The story of the Irish in Argentina

/^

FATHER ANTHONY D. FAHEY
( " El patriarca irlandes " )

THE STORY OF THE IRISH
IN ARGENTINA

BY

THOMAS MURRAY

A greeting and'a promise unto them all we send;
Their character our charter is, their glory is our end,—
Their friend shall be our friend, our foe whoe'er assails
The glory and the story of the sea-divided Gaels.
One in name and in fame
Are the sea-divided Gaels.

— M'Gee. I

NEW YORK

P. J. KENEDY & SONS

1919

T '.f-^ci

COPYRIGHT, I919,
BY THOMAS MURRAY

TO

THE IRISH-ARGENTINE PEOPLE

Amongst whom I have passed so many pleasant years,
this story of their life, from far colonial days to the
end of the last century, is fondly dedicated

By the Author

PREFACE

THE materical from which "The Story of the Irish
in Argentina" has been composed was collected, for
the most part, from the books, newspapers, maga-
zines and periodicals named in the list given at the end of
the book, and almost all of which publications can be con-
sulted in the national and municipal libraries of Buenos
Aires. The public libraries in Rosario have also been
availed of to some extent. Information picked up in various
ways through many years of intimate association with "old-
timers," both Argentine and Irish born, has also been
utilized pretty freely, while items of personal experience, and
pamphlets and books loaned by friends supplied practically
all the other matter incorporated.

I must here express my very sincere gratitude to these
friends and to the officials of the public libraries, to which
I had recourse in the pursuit of my undertaking, for their
courtesy and willingness to help me in my search.

The labor of compiling this book was not undertaken
with any other aim than that of doing a very agreeable
service to our race, particularly that part of it whose lot
has been cast in the Argentine Republic. I have tried to be
moderate and truthful in all my criticisms and statements,
and if I have in any way failed in this purpose it was not
for lack of good will and honest intention.

T. M.

THE STORY OF THE IRISH
IN ARGENTINA

Some Account of their first Coming,
Settlement and Progress

INTRODUCTION

EFORE commencing to tell of the Irish people in
Argentina and to follow their course from their first
and very small beginnings, in times, which in Ameri-
can chronology can be called remote, I think it well to devote
some pages to the early history of the race, or races, from
which the people I am going to write about is sprung. I
shall also occupy a chapter in treating, in a general way,
of the great land in which my theme is set. Thus, I be-
believe, will the value of my efforts be heightened for those
who are not, from one cause or another, in a position to
make themselves fairly conversant with Irish and Argentine
history.

Someone has said that the history of Ireland has still to
be written. The remark, if not made by this someone with
a view to appearing wise and witty, was inspired by a wish
to disparage the work of the many laborious and learned
men who have toiled in the field of Irish historical research,
and who have left numerous excellent volumes elucidating

vii

viii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

every conceivable phase, ancient and modern, of their coun-
try's story. In so far as there is any truth in the remark
it is equally applicable to every other country that has a
history stretching back through a number of centuries.
To know such a liistory well it is necessary to read many
volumes and many authors. No historian, no matter how
learned, impartial and diligent, can write a complete, wholly
unbiased, and thoroughly authoritative work. The more I
read of history the more I am convinced of the correctness
of this view. I have never found two authors describe any
great historical event of whose description it might be said
that one was as good and complete in every way, as the
other. The particular point of view, personal feeling or
special interest always under- or over-colored some feature,
ignored altogether or lent undue importance to some in-
cident, or in some more serious way asserted itself. Thus,
for example, in the few well-known cases of the battles of
Clontarf, Eontenoy, and in the English invasion of Buenos
Aires, how many authors agree in all the details.? I have
not met any two that did. Yet every historical work that
I have read while lacking something had always some special
value of its own. Hence it is that twenty volumes of history
written by seven or eight good authors are almost certain
to be seven or eight times more instructive and useful, his-
torically, than twenty volumes written by one good author.
So that Ireland, although not possessed of any one great
and all-embracing historical work, with her hundreds of
books of history, written by scores of good authors, has her
records very complete, many-phased and authoritative.
But many books must be studied before her story can be
thoroughly comprehended, as is the case with all other coun-
tries having a history worth studying. I say so much on
this matter of written Irish history because I have often
been asked: Whose is the best history of Ireland.'* All
the histories are very well worth reading, and the best one
is the one that deals most fully with the period or depart-
ment of history that one is particularly interested in. I

INTRODUCTION ix

shall have occasion to mention some highly recommendable
works before I close this introduction.

