Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Captain H. Q. Irwin, Connaught Rangers, who was killed in action at St. Julien on 26 April 1915

1914 Star, with clasp (Lieut., Conn. Rang.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt.), with related Memorial Plaque (Herbert Quintus Irwin), nearly extremely fine (4) £1000-1200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to Great War Casualties formed by Tim Parsons.

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Collection

Ex H. Giblin Collection.

Herbert Quintus Irwin was born in May 1884, the son of the Rev. Canon Irwin of the Deanery, Elphin, Co. Roscommon, and was commissioned in the Connaught Rangers from the Special Reserve in May 1909.

A Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion by the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he embarked for France with his unit in the middle of the same month, and would have seen extensive action in the retreat from Mons - such were the Battalion’s casualties that its survivors had to be taken on the strength of the 1st Battalion that December.

Irwin’s advancement to Captain appeared in The London Gazette in May 1915, shortly after his death in action at St. Julien in the Ypres sector on 26 April; he was buried in La Brique Military Cemetery (No. 2), Ypres.