The Irish in Latin America

ww w.dfa.ie @dfatIRL Irish adventurers, missionaries, soldiers and settlers appear in the history of Latin America since the time of Columbus. Irish soldiers and their families, fleeing British colonisation, went into exile in Spain. The men joined Spanish armies and fought in European wars. Irish exiles availed of patronage in the royal court of Spain and served as high-ranking military officers and administrators in Irish the Spanish Empire. They became some of the first Europeans, who Migration were not Spanish subjects, in the American colonies. Loyalty to the Spanish Crown saw this washerwomen. As settlers in frontier generation of exiles go from being regions, they became part of the oppressed in Ireland to becoming increasing European population, colonial administrators in the Spanish particularly in Cuba and in Argentina. The

s to Latin imperial world. The next generation of sons and daughters of Irish immigrants y

e Creole-Irish (American-born) supported a made substantial and lasting n break with Spanish rule. In the Spanish contributions to the economic, political, r

u American wars of independence (1810– social and cultural life of society in Latin o 25) the Irish fought on both sides, with America. The greatest legacy has been in J

America l the Spanish forces but in greater Argentina. This exhibition describes the a numbers with Bolívar’s patriot armies. complex, varied and shared history of c i Some left their mark as revolutionary Ireland and different countries in Latin r o heroes; others became diplomats or America, connected through migration t s merchants taking advantage of economic over the centuries. In telling the life i opportunities in the new republics. There stories of Irish people, each panel reflects H were also Irish individuals who stood out the diversity of experiences in different as advocates for subjugated peoples in historical periods and in different Latin America, particularly African and countries. Most of the important indigenous Americans and women. The characters who appear in the dramatic largest flow of migrants to leave Ireland political and economic events on display for Latin America took place in the here are men. On the centenary of Irish nineteenth century, with smaller independence, we have arrived at a more numbers arriving through the United balanced understanding of events by States. Attracted to Catholic South including the equally important role of America, the promise of land and new Irish women. Their place in the history of opportunities, ordinary Irish emigrants Irish migration to Latin America needs to joined a growing immigrant work force be told, as do the stories of thousands of as artisans, farm-hands, labourers, emigrant lives yet to be uncovered. railroad workers, seamstresses, and

Ireland in Latin America | 2/ 3 Historical Journeys I n H d e i p s S h t e & a o n r

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e William

M Lamp(16o11 – r1657t ) Guillén de Lampart

William LamTporth fouend hiIs wrayi insto h coZnsoortingr writho witch doctors. He the Spanish military service, but had escaped seven years later, but he to leave Spain after a scandalous continued to criticise the Spanish affair with noblewoman Ana Cano Inquisition and was returned to Levia, with whom he had a daughter, prison for a further nine years. Teresa. The Crown sent him to Despite the degradations of prison Mexico with a brief to spy on Creole brutality, Lamport railed against the insurgents, but soon after he arrived Inquisitors, resisting them at every Lamport took up the cause of turn. He took up the cause of fellow indigenous, black and Creole prisoners, Crypto-Jews (Portuguese populations. He began to preach merchants of Jewish origin, living as radical ideas about racial equality, Christians) who were also the abolition of slavery, and the persecuted by the Inquisition. He restitution of land to the Indians and spent his time writing revolutionary wrote what is described as the first pamphlets and also left behind a Declaration of Independence in the remarkable collection of 918 Indies. Lamport was thrown into religious psalms entitled Regio William Lamport from Wexford arrived in New Spain (Mexico) as a prison, accused of plotting rebellion Salterío . member of the Spanish Court in the 1630s. Accused of plotting as well as dabbling in astrology and against the state, he was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition. He escaped but was ultimately found guilty of heresy and burnt at the stake in 1657. Lamport is celebrated as a precursor of Mexican LAND REFORM independence, and his statue is among a pantheon of patriots in the Monument to Independence ( Ángel de Independencia ) in Mexico RACIAL EQUALITY City. Some biographers claim that this seventeenth-century SOVEREIGNTY Irishman has been immortalised by Hollywood in the fictional character of Zorro . WEXFORD Ireland in Latin America | 6/ 7 o c Born in Seville to Irish parents in 1762, Juan O’Donojú, known as i x the “Last Viceroy” of New Spain, was in fact the Jefe Político e Superior of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Celebrated in Mexico, he M was regarded as a traitor in Spain for his role in the final arbitration of Mexican independence.

Napoleon’s occupation of Spain and the status with pure Spaniards, and Mexicans constitutional crisis in Madrid led to the of pure or mixed Indian blood were outbreak of independence wars in ascribed lesser rights. O’Donojú saw this Spanish America in 1810. The leaders of as a pragmatic solution to achieving a independence in South America came bloodless separation from Spain. On 28 largely from the aristocracy, inspired by September 1821, Mexico became a Enlightenment ideals. In Mexico the sovereign state ruled by conservatives initial revolt came from indigenous and under the self-proclaimed Emperor, Juan peasant masses, led by Catholic priest Agustín de Iturbide. The empire was Father Miguel Hidalgo. He issued the short-lived and in 1823 General Santa Grito de Dolores , a revolutionary tract Ana set up the first Mexican republic. that called for an end to Spanish rule, endorsing racial equality and the O’Donojú played an extraordinary role in redistribution of lands. Hidalgo was the achievement of Mexican O’Donojú executed and his popular movement independence. He became persona non (1762 – 1821) crushed by a coalition of royalists and grata in Madrid and died two months Creoles refusing to share power with the after his arrival in Mexico at the age of lower classes. 59. His Spanish wife, Doña María Josefa Sánchez-Barriga Blanco, and her three O’Donojú arrived in August 1821 with a sons paid the price for her husband’s mandate to introduce a liberal treason. Forbidden to return to Spain, she programme to the Viceroyalty. Just weeks was left destitute once her pension of later he signed the Treaty of Córdoba 12,000 pesos a year from the Mexican with the conservative Mexican army government dried up, and she died in officer Agustín de Iturbide. The treaty 1842. Juan O’Donojú’s body was approved the Plan of Iguala, making embalmed and laid to rest in a vault Mexico an independent constitutional under the magnificent Altar of the Kings monarchy. It also gave Creoles equal in Mexico City’s cathedral.

TREATY OF CÓRDOBA

PLAN OF IGUALA “LAST VICEROY” OF NEW SPAIN

CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY Ireland in Latin America | 8/ 9 o A plaque in Plaza San Jacinto, San Angel, Mexico honours the c i Batallón de San Patricio as martyrs who gave their lives for the x e Mexican cause. The San Patricio Battalion was made up of Irish,

M Scottish and German soldiers who changed sides in the Mexican– American War 1846–47.