In pre-Christian times Ireland was colonized at seven
distinct periods and by different tribes of no less a number.

The first person of whom mention is made as coming to
Ireland was a woman named Ceasair and she is said to have
brought fifty maids and three men in her train. Her visit
is timed at some short while before the Flood. Her fate
and that of all her retinue is very pathetically and interest-
ingly told, but has too much of the romantic and, seemingly,
impossible about it to be set down as history.

Partholan succeeded the lady Ceasair after a very con-
siderable lapse of time. His reign is supposed to have
commenced about three hundred years after the Deluge. He
was a Scythian and must have had a numerous following,
to judge from the size of their burial mound at Tallaght in
Dublin. They nearly all died off from some sudden and
terrible plague that fell upon them. Not long after this a
people whom writers call Nemedians, from their leader,
Nemeid, possessed themselves of the island, and they, prob-
ably, were the originators of the story, true or otherwise,
about the fate of Parthalon and his people. Some authors
say these Nemedians peopled Scotland and England, led by
a chieftain called Briotain Maol, and that it was from this
Briotain the island got its name, Britain.

Then began to come the Fomorians from the North of
Africa. They are sometimes called traders, but mostly re-
garded as pirates. The word signifies sea-robbers, or what
is latterly called pirates. The line between the two occupa-
tions, that of traders and that of pirates, was probably not
very distinctly drawn thirty-five hundred years ago.

The Firboigs (Bagmen), were a sort of slaves in Greece
who were used in the public works of their time, in carrying
building and other materials in bags on their backs, to
wherever their masters wanted such matter removed. They
became, as the Greeks were successful in their wars, very
numerous, and one day finding the Greeks in difficulties with

X STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

some of their neighboring enemies, and acting on the wise
old principle, "the boss's difficulty is the bondsman's op-
portunity," they struck work, picked up any useful thing
they could lay their hand upon and turned Westward,
reaching Ireland in due time. There are writers who dis-
agree with this story and make the word "Firbolg" to stand
for men of the Volga (Firvolga), Volgamen instead of Bag-
men. Anyhow, they are said to have been the fifth band
of colonizers to reach the yi^estern Isle, and so far the most
successful. Their domination of the country was short,
however, for the Tuatha de Danann people arrived soon
after and easily conquered them.

These Tuatha de Danann (pron. Tooaha (3e Danann),
were very skilled in the arts of chemistry and metal-work-
ing, knew something of legerdemain and probably anything
that was then to be known of what was called magic. .They
were more given to their arts and sciences than to war or
agriculture; the Firbolgs were peace-loving and inclined to
farming the land; the interests of the two races rarely
clashed, so they lived in comparative peace. The subject
people was by far the more numerous, but the higher civili-
zation of the other gave it dominance. The simple-minded
Firbolgs regarded their conquerors somewhat as the abo-
rigines of the West Indian Islands regarded the Spaniards
in the first years of the Discovery. They, the De Dananns,
could do numberless things which seemed to the humble
tillers of the soil as only in the power of supernatural be-
ings. It was undoubtedly this notion that gave rise to the
belief that when life was over in human form these De
Dananns went into the green hills- — they mostly buried their
dead in such places — and raths and became fairies, good
people, gentle folk. They were fair or red-haired people,
and the Beansidhe, one of the most important and respected
of all the fairy race, is usually red-haired. It is true, how-
ever, that her sympathies are exclusively pro-Milesian, but
the red hair, her residence in the green hills and raths, and
the very fact that she is a sidhe incline me to give her to the

INTRODUCTION sd

Dananns, althougli I would like well to be justly able to
claim her as one of our own stock. Their turn of power
on the island is thought to have lasted about three genera-
tions. It came to an end with the advent of the Milesians.
I shall have nothing more to say about the first four colo-
nies mentioned in this sketch as they seem to have had no
descendant on the island in the time of the fifth or sixth
invasion. They probably made no permanent settlements in
the land at any time.

