ROBT. KAVANAGH. 18th. ROYAL IRISH REGt.). Attractive old dark tone, with a length of original silk ribbon, Extremely Fine and virtually as struck.

Medal and clasp confirmed on roll (the only man of this name serving with the regiment at this time), which additionally notes that Private Robert Kavanagh died at Prome on 3rd January 1853. On that date the Royal Irish Regiment formed part of the garrison at Prome, which was being invested by the Burmese, and against whom the garrison saw much action. The Royal Irish Regiment had embarked for Burma 962 strong in January of 1852. By the time the regiment returned to India in November 1853 at the conclusion of the Burmese operations it had lost some 335 officers and men. Only 18 of these casualties were the result of officers and men being killed in action or dying of wounds, the vast majority of casualties, like Robert Kavanagh, being the victims of what the regimental history describes as “the diseases which rendered the swamps and jungles of Burma fatal to Europeans”.