They deserted the American army and John Riley, an experienced soldier from fought in defence of Mexico. In the US Clifden in Galway, was one of the first to they were branded as vile traitors, and desert. He organised the Batallón de San those who were captured after the war Patricio, a company of more than 200 were executed. The US declaration of soldiers, and turned it into an elite war against Mexico satisfied a belief in artillery unit. The San Patricios are “manifest destiny”, or the right of the US particularly remembered for their last to take lands from Mexico and the stand in the battle of Churubusco, the American Indians. The war resulted in the final battle before the US army entered capture of more than two-fifths of the Mexico City, when they refused to San territory of the newly independent state surrender to a far superior army. Many The of Mexico. In the US it played into died in combat but eighty-five were ethnocentric ideas of Anglo-Saxon captured and tried. Forty-seven men superiority by Nativists who professed found guilty of treason were publicly anti-Catholic, anti-foreigner sentiments. whipped, with the letter “D” for deserter Patricio These events coincided with a massive branded on their faces with red-hot Battalion influx of Famine migrants from Ireland irons. They were later hanged, sixteen in who helped to swell the lower ranks of Plaza San Jacinto in San Ángel and thirty (1846 – 1847) the US army. They earned seven dollars a in the village of Mixcoac. Riley escaped month and the promise of citizenship. the death sentence because he deserted Irish and German Catholics were treated before hostilities began. He was publicly with contempt by the Anglo-Protestant whipped and branded with a “D” on both officer class. Subjected to brutal forced cheeks before being thrown into prison marches, excessive punishments and the for the duration of the war. death sentence for minor infringements of army discipline, foreign soldiers began There are annual remembrance to desert. They slipped into the Río ceremonies in Mexico for the San Grande and swam across to the Mexican Patricios in Saltillo, Monterrey, side. General Zachary Taylor ordered Churubusco and Plaza San Jacinto; and in deserters to be shot on sight. Irish Clifden, County Galway. On 18 PLAZA SAN JACINTO soldiers had no stake in the US war September 1997, the 150 th anniversary against Mexico. Many of them identified of the US–Mexican War, the Mexican CLIFDEN with Mexico, seeing this as an unjust war government honoured the San Patricios against a Catholic nation, echoing their by inscribing in gold letters on a plaque JOHN RILEY MEXICAN experience in Ireland. Promises of higher on the Wall of Honour in the Mexican pay and land in Mexico also enticed Congress: Defensores de la Patria 1846– AMERICAN WAR them to switch sides. 1848, Batallón de San Patricio .

CHURUBUSCO Ireland in Latin America | 10/ 11 o EDMUNDO O’GORMAN, 1906 – 1995 c i Edmundo O’Gorman, brother of Juan, was a historian, writer, and x

e philosopher. He taught at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM) and worked at the National Archive of Mexico from M 1940–70. Among his many works, the best known is a pioneering work Painters, of Latin American post-colonial studies, La Invención de America (1958), which discredits the concept of “the discovery of America” by Columbus.

JUAN O’GORMAN, PHIL KELLY, Muralists, 1905 – 1982 1950 – 2010 Juan O’Gorman, architect, Phil Kelly was an painter and muralist, was Irish expressionist Writers, born in Coyacán, Mexico painter with a City in 1905. His father was passion for Mexico. Cecil Crawford-O’Gorman from Dublin. Juan Born in Dublin in 1950, Kelly arrived in graduated from the University of Mexico’s Mexico City in 1982 as a penniless artist Media School of Architecture. He designed a strikingly and quickly absorbed the colours, light modern house and studio for muralist Diego and exuberance of life in Mexico in his Rivera and painter Frida Kahlo. Influenced by new work. He is famous for his vibrant the great Mexican muralists Rivera, Orozco and and colourful cityscapes of Mexico City, Siquieras, Juan O’Gorman moved between paintings of Oaxaca and Dublin, as well architecture and painting murals. His first major as seascapes of Mexico and Cornwall. mural, The History of Aviation in Mexico City’s airport, was removed in 1939 for its anti- In 1990 he married Ruth Munguía and clerical, anti-fascist references. O’Gorman used they had two daughters. In 1996 his indigenous motifs in his murals and mosaics, major exhibition Babel Descifrada at depicting Mexican culture and history. The the Museo de Arte Moderno received most famous example is the library of the critical acclaim in the Mexican press. National Autonomous University of Mexico Phil Kelly’s paintings can be seen at the (UNAM), covered with natural stone mosaics. It Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City is in a group of landmark buildings that make and the Museum of Modern Art in the UNAM campus a World Heritage site. Oaxaca.

RÓMULO ANTONIO O’FARRILL, 1917 – 2006 Rómulo O’Farrill Jr., born in Puebla in 1917, was one of Mexico’s most powerful media barons. He was a descendant of Joachim O’Farrill, originally from Longford. O’Farrill Jr. and his father, Rómulo O’Farrill Silva (1897–1981), set up the first commercial television station in Mexico in 1949. The O’Farrill family built and still manage a newspaper chain with Novedades and The News , one of the most widely distributed English-language dailies in Latin America. Rómulo O’Farrill Jr. was Honorary Consul of Ireland in Mexico for over twenty years. His wife, Hilda Ávila Camacho, was a niece of the former President of Mexico, Miguel Ávila Camacho.

Ireland in Latin America | 12/ 13 Ricardo O’Farrill y O’Daly, Marshall Alejandro O’Reilly, 1723–94 c.1680–1739 Alejandro O’Reilly from County Meath was a Born in the Caribbean island of educated in Zaragoza, Spain. He joined the b Montserrat, Ricardo O’Farrill was Hibernian Regiment at the age of eleven

u descended from Catholic nobility and rose quickly through the ranks of the C in Longford, Ireland. He arrived in Spanish military. After the British Havana in 1715 as the first agent occupation of Havana in 1763, O’Reilly to Havana for the English South was sent to Cuba as field marshal. The Ricardo Sea Company, with exclusive capital was in ruins, the dockyard rights to sell slaves to the Spanish destroyed and every wooden structure O’Farrill y colonies. Wealth and burnt to the ground. As the second military position through prestigious authority on the island General O’Reilly is military appointments, noble most remembered for his role in O’Daly titles and advantageous marriages strengthening the island’s defence made this dynasty of Irish installations and planning the construction c.1680-1739 origin one of the most powerful of the Morro Cabaña fortifications at the and influential families at the entrance to Havana harbour. He radically heart of the Spanish-Cuban reformed the army, recruiting the officer aristocracy. The O’Farrill name has class from the Havana oligarchy – been connected to slavery and including the O’Farrills. O’Reilly also raised sugar production in Cuba since the first Black and Mulatto militias. the eighteenth century. Ennobled by the Spanish Crown in 1771, In the twentieth century the Count Alejandro O’Reilly married Rosa de O’Farrill name continued in the las Casas, sister of Luis de las Casas, who Marshall medical, legal, and music was Governor of Cuba 1790–96. Their son, professions. Arturo “Chico” 2nd Count Pedro Pablo O’Reilly de Las O’Farrill (1921–2001) became a Casas, married María Francisca Calvo, 3 rd Alejandro Jazz musician in the Afro-Cuban Countess of Buenavista. Pedro Pablo, a tradition. His compositions were plantation owner, occupied the post of O’Reilly recorded by Dizzy Gillespie and regidor alguacil mayor (permanent Gato Barbieri. His son Arturo is a alderman) on the Havana city council. His pianist and the director of the son Manuel O’Reilly y Calvo de la Puerte, 1723-1794 New York Afro Latin Jazz 3rd Count O’Reilly, inherited the post in Orchestra. 1861 until his death in 1882. Calle O’Reilly in Old Havana is named in his honour.