The offsprings of the two latter colonies were plentiful
anH strong when the most powerful and warlike of all of
Ireland's colonizers, the Milesians, reached her shores.
These experienced but little difficulty in overcoming the De
Dananns, but a couple of good fights seem to have been
made in Connact where the already conquered race lent a
hand to their old and not too exacting masters. But the
Southern Moytura, on the shores of Lough Mask, near
Cong, was to them what Clontarf was in after years to the
Danes. The remnant who escaped that fatal day retreated
to the isles and mountain fastnesses swept by the Atlantic
winds and gave no more trouble to the new-comers. They
seem to have died out, as a people, and no trace of them
remains except some rude fortress ruins in Galway and
Kerry, and the "good people" who have a glorious kingdom
of their own, that's as wide as the whole island, and that is
likely to last while our deeply spiritual race survives on
the island. They have also the honor, it would appear, of
giving Ireland her present name as well as a couple of other
names less generally known. The story is, briefly, this:
There were three princesses, sisters, who acquired equal
rights to the queenship of Ireland; they were Eire, from
whome Ireland or Eireland, land of Eire, Banba and Fodla.
They agreed to reign each in her turn for seven years. Eire
took the first turn, Banba next and then Fodla. Each of
them had reigned duly and Eire was serving her second
term as queen when the Milesians came. This circumstance,
it is said, is what has fastened her name to the island more

xii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

steadily than that of cither of her sisters. It is said, too,
by some that she married one of the Milesian chiefs. The
foregoing is not, however, the only explanation of the name,
Ireland, but I give it as the one which seems to me the most
probable, but with a certain amount of reserve as to some
of the details in the tradition.

The Milesians had now full control of the island. The
Firbolgs, attending to their farm-work, accepted their new
masters about as readily as they did their previous ones.
In time the two races intermarried and commingled so that
were it not that the older settlers were so numerous and
virile in Connact the new-comers would have absorbed them,
and, indeed, they have, to all intents and purposes, done
so, for it is only the learned who can discern to-day any
real traces of that race, and these only in the counties
beyond the Shannon.

The Milesians, from whom the Irish people are princi-
pally descended, have a history reaching back to Adam.
This may seem an exaggeration, but the genealogies set
down in written form fourteen hundred years ago give the
names of all the fathers, leaders, chiefs and kings down to
that time and we have written records ever since.

Japheth, Noah's son, settled his people around the
Black and Caspian seas. In time their descendants occupied
all South-eastern Europe. Various tribes grew up and
spread west and southward in search of new and broader
lands on which to make their homes. They began filling
up all Southern Europe, and spread, more or less, into
Asia Minor and Northern Africa. A chieftain named
Brath, who was, we are told, thirty-third in descent from
Adam, was promised by an old druid that his people should
inherit an island in the west. This Brath had full faith in
the words of the druid and always spoke of this prophesied
inheritance as "Inisfail," Island of Destiny, and he it was,
with his people, who set out to seek it. In time, and after
many sojourns here and there, they reached Spain and
took possession of the Northwestern part of that country,

INTRODUCTION xiii

and which is now called Galicia — land of the Gaels. Gael
(phonetic spelling), being the founder of the tribe his chil-
dren and their people were called Gaels, and the race still
bears the name. Brath's son, Brogan, who headed the na-
tion in his time, built the town of Brigantine, now Coruna,
and Briganza in Portugal; he also built a great tower at
Coruna, the remains of which are still to be seen. Milesius
was this Brogan's grandson, from whom the Milesians.

Milesius seems to have been in many ways the prototype
of our present Mr. Roosevelt; he traveled much in foreign
parts, visited Egypt, was fond of fighting and twice mar-
ried. His second wife was Scota, daughter of one of the
Pharaohs. In due time he ascended the throne of Spain,
or that part of Spain which the Gaels held, probably
Galicia and some surrounding districts. And as it hap-
pened when Mr. Roosevelt was at the headship of his nation
so did it come to pass with Milesius, a great business crisis
came to bother him; there were bad times and want in the
land. His people, as people have been doing ever since,
put all the blame for their misfortunes on the government.
If his term at the head of affairs had been a four-years'
one, his chances of being rechosen for the office would
scarcely be anything more hopeful than were those of his
double in the United States when last that champion wooed
the fickle oracle who conveys her decrees through the bal-
lot boxes. But he had no such troubles to face, and those
he had he met very wisely. He reminded his people that
the gods were angry with all of them for so long neglecting
the injunction laid upon them through their great ancestor
by the druid who told them they should seek the Inisfail till
it was found, and that they should possess it then. He
there and then set to preparing an expedition to go in
search of it once more, but died while thus engaged. His
eight sons, however, carried out his designs, and the Isle
of Destiny was possessed by "our great forefathers," as
Tom Moore called them. Milesius' wife survived him and
went with her sons to Ireland. Her name was Scota, and

