THE PUNJAB MEDAL AWARDED TO PRIVATE OWEN MULDOON, 2ND BENGAL EUROPEAN REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 2ND BATTALION ROYAL MUNSTER FUSILIERS), WHO WAS DISCHARGED AS A RESULT OF BEING WOUNDED DURING THE PUNJAB CAMPAIGN AND AFTER BEING DISCHARGED EMIGRATED

THE PUNJAB MEDAL AWARDED TO PRIVATE OWEN MULDOON, 2ND BENGAL EUROPEAN REGIMENT (THE POST 1880 2ND BATTALION ROYAL MUNSTER FUSILIERS), WHO WAS DISCHARGED AS A RESULT OF BEING WOUNDED DURING THE PUNJAB CAMPAIGN AND AFTER BEING DISCHARGED EMIGRATED FROM IRELAND TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA, WHERE HE DIED IN 1896. Punjab Medal 1848-9, 2 clasps Goojerat, Chilianwala (officially named, impressed in serifed block capitals: O. MULDOWN, 2ND. EUR. REGT.). Note incorrect spelling of surname in naming. Scattered light contact marks, rim nicks and edge bruises, otherwise attractively toned and Very Fine to Good Very Fine.

Medal accompanied by copied extracts from the East India Company, Lord Clive Fund, Military Pensions registers, 1841 British Army World Wide Index extract, Australia death and burial record, along with extract original medal roll and published casualty roll, the medal roll and casualty roll confirming medal and clasps and that Muldoon was “invalided to Europe” (medal roll and casualty roll both give spelling of surname as Muldown resulting in the mis-spelling of surname on medal, but pension register and death register both give correct spelling of surname as Muldoon).

Pensions register extracts confirm that Owen Muldoon was born in Enniskean, near Nobber, County Meath, Ireland, in 1824. He enlisted into the 2nd Bombay European Regiment at Dublin in 1841 (Muldoon is recorded in the 1841 Worldwide Index as being a recruit at the East India Company’s Depot in Dublin). Muldoon was discharged in 1851 as a result of wounds, having been “wounded in the right leg in action”, and after having seen 9 years and 4 months service with the colours. At time of discharge Muldoon was 28 years old, his trade was recorded as labourer, his conduct while serving noted as having been “good” and his place of residence as Enniskean. Muldoon was granted a pension of 9 pence per day on 6/8/1851 (pension backdated to 2/8/1851). Muldoon’s pension payments were subsequently transferred to Dublin, transferred from Dublin to Plymouth in March 1855 (where Muldoon was presumably awaiting passage to Australia) and his pension was paid in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1857.

Pension records note that Muldoon paid £20 and 2 shillings for his passage to Australia, that sum being deducted in installments from his pension payments during the following years.

Owen Muldoon died on 22/7/1892 in Adelaide, South Australia and is buried in West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide. Burial records confirm spelling of surname as Muldoon, that he was born in Enniskean and that he was the husband of Rosanna Muldoon and the father of Mary and Thomas Henry Muldoon.

When Muldoon returned to Ireland in 1851 he was returning to a country that was being devasted by the Great Famine of 1845-52, during which over 1 million people died of starvation and disease and another million emigrated. The famine destroyed the Irish economy and in the following three years, 1852-55, another 1.1 million people emigrated, bringing the total number of emigrants as a result of the famine to 2.1 million, the largest mass migration from a European country in modern history, Muldoon emigrating in 1855 during the closing stages of that mass migration from Ireland.