MEATH CALLE O' REILLY Up to the twentieth century, Irish emigrants could be found at all levels of Cuban society. They have made important contributions to the economic, cultural and political evolution of the island. DYNASTIES TAKE ROOT Some profited from slavery and loyalty to the Spanish crown. LONGFORD Others supported abolition and a break with Spanish rule.

MORRO CABAÑA SLAVERY AND SUGAR Ireland in Latin America | 14/ 15 a

u C Padre Félix Varela , 1788–1853

Félix Varela was a leading As parish priest of Five Points in educator, philosopher and patriot. Manhattan, the Cuban priest set up Born in Havana and orphaned as a the Church of the Immigrants. His child, he went to live with his parishioners were some of the first maternal grandparents in St. Irish Catholics in New York. Varela Augustine, Florida. Father Michael supported a rapidly growing diocese, O’Reilly, a parish priest from opening schools for young Ireland, became his mentor. immigrants. With an estimated Varela’s connection with Ireland in 40,000 Irish in the city by 1830, he St. Augustine continued in New began to publish the New York York, where he ministered to Weekly Register and Catholic Diary. impoverished Irish immigrants. The opening editorial promised that it would be “purely republican, Ordained a Catholic priest in inflexibly impartial, and thoroughly 1811, Félix Varela held the Chair in Irish”. Philosophy in San Carlos College, Havana until 1821. Despite In the midst of anti-Catholic independence wars throughout hostility and xenophobia, Varela, a Latin America, Cuba remained fearless defender of immigrant loyal to the Spanish Crown. Varela rights, religious tolerance and social advocated for sovereignty and the justice, was enormously popular abolition of slavery at the Spanish with Irish immigrants. He worked Court, and for this he was tirelessly, providing humanitarian aid condemned to death by the to famine refugees from Ireland. In conservative King Ferdinand VII. 1851, suffering from asthma and IRISH IMMIGRANTS He became a political exile in the exhaustion, he returned to his United States in 1823 until his boyhood home in St. Augustine, death in 1851. where he died prematurely, alone NEW YORK INDEPENDENCE and in poverty. In 1911 his remains were repatriated to Cuba. EXILE

Ireland in Latin America | 16/ 17 a

u C Jose Martí 1853-1895

Martí does not have Irish roots, but as a journalist in New York he wrote about Ireland, Irish America and the struggle for independence. One article about the Irish Land League appeared in La Opinión Nacional , Caracas, in January 1882. Drawing parallels between Irish and José Martí, poet and revolutionary, is Cuban colonial histories, known as the Apóstol and founding father Martí also wrote about Irish of Cuban independence. Exiled from his figures he met in New York, native Cuba in 1881, he spent fourteen such as Michael Davitt, years in New York as a writer and political Charles Stewart Parnell and activist. He was a prolific writer and the O’Donovan Rossa. In the most important Cuban poet of the 19 th literary sphere he wrote about Century. Martí was named provisional Oscar Wilde, John Boyle president of the Comité Revolucionario O’Reilly and Jonathan Swift, Cubano de Nueva York , and by 1890 he and he translated Lalla- was the undisputed leader of Cuban Rookh , an Oriental romance, independence activists in the city. by Thomas Moore.

REVOLUTIONARY

CUBAN INDEPENDENCE

NEW YORK POET Ireland in Latin America | 18/ 19 Hundreds of Irish railroad workers recruited in New York in 1835 went to Cuba to build the Havana–Güines railroad. Experienced in railroad construction, los irlandeses were unskilled labourers with a few artisans,

a carpenters, seamstresses, washerwomen and cooks. They joined with b Canary Islanders and with enslaved Africans to form the biggest labour u force outside the sugar plantations. In the first year, 800 to 1,200

C workers were of Irish origin. IRARILROAID SWORH KERS Los irlandeses 1835-1845 White settlers and The O’Bourke Family The O’Bourke Women A sixteen-hour day of backbreaking, dangerous work (1820-1898) Marina O’Bourke, daughter of Irishman Juan O’Bourke, supported on meagre food rations and returning at night to Irish families were some of the first settlers in the founding the abolition of slavery. She was filthy, over-crowded camps soon made life of the port city of Cienfuegos. At a time of expanding the owner of a domestic slave, slavery in Cuba, the authorities wanted to increase the unbearable. When an outbreak of cholera threatened Matilde O’Bourke, and in 1871 white population to defend the slave owners against slave their survival, workers fled the railroad. “Deserters” Marina helped Matilde to buy her revolts. The new Council for White Population recruited freedom. Matilde continued her were caught and thrown into prison, only to be hundreds of Irish families in Baltimore, New Orleans and association with the O’Bourke returned to the tracks, this time as prisoners. The Irish Philadelphia to join settlers from France and the Canary family, borrowing money from and Canary Islanders began to riot, and armed forces Islands in the new “white colony” of Cienfuegos. them to buy property. She quickly were brought in to quell the unrest. became one of the wealthiest John O’Bourke from Limerick arrived in Cuba in 1820 and property owners in Cienfuegos. In married Nicolasa Palacios. They had ten children. He bought turn, she lent money in 1897 to Many did not survive the railroad debacle and ended a sugar plantation in Cienfuegos and called it Nueva the Cabildo Real Congo , a black up in unmarked graves along the tracks. The lucky Hibernia. It was sold after Juan died in 1842 and the name mutual-aid society. Matilde used was changed to San Esteban . His son Juan O’Bourke Jr. ones were repatriated to the United States or her connections with white continued to invest in the plantation and he also worked as remained on as overseers on the railway. Los society to support the African the administrator of La Carolina , a large plantation with irlandeses were imported as an experiment in “free” diaspora in Cienfuegos. 2,000 acres worked by 500 slaves. The O’Bourke family labour. They resisted the coercive regime and clashed profited from sugar production and slavery into the Barrio O’Bourke, a neighbourhood with the authorities, who responded with the same nineteenth century, but Juan O’Bourke Jr. supported a break on the west side of Cienfuegos, with Spanish rule. He joined the anti-colonial forces in the violence used to control slavery. marks the presence of Irish War of Independence (1868–87). In July 1897, his son immigrants in the history of the “Juanico” O’Bourke Palacios, fighting alongside his brother city. “Perico”, was fatally wounded in combat in Cienfuegos.