XIV STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

she, too, gave a name to Ireland, a gift, indeed, which has
been a fruitful source of confusion and misunderstanding
in ages after. In the early ages of Christianity the people
of Scotia, Ireland, colonized Alban, or what is now called
Scotland, and, supposedly, to establish a title to the land
or to prove from whence they came, they called it after
their native country, as we have seen in times, ever so much
more recent. New England and New Spain, in America,
called after the native countries of their colonizers. Well,
the two Scotias were spoken so loosely of by old writers
from the Continent that it is often hard, except for the very
scholarly, to know whether Ireland or Scotland is meant
in some important references, so wherever an opportunity
offers with any advantage for his land the "canny Scot"
of the latter generations has come forward to show that'
his is and always was the true and only real Scotia. In
the first century of the Christian era a Roman poet, but
an Irishman born, has some very pretty verses on Ireland,
the first couplet of which verses runs thus in the trans-
lation :

Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame.
By Nature blest and Scotia is her name.

The foregoing remarks are but the merest synopsis of
the history of the coming of the Milesians by Spain. Other
authors hold that they came from the great nursery land
of the European races, Scythia,^ overland in generations of
wanderings, but ever tending Westward and finally reaching
Ireland through Britain. The traces of the Gael in Spain
and Portugal would seem to give, what I may call the
Spanish route, the greater probability. It is a fact, too,
that many of the very old traditions and legends of the
Irish people relate in one way or another to Spain. And

^ Scythia, so important a region in ancient history, is not to be found now
on the ordinary map. It extended, roughly, from the Baltic Sea to the Sea of
Arral in Asia, and from the Caucasus as far northwards as the cold permitted
people then to advance with any degree of comfort. The most part of this
region is now Russian territory.

INTRODUCTION xv

in those old romances kings and princesses come and go
between the two countries, and lend each other armies and
domestic animals, the latter usually enchanted, with a free-
dom and friendliness as though they were next-door neigh-
bors. But it is quite possible that both contentions are
well grounded, and that a colony of Celts, for they were
all Celts and spoke the same language, more or less, came
by each route. One by Spain and the other across the
European Continent and by Britain. According to Dr.
Hyde (Literary History of Ireland, p. 1): *'The Celtic
race and the Celtic language sprung from what is to-day
modern Germany, and issuing thence established for over
two centuries a vast empire held together by the ties of
political unity and a common language over all Northwest
and Central Europe." Within these two centuries it is very
likely some considerable numbers of this adventurous and
subjugating people made their way to Ireland, where they
found their cousin Gaels from Spain, and settled amongst
them peacefully; and just because they came peacefully and,
probably, in no great numbers at any one time, escaped the
notice of the chroniclers. There is a great want of agree-
ment among authorities as to the year, or even the century,
in which these Gaelic and Celtic settlements were made in
Ireland.

Five hundred years before the birth of Christ the Phoeni-
cians were trading with the island and they used to call it
"The Sacred Isle." PThe "Isle of Woods" and the "Isle of
Streams" were other names it had and they, being so cor-
rect, would go to show how well it must have been known
to writers in those very remote times. Its pastures seem
to have been as remarkable for their richness then as they
still are, for a writer in the first century, to confirm his
statements as to the luxuriancy with which the grass sprung
up in the fields, mentions that the cattle used to burst from
over-feeding.

Before passing on to the next stock that left its im-
print on our race, to some very small extent, it is worth

xvi STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

while to consider briefly the sources of Irish history, that
what I have already set down may not be considered as
mere romancing or guess-work of somewhat modern date.
The Milesians or Gaels, it is well known, as was the custom
with eastern peoples, had learned men set apart for the
keeping of the traditions and genealogies of their nation.
This order of things was quite necessary as the inheriting
of land and certain important offices in the tribe depended
on what might be called the family title-deeds. The
Hebrews and the Egyptians, with whom the Gaels in their
early wanderings in the East often found themselves in
close contact, had somewhat similar institutions. It was
customary with our ancestors from the earliest times to hold
periodical conventions presided over by the most learned
men of their nation, and at these gatherings their genealo-
gies and public records were carefully examined, and recti-
fied where necessary.

