medal / Irish Home Rule League, 1870

Irish Home Rule League badge, unsigned, c. 1870. Bronze. Obverse shows a four-armed star, having a medallion with shamrock at the crossing, arms joined by circular band having IRISH HOME RULE LEAGUE and in the angles shields with the arms of Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Ulster. Badge attached to clasp ornamented with three shamrocks. Reverse is blank. Measurements 3 inches x 2 inches. In 1870, a conference of Home Rule was held in the Rotunda, which lasted for three days and resulted in establishing the Home Rule League. The policy of Home Rule was the establishment of an Irish Parliament which was to deal only with the internal affairs of Ireland, leaving all other questions to the IMPERIAL Parliament. Isaac Butt, a Protestant lawyer, was the first chairman of the Home Rule League. Frazer in “Medallists of Ireland and Their Work” p.207, attributes this medal to John Woodhouse and says that 50 were struck in bronze for the Home Rule Procession in 1879.;