“FREE” LABOUR

CIENFUEGOS COUNCIL FOR WHITE POPULATION

THE SUGAR RAILROAD Ireland in Latin America | 20/ 21 a b ERNESTO u Ernesto Guevara de la Serna is not a hero of the Cuban revolution

C an Irish name. Yet Che Guevara, a that overthrew the dictatorship of global icon of revolution who Batista in 1959, and was one of Che belongs to Cuba and Argentina, the most celebrated rebels of the has Irish roots. He is descended twentieth century. Che’s father from the “Tribes of Galway” once commented, “the first thing (1928 – 1967) through his paternal grandmother, to note is that in my son’s veins Guevara Argentinian-born Ana Isabel flowed the blood of Irish rebels”. Lynch. After six generations, Patrick Lynch’s descendant would die at She was a descendant of Patrick the age of 39, executed in Bolivia Lynch, who settled in Buenos Aires for revolutionary activities in in the 1740s and married Rosa de 1967. Dr. Aleida Guevara, Che’s Galaya de la Camera, a wealthy daughter, visited Ireland in 2012 heiress. Their great-granddaughter, to launch the book Remembering Ana Isabel Lynch, Che’s Che: My Life with Che Guevara , grandmother, was born in 1851. written by her mother Aleida She married Roberto Guevara March. Castro, and their eldest son Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Che’s In 1968, Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick father, was born in 1900. Ernesto produced the iconic black-and-red married Celia de la Serna in 1927, screen print poster image of Che and their first child, Ernesto, was Guevara called VIVA CHE , based born in Rosario, Argentina, in on a photograph taken by Cuban 1928. photographer Alberto Korda. The artist never sought copyright for Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was the image, taking pride instead in the eldest of five siblings. After he his creation of a global symbol for graduated as a medical doctor, resistance to oppression. His wish Ernesto Junior spent the rest of his is to reclaim copyright and hand life fighting against poverty and over all rights, in perpetuity, to the injustice in Latin America. He was Guevara family in Cuba.

MEDICAL DOCTOR

SOCIAL JUSTICE REVOLUTION

GALWAY Ireland in Latin America | 22/ 23 n o Between 1817 and 1824, when they saw that promises of

i t thousands of Irishmen enlisted in land and riches would come to u Simón Bolívar’s patriot armies in nothing. They returned to Ireland l Irish

o South America. John Devereux of and launched a campaign in the v Wexford and Thomas Eyre of press against Bolívar’s patriot e Galway led recruitment drives in cause. THE R Ireland and England.

The remaining soldiers joined the n

a Legion Some had seen service with expedition in March 1820 to i Napoleon’s armies and supported attack the Spanish-held towns of

a the cause for independence, but Riohacha and Maracaibo. v most were driven by poverty or a Surrounded by desert, mountains

í l spirit of adventure. The Irish and marshland, the Irish Legion o Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, in marched through inhospitable

B support of Bolívar sent his 16- and hostile territory. Worn out by

e year-old son Morgan and his hunger and thirst, and after

h nephew Maurice to fight in the months without pay, once they

T Irish Legion. returned to Riohacha discipline fell apart and foreign troops Up to 1,000 soldiers, some with mutinied, setting fire to the town. families, crossed the Atlantic in six On 13 May, over 500 men, ships, landing first on the Island of women and children were Margarita, off the coast of transported to Jamaica, leaving a Colombia. Some regiments made much-reduced Irish regiment. their way through tropical jungle to Angostura (now Ciudad Bolívar) Branded as “vagabonds”, Morgan O’Connell on the banks of the Orinoco River. “cowards” and “mercenaries”, the Arriving into scenes of destruction Irish deserters were bluntly and misery, with hundreds of dismissed by Bolívar as disloyal to soldiers dying of war wounds and the cause of South American yellow fever, Irish soldiers feared independence. Irishmen! for their lives. Many deserted I have the glory of counting you as adopted Sons of Venezuela, and as ISLA MARGARITA defenders of the Liberty of Colombia. MUTINY SIMÓN BOLÍVAR —Simón Bolívar

JOHN DEVEREUX Ireland in Latin America | 24/ 25 O’Connor joined Bolívar’s army in Francis 1819. He became assistant chief-of- n staff to Bolívar and later Minister of

t War in Bolivia. A province in the u Department of Tarija, Bolivia, is now

o Burdett named after him.

R O’C(o1791n – 1n871o) r

n O’Connor was born in Cork city to a upper Peru. In 1826 Francisco

a i well-to-do Protestant family of Burdett O’Connor was appointed r political radicals. His older brother military governor of Tarija to the a was Chartist leader Feargus south of the new Republic of Bolivia.

í O’Connor, and his father, Roger, was

o imprisoned for taking part in the In 1827 O’Connor married Francisca 1798 United Irishmen rebellion. His de Ruyloba. In June 1827 he

godfather Sir Francis Burdett, a published a proclamation e radical member of the English encouraging Irish people to settle in h Parliament, financed him to raise a the “New Erin” of Tarija. His memoir, T regiment for Bolívar’s patriot army. Independencia Americana: Recuerdos de Francisco Burdett Colonel Francis O’Connor arrived O’Connor (1895), was published by with the ill-fated Irish Legion, and his grandson Tomás O’Connor after the debacle at Ríohacha he led d’Arlach. Once retired from military the remaining loyal Irish troops, the service O’Connor dedicated himself Irish Lancers, on the celebrated to farming in Tarija, until his death in march across the Andes in 1819 and 1871 aged eighty-one. He had one in the decisive battles of Boyacá surviving daughter, Hercilia (Colombia) and Carabobo O’Connor d’Arlach. (Venezuela). He played a decisive part under Antonio José de Sucre at the battle of Ayacucho, liberating

BATTLE OF AYACUCHO

NEW ERIN SIMÓN BOLÍVAR

BOLIVIA Ireland in Latin America | 26/ 27 n

i Daniel Florence Simón Bolívar had a succession of died, O’Leary was forced into exile

u Irish aides-de-camp, of whom the for three years in Jamaica with his l most prestigious was Cork-born wife and children. After retiring as a o Daniel Florence O’Leary. O’Leary soldier, O’Leary enjoyed a long

e became Bolívar’s aide and chronicler. diplomatic career and spent six years

R O’Leary was born at the turn of the in Europe serving the Venezuelan century (c. 1802) to a family of government. He made one return n butter merchants. His father, visit to Cork. In 1841 he became (1800 – 1854) a O’Leary i Jeremiah, was a friend of Daniel British consul in Caracas, and in r O’Connell, the great leader of 1851 on behalf of Britain he signed a a Catholic Ireland and an admirer of treaty outlawing the slave trade.