In the third century of Christianity there was a king
at Tara, the learned and wise Cormac MacArt, who called
together one of these assemblies. Feis is what it was called
in the Irish language. At that Feis or Convention all the
old annals and records then in existence were gone through
and considered with the greatest care, and from them was
compiled a history of the nation, which history was called
the "Psalter of Tara." Two hundred years later St.
Patrick and eight other learned men were appointed by
King Leary to do a somewhat similar work, and the famous
"Book of Rights" was the result of their labors. Four
hundred years later again, towards the close of the ninth
century, Cormac MacCuilenan, Archbishop of Cashel and
King of Munster, compiled from the aforesaid Psalter of
Tara and many other books then in existence, his famous
book, the Psalter of Cashel, which book, after a thousand
years, can still be seen in the British Museum, London.
So that we to-day can consult MacCuilenan's book. Mac-
Cuilenan tells us that he consulted MacArt's book, MacArt's
commission consulted various books and documents back

mXRODUCTION xvii

to Theirmas, 300 years b. c, and he, Theirmas, of course,
had some sort of data out of which to compose his records.
I think, in view of these facts, and they are only a few of
the many that could be adduced to this end, that the his-
toric records of Ireland, for some twenty-three hundred
years, may be regarded as fairly trustworthy.

Within a few generations after St. Patrick's time Chris-
tianity had become the only religion in Ireland. Great
colleges were already opened and from these great colleges
great teachers, great saints, came forth to complete Pat-
rick's work. Of the colleges, Clonard on the confines of
what is now Meath and Westmeath, was in the beginning
the most renowned. Of it a recent historian has said in
**Life of St. Columcille": ''It was from Clonard came forth
those twelve great men who are called the twelve apostles
of Erin. They were the great men who built up Ireland,
and completed the work of Patrick and B rigid." But the
great schools of Erin at this time and for centuries after
could be counted by the score; Moville, Armagh, Glasnevin,
Fermoy, Durrow, Clonmacnoise, St. Edna's, in Arran, and
Birr are only a few of the more noted ones. These cen-
turies, sixth, seventh, and eighth, were the golden age of
Erin. Not alone did religion and education flourish in the
land as they never did before or since, but social and
political progress also were marked and continuous. A few
of the great peaceful reforms effected in that period were
the regulating of the bardic order and the correcting of
abuses that had grown up with the extravagant pretentions
of the order through continuous unchecked privilege; the
recognition by treaty of the independence of the Gaelic
colony of Scotland; the arbitration of a question of suc-
cession to the throne, which would otherwise have brought
on a devastating war; the abolition of the system of en-
slavement of prisoners of war; the relcasemcnt of women
of all conditions from the obligation of military service,
and many others of less importance. It v/as when this
happy period was developing with highest promise that tlie

xviii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

scourge of another invasion, and the most destructive one
so far, fell upon the fated isle. The Danes came — ruthless
Pagans from the north countries. They massacred, sacked
and burned with a cruelty and zeal that never thought of
quarter, and that seemed to have no aim but plunder and
destruction — carry away whatever of value was portable,
and destroy what could not be carried off. The monasteries
and churches, where there was great wealth, in ornaments
and sacred utensils, were a special prey of these fierce
marauders. The colleges situate close to the seashore, and
so in easier reach of the plunderers, were the first to be
demolished. Clonmacnoise, located very near the center of
the island, and for this reason a little more secure against
raids, was burned half a dozen times, and as often rebuilt,
and managed to weather the storms of time and warfare
till the "Reformation," when it was finally plundered and
suppressed by the English.

For about two hundred and fifty years the Northmen
kept up their destroying incursions. They made some
dozen or so settlements along the coast of the island, the
chief of which was Dublin. At one time they overran the
country so completely as to be powerful enough to set up
a high king or overlord of their own. Cruel and brutal
as Pagan robber could be was this overlord of theirs,
Turgesius. He issued an edict, or sent forth a command,
ordering all the daughters of the Irish chieftains and
principal men in the districts surrounding Lough Ree to
come to his court on an island in the beautiful lake on a
certain day. Malachy, who was afterwards Ard Righ and
who was then a youth of some fifteen or sixteen years of
age and remarkably handsome, organized a band of youths
like himself, dressed as young ladies and armed with trusty
skians, the Irish poniard, safely concealed in their princely
robes, and set out, as it were, in obedience of the Dane's
orders. At a given moment they fell upon Turgesius and
his fellow feasters killing or disabling all of them. Bands
of Irish soldiers who were waiting in concealment close by.

