Viva Irlanda! Exploring the Irish in Argentina

An incredible bond that still remains strong

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They commemorated Admiral William Brown in the sun at Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires the other day.

In the tree lined passageway between the marbled mausoleums for the once rich and famous,  the Argentinean naval band played "Saint Patrick's Day in the Morning" in their annual tribute to the national hero, who is credited with routing the Spanish fleet in the Argentinean  war of independence in 1814.

Quite how a poor cabin boy from Foxford, who first learned to row a boat on Lough Conn in Mayo, achieved naval victories to rank alongside those of Raleigh or Nelson and rose to be the father of the Argentina navy is a fascinating story perhaps not yet fully told.

Yet it is a monumental example of the enduring success of the members of the Irish Diaspora. Brown's impressive green memorial occupies a prominent place in the central plaza of the cemetery (unlike that of the populist heroine Eva Peron which is consigned to a back-alley).

Together with the more than one thousand streets in Argentina named in his honor, it is an acknowledgment of the special place that Argentinean people hold for him and other Irishmen.

The links with Ireland are lasting and still vibrant today .

"There are perhaps only two hundred or so first-generation Irish living today in Argentina," said James McIntyre, the Irish ambassador to Argentina, "but over half a million Argentinean nationals can trace  their ancestors back to Ireland and that is a hugely significant number in a non-English speaking population of just over 40 million."
 
The main wave of Irish immigrants,  arrived in Argentina from the early to mid-nineteenth century . In all a total of about fifty thousand emigrants arrived from Ireland between 1830-1930.

A majority  of these came  from the midlands of Westmeath and Longford and from Wexford . They undertook the long journey to  a mostly unknown and faraway land because they had heard about the opportunities in farming and the low land prices. ‘They worked hard and bought wisely’ said McIntyre. ‘A lot of them became ranchers  in the vast fertile Pampas  around Buenos Aires."

It is said that in those days the Irish-owned land as vast as Ireland itself and that you could travel 200 miles without leaving an Irish-owned ranch. Some Irish ranchers became so powerful that they had towns named after them.

Unlike their fellow emigrants who went to North America around the time of the famine, the Argentinean-bound contingents were in the large part personally unaffected by the ravages of that disastrous time for Ireland  but even so, coming from a  poor country which was struggling against a centuries old oppressor and the tyranny of religious intolerance  they must have been astounded by what was on offer.

Argentina is the eight largest country in the world, it is four times the size of France and  for the new emigrants it was wide, open and beautiful . The country was booming, it was one of the ten richest on  earth and the new Irish immigrants did well.

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