In a box in the archives at the University of Galway sits a bundle of yellowed letters, written between 1935 and 1936, chasing the story of an Irishman who crossed the Atlantic with Christopher Columbus. On Columbus Day, his name is worth remembering, because Guillermo Herries was among the 38 men left behind in what is now Haiti to build the first European settlement in the New World, and almost none of them were ever seen again.

It seems that in 1935, a Chicago-based organization named the Guillermo Herries League enlisted the help of historians, librarians, and scholars in a bid to prove that this Irishman had, in fact, landed in America before Columbus.

They hoped to name a new bridge after this brave Irish explorer, but unfortunately, their hopes were never realized.

The Irishman in question was recorded in the Spanish navy records as Guillermo Herries, an unlikely name for an Irishman, you might think, and you’d be right. Perhaps, if he had been known by William Harris rather than the Portuguese translation of his name, then he would be better known in Irish history. Surely every Irish child should learn that an Irishman was part of the famous voyage of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

St. Nicholas’ Church in Galway is known to have been visited by Columbus in 1477, and it was supposedly here that Guillermo met Columbus and inspired him with tales of lands to the west that he had visited himself.

The legend of Saint Brendan’s voyage was said to have provided extra fuel for Columbus’s dreams. It is certainly not impossible that Guillermo could have reached America before 1492, as Leif Erikson and his band of Norsemen had already traveled to America hundreds of years beforehand.

Tim Severin’s reenactment of St. Brendan’s voyage proved that the 6th-century monk may have even reached America centuries before that. So why not Guillermo? Unfortunately, the journey of 1492 was to be his last.

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Guillermo’s name appears on the list of 38 people left behind in what is now modern-day Haiti to form the first European settlement in the New World. Although the Galway man lived in peace with the natives for a time, by Christmas of 1492, the locals rebelled, and the entire garrison was believed to have been slaughtered.

However, in the records of the Guillermo Herries League, a rumor persists of a daring escape at the pinnacle of the Santa Maria by the Irishman and several others to the coast of Mexico, where they were shipwrecked near the mouth of the Mississippi River, in the vicinity of the present-day city of New Orleans.

Despite the league's hopes that he would name the new bridge in Chicago, Herries never did, and the honor went to Leif Erikson. The facts, fiction, and mysteries of this little-known Irish explorer remain in the archives of Galway University, and although we may never know how Guillermo died, we can be proud that he was part of such a significant event in world history.

* Originally published in February 2013, updated in October 2025.