INTRODUCTION xix

at a preconcerted signal, attacked the fort whicli was soon
in their possession, and the daring usurper and oppressor,
who never showed mercy to an enemy, was dealt with in
kind. Loaded with chains, the historians tell us, he was
taken eastward through Westmeath and thrown into Lough
Ennel. There were then small Danish pickets scattered all
over the Midlands of Ireland, somewhat as the Peelers are
at the present time, to spy on and overawe the people. The
victory of Malachy was, as it were, a signal for attack on
all such outposts and the Danish power was reduced once
more to its strongholds on the coast. From then war with
the strangers in one part of the island or another was
continuous till the great day of Clontarf, Good Friday,
1014, one of the most glorious days in Irish history, or,
indeed, in the history of any country. Brian the Great
fell that day, farior, but so also, never to rise again, did
the power of the plundering Northmen, so long the scourge
of the Western Isles.

These invaders are commonly called Danes although they
came less from Denmark than from Sweden and Norway.
They were great fighters, had little fear of God or man,
and were as wild and pitiless as the stormy seas on which
they loved to ride in their strong-ribbed, well-manned ships.
They made some impression on the race particularly in
Dublin, Limerick, Wexford, Dundalk and a few other places
where they had settlements, but as to the whole nation
scarcely any more than did the ancient Tuatha De Danann.

A little over one hundred and fifty years after Clontarf,
and when Ireland had been well on the road to recovery
from the wreck and disorganization of her institutions con-
sequent on the long strife with the Northmen, the treachery
of one of her chieftains plunged her once more into the
misfortunes of invasion and war. The story of MacMur-
rough is so well known that I need give it no more con-
sideration here than to say that this ill-starred king's ban-
ishment and return in time with foreign auxiliaries for the
re-establishment of his fortunes is not a case singular to

XX STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Ireland. Its counterpart can be found with more or less
variations of detail frequently in history, earlier and even
later than the time of him "who brought the Normans o'er."
Classic history is not without such examples, and it was to
assist the Romanized Britons against their countrymen of
the older civilization that the Anglo-Saxons were brought
to England, with the result that they remained there im-
posing their government, language and name on the coun-
try. It was, too, an Iberian MacMurrough that brought
the scourge of the Moors on Spain, and Poland cannot lay
the blame for its enslavement and martyrdom at the doors
solely of its neighbors.

The Normans had been about one hundred years in
England when MacMurrough sought their aid. They came
first in numbers so insignificant that they were only regarded
as mercenaries of the deposed king, and their presence in
Leinster was merely taken as a matter of concern for the
people of that kingdom. There must have been many in
Leinster and in the other provinces who felt that Mac-
Murrough had been badly treated, and to whom his success
in the effort to recover his kingdom would bring nothing
but pleasure. Kings, no matter how bad, are always pretty
sure to have many strongly attached to them, and Mac-
Murrough was not without his good qualities in the eyes of
numbers of his people, and so with his few Normans, and
his trouble being rather a local affair, he was able to set
himself up again in his kingdom.

The foreigners who came with Dearmuid found the
country very rich and beautiful, and meeting so little diffi-
culty in reinstating the deposed ruler, they believed it would
be easy to conquer the whole land, and they certainly knew
the prize was one worth struggling for. The King of
England was informed of all this, and being of the greedy
and martial Norman breed, was not slow in adopting the
proposals of his counselors. A strong expedition was pre-
pared, and the Norman invasion was added to the many
others. Devastating wars followed for centuries afterwards.