í Simón Bolívar. In 1817, Daniel O’Leary was given access to Bolívar’s

o Florence, aged sixteen, set sail for papers, out of which he compiled a South America as a commissioned monumental thirty-two-volume

officer with the Irish Legion. account of the wars of e independence. O’Leary’s son, Simón h He served as staff officer in the epic Bolívar O’Leary, published the first T “Campaña Libertadora”, in which edition of The Memorias del General Bolívar marched his army across the O’Leary between 1879 and 1888. Venezuelan and Colombian llanos The Colombian writer and Nobel (plains) before moving high up into laureate Gabriel García Márquez the Andes. Decisive battles in used it for his fictionalised account Pantano de Vargas and Boyacá in of Bolívar’s last days in El General en 1819 decimated the Spanish army su Laberinto. A recognised hero of and liberated central New Granada. Venezuelan independence, Daniel O’Leary was decorated with the Florence O’Leary died in 1854. In Order of the Liberator for 1882, by order of the Venezuelan distinguished service in battle. In president Antonio Guzmán Blanco, 1828 he married Soledad Soublette, his remains were interred in the Bolívar’s niece, and settled in Bogotá. National Pantheon in Caracas near At the end of 1830, after Bolívar those of Bolívar.

MEMORIAS DEL GENERAL O’LEARY

CORK INDEPENDENCE

SIMÓN BOLÍVAR Ireland in Latin America | 28/ 29 o

y Roger Casement, a revolutionary and Amazon by an Anglo-Peruvian rubber

a pioneer of international human rights, company. He travelled on the m is celebrated in Ireland for his Putumayo river extending across Roger

t contribution to the struggle for Irish Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. His u freedom. In the words of the President harrowing accounts in The Putumayo

P of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, at the Journal highlight the impunity of a 2016 state centenary profit-making system of forced labour, commemoration: “Roger Casement debt peonage and inhumane Casem(1e864 n– 191t6) was not just a great Irish patriot, he treatment of Indigenous peoples. He was also one of the great made the connection between the humanitarians of the early twentieth exploitations of colonialism and global century – a man who is remembered capitalism. In a brutal world order fondly by so many people across the there was no change since colonial world for his courageous work in times in the violent coercion of labour exposing the darkness that lay at the under “new slaveries” of the early heart of European imperialism.” twentieth century.

Over two decades with the British Roger Casement’s work, trial and Foreign Office in Congo and in South execution attracted huge international America, Casement exposed crimes attention. The Crown prosecution, against humanity by the rubber intending to undermine the campaign industry in the brutal exploitation of for a pardon, made public Casement’s Indigenous peoples and devastation of private journals – in particular sections their ecologies. Though he was with homoerotic content. Known as knighted by the British for his service, The Black Diaries, the controversy has, Casement’s support for Irish for far too long, overshadowed and nationalism and his critique of distracted from his important legacy imperialism led him to become as a humanitarian. One hundred years actively involved in the cause of Irish later, Casement’s life, moral courage independence. For this he was found and pioneering work are a source of guilty of treason and executed by inspiration to human rights and hanging in Pentonville Prison, London environmental campaigners, scholars, in August 1916. and writers including Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who From 1910–13, as British consul wrote a novel called The Dream of the general in Brazil, Casement Celt based on Casement’s Putumayo investigated the atrocities in the journal.

PUTUMAYO HUMANITARIAN INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

RUBBER INDUSTRY HUMAN RIGHTS PIONEER Ireland in Latin America | 30/ 31 y and their son with her bare hands on

a Elizabeth Alice Lynch was born in

u Charleville, County Cork, on 3 June the battlefield. To avoid prison, she left g 1835. Eliza became the unofficial for Paris with her children. She a “Queen of Paraguay”, or “Madame returned to her adopted country r Eliza Lynch” as she called herself. From Paraguay to lay claim to extensive

a properties which had been confiscated. P humble origins in Ireland, she became the mistress of Francisco Solano She was persona non grata and López, Dictator of Paraguay (1826– finished out her years in Paris, where (1835 – 1886) she died in poverty, aged 51, in 1886. Lynch 70). Eliza was fifteen when her family moved to Paris, and at sixteen she Before leaving Latin America Eliza married a French army officer. Lynch published Exposición y Protesta Divorced by age twenty, Eliza met in 1875, a document defending herself the son of the Dictator of Paraguay against her many detractors. Seventy- in 1853. They never married, though five years after her death she was she bore him seven children. For this reclaimed as a national heroine and “La Lynch”, as she was known in her remains repatriated to Paraguay by Paraguay, was snubbed by high another dictator, General Alfredo society as a courtesan and consort. Stroessner, in 1961. The Catholic Church objected to his plan to inter She used her Parisian connections to her remains in the National Pantheon import educators, musicians and artists in Asunción beside López, and Lynch to contribute to the intellectual and was laid to rest in a tomb in the cultural development of Asunción. She national cemetery. promoted education for all, especially women, and supported advances in Eliza Lynch’s great grandson, His medicine. Solano López inherited Excellency Miguel Angel Solano López, power in 1862, and two years later he Ambassador of Paraguay to Ireland in brought his country to war against 2014, visited her birthplace in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay – the Charleville. Author Anne Enright, War of the Triple Alliance. After five Ireland’s first laureate for Irish fiction, years of war Paraguay was in ruins, wrote about the life of the heroine in with ninety percent of the male The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch. The film population annihilated. The Unofficial Queen of Paraguay , by Irish filmmaker Alan Gilsenan, is based Eliza supported López unto death, even on the more recent book The Lives of when others tried to stop the war. She Eliza Lynch: Scandal and Courage by remained by his side and buried him Michael Lillis and Ronan Fanning.

SOLANO LÓPEZ PARIS WAR OF THE UNOFFICIAL QUEEN OF PARAGUAY THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE Ireland in Latin America | 32/ 33 e

l i Ambrose O’Higgins Juan Mackenna

C (1720-1801)

(1771-1814)

d Ambrose O’Higgins, the Irish-born n

a viceroy of Peru, is one of the most celebrated Irish immigrants, having u reached the highest ranks in the r e Spanish colonial imperial service.

P Born in Ballynary, Sligo, he moved to Spain in his early thirties. On his first trip to South America in 1756 he built commercial contacts for his employers, the Butler family of Cádiz. He returned in 1763, this time as a military surveyor. On both occasions he made the arduous journey from 1793. He was rebuked by Buenos Aires to Chile by trekking government officials because he tried across the Andes to Santiago on foot. to “support these forsaken and early He had a strong character, with owners of the territory and their steely determination, ambition and rights to their lands and property”. unusual physical resilience. His military achievements and Despite O’Higgins’ pro-Mapuche unflinching loyalty to the Crown saw stance, the early creation of centres him rise rapidly through the ranks to of population paved the way for a become commander of the forces strategy of dispossession and Juan Mackenna, Irish-born general in the skilled engineer he also constructed stationed on the frontier between settlement in contested indigenous war of independence in Chile, came from fortifications along the coast to protect the Spanish Empire and Mapuche lands. In 1786 O’Higgins became County Tyrone. He went to Spain as a against invasion from France. In 1810 he territory. O’Higgins won the respect governor of Concepción, and in 1796 youth under the care of his uncle joined the revolutionary party led by of the Mapuche people through his he was appointed viceroy of Perú, General Alejandro O’Reilly. Carrera, and later as brigadier general he enlightened policies of abolishing the where he remained until the age of fought against the royalists. When encomienda system of tributes and eighty, a year before his death. He In 1795 he was promoted to captain in Bernardo O’Higgins supplanted Carrera, forced Indian labour, introduced by became the first Marquis of Osorno, the Royal Regiment of Engineers, and a Mackenna joined him. He married a the Spanish. The Crown recognised a ruined city to the south, and year later sailed to South America. Fellow Chilean, Josefina Vicuña, and their son the political and territorial autonomy installed his compatriot Juan Irishman Viceroy Ambrose O’Higgins Benjamina Vicuña Mackenna (1831–86) of the Mapuche, and governance was Mackenna as governor. The viceroy appointed Mackenna as governor of became a distinguished Chilean writer negotiated through the institution of looked for immigrants to settle the Osorno, a ruined colonial city at the and historian. Mackenna lost his life, parlamentos or peace-conferences. colony, among them Irish and English southern tip of Chile. Mackenna set caught up in the fierce political rivalry O’Higgins famously organised the artisans and labourers. about rebuilding the city, and as a highly between carerristas and o’higginistas . largest parlamento de Negrete in

Ireland in Latin America | 34/ 35 e

i h Bernardo

a O’Higgins u (1778 – 1843)

P Bernardo O’Higgins, son of Viceroy Ambrose O’Higgins, led the Independence Army and is celebrated as the Father of the Republic of Chile. He was born in Chillán to Isabel Riquelme, the eighteen- year-old daughter of a local landowner. Ambrose, now sixty years old and desperate to prevent a scandal interfering with his ambitions, put his son into the care of foster parents. He removed Bernardo from Chile as a boy and sent him to Lima, Peru under the care of Irishman John Ignatius Blake. Bernardo was then sent to London, where he became close to the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda.

Scandal finally reached Ambrose leader. When José Miguel Carerras O’Higgins, and through his son’s took power, civil war broke out, association with an enemy of the weakening patriot forces, and Crown the viceroy was forced to royalists took control of Chile resign. Bernardo returned to Chile again. Following defeat at the a year after his father’s death in Battle of Rancagua, the patriot accompanied by Irishman John the criollo elite. Opposition to his rule 1801. Finally reunited with the army, including Bernardo and his Thomond O’Brien, San Martín’s Army of grew, and in 1823 General O’Higgins Riquelme family, he lived with his family, marched into exile across the Andes, with Brigadier O’Higgins in resigned and went into exile in Perú, mother and half-sister Rosa and the Andes, taking refuge in command of the 2 nd division, crossed where he remained until his death. He managed his inheritance, a huge Argentina. Juan Mackenna was the Andes. They defeated the royalists wished to live in Ireland, “the country of cattle-ranch in Southern Chile. killed by Carerras’ brother in a on 12 February and O’Higgins was his fathers”, but he fell ill in Callao in Now a wealthy landowner, duel. Bernardo had lost his closest appointed Supreme Director of Chile. 1823 and never made the journey. In Bernardo reclaimed the O’Higgins friend and ally and everything he October 1842, the Chilean government name that his father had denied owned in Chile. After the Founder of the Chilean Navy and officially reinstated him as a him. He became the voice of a declaration of independence by Marine Corps, O’Higgins also oversaw commander-in-chief, but before he radical minority calling for a the United Provinces of South improvements in public works, could return, he died in Lima on complete break with Spanish rule, America at the Congress of education, farming and the military. October 23, 1842. O’Higgins’ remains and by the time the royalist forces Tucumán, O’Higgins planned the Despite his achievements, his were ceremoniously repatriated to were ousted in 1810, O’Higgins invasion of Chile with General José commitment to liberal republicanism in Chile in 1869. stood out as a revolutionary de San Martín. In January 1817, the Americas alienated the church and

Ireland in Latin America | 36/ 37 a

n i Ireland’s Son, Argentina’s Hero

t n Admiral William Brown, or Guillermo Brown, native Admiral William

e g of Foxford, County Mayo, became Admiral of the r Argentine Navy leading the battle to achieve A independence from Spain. (1777 – 1857) There are few records of his childhood, but he left Ireland as a youth and Brown did not return until he was sixty-one. His remarkable naval career began as a midshipman in the British navy. By the time he arrived in Buenos Aires in 1810, his formidable naval skills and reputation as a “Master Mariner” brought him to the attention of the Buenos Aires government. He settled in Buenos Aires in 1812 just as the criollo rebellion against Spanish rule was gaining momentum. By then, he was married to Englishwoman Elizabeth Chitty, daughter of a British shipping magnate, and they had two children. In 1812, as an established commercial trader, he became adept at running the Spanish blockade of the River Plate.

The continuing blockade was choking wreaked havoc on Spanish military trade in Buenos Aires, and in 1814 and commercial ships. Brown was INSTITUTO BROWNIANO William Brown was asked by the detained in Barbados in 1816 by patriot government to lead a small British colonial officials, accused of Argentine fleet with his flagship infringing international trade rules. He ARGENTINE NAVY Hércules . Demonstrating extraordinary entered into a long and torturous tactical skill, they defeated the Spanish appeal process that ultimately squadron off Montevideo, breaking the succeeded. But when he eventually FOXFORD ALMIRANTE BROWN blockade and effectively ending the returned to Buenos Aires in 1818 he Spanish stranglehold on the new was arrested and court martialled. He independent state. Brown’s courage, was found guilty of disobeying orders discipline and concern for the welfare and was stripped of his rank and his Brown returned to command the Foxford, accompanied by his daughter, of ordinary seamen became the earnings from the naval campaign. At Argentine fleet and defeated a far and witnessed the horrors of the great founding principles of the Argentine his lowest ebb, ill with typhoid and superior Brazilian navy. He was a hero Famine in 1847. Today there is a Navy. accused of being a traitor, Brown once again and returned to become museum in a reconstruction of the attempted to take his own life. In governor of Buenos Aires. In 1841 he Yellow House originally built by Brown Brown continued his campaign and 1819, on appeal, the civil government led the navy for the last time against in the famous Boca district. Named in sailed on board the Hercules to the restored him to the rank of retired the British and French blockade in the his honour are several ships of the Pacific, rounding the Cape of Good colonel. In 1825, when the Brazilian war against Uruguay. General Garibaldi Argentine navy, an Argentine naval Horn in treacherous storms. blockade of the River Plate threatened on the losing side considered Brown the base, three towns, 320 schools, six Accompanied by two other ships they the economic foundation of Argentina, greatest naval leader of all time. He football clubs and about 1,100 streets. made one final trip to his native

Ireland in Latin America | 38/ 39 y

a John Thomond O’Brien

u g 1825-1886

r General John Thomond O’Brien of and industrious” immigrants.

Baltinglass, Wicklow arrived in Though unsuccessful in his

d Argentina in 1814 and fought in attempts, this first effort sowed the

n the siege of Montevideo. He was seed of Irish emigration to a appointed aide-de-camp to Argentina from the Westmeath–

e General San Martín, and took part Longford–Offaly area. l in all major actions of the

h independence struggle in Chile, In 1847 O’Brien was appointed Bolivia, and Perú. special envoy of the Uruguayan

Republic to the United Kingdom. , The new government gave him a He returned to Ireland and died on

a grant of the Salcedo silver mine 1 June 1861 in Lisbon, on his way

n i near Puno, and with pioneering back to South America. His remains

t spirit he undertook the were repatriated to Argentina in

e construction of a railroad across 1935 on board the gunboat g the Andes. O’Brien returned to Rosario . At an official ceremony the

r Buenos Aires and became involved Minister of War gave an oration, as A in persuading government officials did the president of the Comisión to implement an immigration Irlandesa–Argentina in Buenos scheme from Ireland. In 1826 he Aires, Dr. Humberto Ennis. returned home to recruit “moral

Miguel O’Gorman 1736-1819 Michael O’Gorman, a doctor from Ennis in County Clare, was appointed the first Protomédico (Royal Physician) in the new viceroyalty of Río de la Plata in 1798. He established the Academy of Medicine in Montevideo and the first medical school in Buenos Aires, and is regarded as the founder of modern medicine in Argentina. He studied in Paris before working as a medical officer for ten years with the Hibernian Regiment in Spain under General Alejandro O’Reilly. He arrived in Buenos Aires at the age of sixty- two. He initiated public health measures to control the spread of disease and introduced the latest methods of vaccination against smallpox.

Ireland in Latin America | 40/ 41 The Lynch dynasty in Argentina began with Patrick Lynch

i from County Galway, who arrived in Buenos Aires via h Cadiz in Spain in the 1740s with a licence to trade in the

C Spanish colonies. He became a substantial landowner, a

d regidor (royal representative) and captain of the militias. n He married Rosa de Galaya de la Camera, a wealthy

heiress. Their son Justo Pastor Lynch and grandchildren a became well-known names in Argentina supporting the

n i patriot cause.

A Patricio Lynch, 1825-1886 Patricio Lynch, a great-grandson of Irishman Patrick Lynch, and the great great-grandfather of Che Guevara, had a highly successful career in the Chilean navy. He fought in the War of the Pacific between Chile and the Allied Powers of Perú and Bolivia (1879–84), in which Bolivia lost its only access to the sea and Chile annexed large areas of the Pacific coast with valuable nitrate deposits. Patricio’s father Estanislao Lynch y Roo arrived in Chile as a colonel in the Patriot army led by Bernardo O’Higgins and San Martín. He settled in Valparaiso and became a wealthy merchant. Patricio married Carmen Solo de Zaldívar y Rivera, and their first son Patricio was born on 18 December 1825. He entered the Chilean navy aged twelve and went on to join the Royal Navy for a time. On returning to Chile, he was appointed Minister for the Marine. During the War of the Pacific he was promoted to military governor of occupied Perú, and later to rear admiral. In 1884 Patricio Lynch was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Spain. He The died on a return journey to Chile in 1886. LyDnynascty h

Ireland in Latin America | 42/ 43 Argentina attracted the largest number of Irish emigrants a outside the English-speaking world. As a result of private

n i settlement schemes throughout the nineteenth century, it is t estimated that more than 50,000 Irish immigrants landed in n Buenos Aires up to 1929. The majority found work as sheep

g farmers and cattle ranchers and settled largely in rural areas of r Argentina on frontier lands or in the Pampas. Smaller numbers The Family

A became factory workers in Buenos Aires, or owners of small businesses. A handful who arrived before the Irish Famine became very wealthy and influential landowners and merchants .

The first generation laid the foundation for a flourishing multi- generational and layered Irish-Argentine diaspora contributing to all aspects of life in Argentina. They maintained a strong sense of identity and became prominent in education, the Catholic Mulhall Church, banking, sport, industry and railways, the armed forces, politics and the press.

Eduardo Mulhall, 1832-1899 Edward Mulhall (1832–99) settled in Buenos Aires in the mid-1850s. He set up The Standard daily newspaper (1860–1959) with his brother Michael (1836–1900) as co-editor. Michael was a journalist, author and statistician. As the first English-language newspaper in Latin America, The Standard appealed to a diverse readership of English-speaking settlers in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The Mulhall brothers, despite being natives of Ireland, identified as ingleses and promoted support for Home Rule, with Ireland remaining in the United Kingdom. The Nationalist editor of the Marion Mulhall, 1847 -1922 Southern Cross criticised The Standard as “the mouthpiece of English Marion Mulhall, née Mc Morrough, an author in her own right, married Michael commercial enterprise and interests”. In 1875 the Mulhall brothers Mulhall. She wrote about her experiences as “the first English woman to penetrate published The Handbook of the River Plate as a guide to prospective the heart of South America”. These travel accounts by a white female explorer of European settlers. terra incognita reflect the European discourse about indigenous peoples as seen through nineteenth-century “imperial eyes”.

Marion Mulhall also wrote an account of the devastating 1871 yellow fever epidemic in Buenos Aires in which up to 25,000 people died. Widowed in 1900, Mulhall resettled in Kent in England until her death in 1922. Her published works include From Europe to Paraguay and Matto-Grosso (1877) and Between the Amazon and the Andes (1881).

Ireland in Latin America | 44/ 45 a The Argentine government set up a scheme to reception, and most of them, left at the hands of unscrupulous agents,

n i recruit emigrants in Ireland. In 1887 John ended up destitute in the streets of Buenos Aires. Up to 800 travelled on t The Steven Dillon (Fr. Dillon’s brother) and Buckley to the colony of Napostá, started by Irish-American David Gartland. After n O’Meara became the agents managing the two years of misery living under canvas in harsh weather on lands that

e g scheme. In one disastrous recruitment drive, were unsuitable for agriculture, more than 100 people died. The surviving r Dresden the SS Dresden carried some 1,500 Irish group eventually returned to Buenos Aires on foot, a distance of 700 km. A Affair emigrants. There was nothing in place for their This marked the end of mass migration from Ireland to Argentina.

boys and St. Brigid’s College for girls, providing free education to the Father Anthony children of poorer Irish immigrants, Fahy, 1805-1871 were set up in the 1890s. Father Anthony Fahy from Galway Marriage outside the Irish-Argentine ministered to a growing Irish community was rare until the diaspora until his death from yellow twentieth century. The diaspora fever in 1871. Fahy travelled the retained a strong sense of Irish length and breadth of the Pampas, ethnicity, and later generations supporting the Irish Catholic spoke English with accents of the community. He acted as consul, early settlers who came from financial adviser, judge, employment Counties Meath, Westmeath, agent interpreter and matchmaker Longford and Offaly in the midlands, and founded the Irish Hospital in and from Cork, Clare and Wexford. In Buenos Aires. The Fahy Institute for a country with a strong British influence in the nineteenth century, it was easier to identify as ingleses , but as Irish-Argentine communities grew and moved from rural to urban areas they began to speak Spanish.

Monsignor Patrick J. Dillon, 1842-1889 Father Patrick Dillon, also from Galway, arrived in Buenos Aires in 1863 to serve as chaplain to the Irish in districts outside Buenos Aires – Merlo, Cañuelas and the Falkland Islands. With the support of Irish Catholics, he set up the Southern Cross newspaper in 1875. This was the first English-language, Catholic and Irish periodical, and it contributed to separating Irish identity from the wider English-speaking population. Ireland in Latin America | 46/ 47 Cecilia Grierson was Argentina’s first female physician. Her

n mother, Jane Duffy, was Irish, married to John Robertson

t Grierson, son of a Scottish colonist. After her father died, n Cecilia, still a young girl, helped her mother run a country

e Cecilia school in the province of Entre Ríos. She later graduated as

g r a teacher in 1878 but went on to study medicine, despite

A the legal exclusion of women from educational G(185r9 –i 1e934r) son institutions.

Secondary education for girls did not Medicine in Buenos Aires. She exist until early in the twentieth founded the National Obstetrics century. Cecilia was recognised as an Association and the Revista exceptional student but also for her Obstétrica , a journal for midwives. voluntary work in treating patients during the 1886 cholera epidemic. Cecelia was a feminist and became Despite successfully defending her politically active in the struggle to thesis on gynaecology and becoming achieve civil, legal and political the first woman in Argentina to equality for women. She was vice- graduate with a degree in medicine, president at the second meeting of it was not legal for her to practise the suffragist organisation the because of her gender. International Council of Women, held in London in 1889, and she Grierson was academically prolific subsequently set up the Argentine and innovative in her work. She went Women’s Council. As part of the on to develop training programmes events marking the centenary of and founded Argentina’s first school Argentine independence, Dr. Grierson of nursing in 1891. It was called the presided over the first International Municipal Nursing School or “the Dr. Feminist Conference of Argentina. Cecilia Grierson”. Dr. Grierson was the Today several medical institutions director of the school until 1913. She bear her name, as does a street in the was a pioneer of the practice of district of Puerto Madero in Buenos kinesiology, a massage technique Aires. which she taught at the School of

FEMINIST

ARGENTINA’S FIRST FEMALE PHYSICIAN DIRECTOR OF NURSING SCHOOL

SUFFRAGETTE Ireland in Latin America | 48/ 49 Dublin. In the summer of 1912, he was sworn into the Irish Republican

a Brotherhood. He worked closely with Patrick Pearse in planning the Easter

n i Eamon Rising. In late 1915 they began to make and store munitions at St. Enda’s t school. Eamon played a significant part in the insurrection. Under orders

e from Pearse, he held a position as sniper on the roof of the GPO and he g hoisted the Irish flag along with a second green flag with the inscription r “Irish Republic” over the GPO. Bulfin was among those condemned to be A shot, but like Eamon De Valera, his sentence was commuted on account of his foreign birth. He was imprisoned with the Irish rebels in Frongoch (1892 – 1968) internment camp in Wales. The Argentine consulate intervened and Bulfin Bulfin was deported to Argentina in 1919. Following the election of the first Dáil, or parliament, in January 1921, Eamon De Valera appointed Bulfin as the consul He was born in Buenos Aires in 1892 to parents William Bulfin of of the Irish Republic in Buenos Aires. Although it was an unofficial meeting, Birr, County Offaly and Ann O’Rourke of Ballymore, County an important step was the decision a year later by the Argentine Foreign Westmeath. Eamon’s parents met while working on a cattle ranch in Minister to receive Sinn Féin representative Laurence Ginnell as the first Irish the Pampas. When they moved to Buenos Aires, William wrote short Ambassador in Argentina in August 1921. They worked to rally political and pieces about the Irish-Argentine diaspora in the Southern Cross , a financial support in Buenos Aires among prominent and wealthy members of weekly English-language newspaper. In 1896 he became the editor the Irish-Argentine community for the new Irish Republic. Support was and owner of the paper, publishing articles about politics, Irish fractured once the 1921 Treaty partitioning Ireland was signed. Eamon language and sports, and the cultural revival in Ireland. returned to Ireland in 1922, settling in Birr, County Offaly, until his death in 1968.

In 1896 he became the editor and (1907) was a guidebook for the owner of the paper, publishing diaspora on the Irish landscape and articles about politics, Irish language geopolitical events in Ireland. The The Irish flag was first and sports, and the cultural revival in family returned to Ireland in 1908. raised over the General Post Ireland. William supported the Gaelic Eamon Bulfin arrived in Ireland agee Office (GPO) during the League in Buenos Aires and 10. He was the second boy to enrol Easter Rising of 1916 by maintained close contact with Irish in the Irish language school St. Eamon Bulfin, an Irish- nationalists such as Douglas Hyde, Enda’s, founded by revolutionary Argentine rebel. Arthur Griffith and Patrick Pearse. leader and poet Patrick Pearse. His first book, Tales of the Pampas , Eamon’s father died in 1910, the described life in Argentina for the same year he began his studies for a Irish, and his book Rambles in Erin science degree at University College

WESTMEATH

GAELIC LEAGUE INDEPENDENCE

EASTER RISING 1916 BUENOS AIRES Ireland in Latin America | 50/ 51 Ireland Dublin

Mexico Cuba

Venezuela Colombia

Ecuador

Peru Brazil

Bolivia Paraguay

Uruguay

Chile Argentina