INTRODUCTION xxi

The newcomers were an educated, and for their time, highly
civilized people; good fighters, and with a certain nobility
of mein which the Irish rather liked. A Norman leader
fought some clan till he got a footing in that clan's terri-
tory, then made an alliance with the half-defeated chieftain
— of course, if the chieftain was crushed utterly, so much
the better. Soon the Norman found means to provoke a
quarrel between his new friend and his friend's neighbor;
the extinction in time of this neighbor, or another alliance,
with, if at all possible, a marriage and fosterages was next
entered into; but the strangers were all the time making
war and making headway. In a few generations they be-
came Irish, as something different from Norman or English,
but I never could think that it was correct to say, as the
Abbe MacGeoghegan has written, that they "became more
Irish than the Irish themselves." They adopted the Irish
language and Irish customs, married Irish wives, and like
Irish chiefs fought sometimes against the foreigner and
sometimes on his side, but their great aim always was,
power. The Irish political system, if it could be called
such, was a very loose and unwise one for a country having
a neighbor like England. The Normans rather aggravated
than remedied its faults. Those leaders who are said to
have become so Irish, often fought English authority, it is
true, but not in the name of the Irish Nation, not as the
chiefs or representatives of an independent people, but as
wronged or rebellious leiges of the English monarch. In-
stead of Ireland an independent nation, their principle was,
Ireland a dominion of the English King ruled hy the Nor-
man lords and for their sole use and benefit. The English
monarch was their monarch all the time, and if they fought
with him or his officials once in a while, the fight was not
for Ireland's sake, but because they felt that those officials
were interfering with their rights and privileges. The more
they adopted Irish manners and customs and secured in-
fluence in the land the more a subject nation Ireland was
becoming.

xxii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

No other colonizers or invaders, with the exception of
the Milesians, have made so deep an impress on what is
to-day the Irish race as those brave, politic, and being
politic, unscrupulous. Englishmen of the Norman blood,
They established their families much more in Leinstcr than
in any of the other provinces, although the Fitzgcralds of
Munster and the Bourks of Connact were two of their most
powerful families in Ireland. In Wexford and Wcstmeath
there were many great Norman families, and from this fact
our colony in Argentina has a larger proportion of Nor-
man blood in its veins than any Irish colony elsewhere in
the world. Of Wexford names we find Furlong, Pierce,
Rowland, Devereux or Devvery, Cardiff, Redmond, Power
and many others. From Westmeath and the Midlands we
meet Dalton, Nugent, Tuite, Dillon, Lacey, Petit, Delemar,
Hope, Ledwith, Tyrrell, etc., etc.

These families, notwithstanding the origin of their
names, are, of course, now as Irish as their neighbors who
may have such unmistakable patronymics as Murphy,
O'Connor, Geoghegan, Duggan, Maguire, Casey, Murray,
Morgan, or Kelly. Ireland is a small country, compara-
tively, and with the passing of the centuries and the break-
ing up of the clan or tribe system, by which in former
times practically aU the people of a district were known by
the clan name, such as O'Rian in Tippcrary, O'Neill in
Tyrone, O'Sullivan in West Cork and O'Byrne in Wick-
low, etc., the people have mixed and scattered so that one
may find now O'Driscolls and MacCarthys in Belfast,
O'Kanes and O'Donnells in Cork or Dublin, O'Flaherties in
Wexford and O'Tooles and MacLoughlins in Connemara.

The foregoing sketch does not purpose to be anything
more than the merest glance at the principal events in the
history of the formation of the race from v/hich are sprung
the people whose coming to and settlement in this country
I am going to record and describe in as far as the materials
I have been able to collect will enable me so to do. As I
have already pointed out, at what to some will possibly

INTRODUCTION xxiii

seem unwarranted length, the sources and repositories of
Irish history, I deem it convenient here to mention a few
of the authors who, I believe, can best assist any reader
in whom a desire to know more about the history of Ireland
may have been kindled by these pages. Keating Mac-
Geoghcgan, Moore and Dr. H3^de are the best I know on
ancient Ireland. Magee, Mitchel and A. M. Sullivan are
good on more modern times ; then there is a host of authors
of great learning and ability who have written of special
periods or events, notably amongst them Mrs. Green, and
the Dublin booksellers have free catalogues of all their
works.^

To sum up this part of my introduction, we have seen
that before the coming of the Normans the Irish race was
almost purely Milesian. The Firbolgan admixture being
probably not one-tenth of the whole, and both being of the
Celtic family and likely of pretty close kinship, they may
almost be said to be one and the same strain. The Danish
alloy is extremely small and except in the few districts men-
tioned as occupied for some time by them is not noticeable
at all. Nor is the Norman strain as important as Norman
effect on the national cognominity would suggest. For in-
stance, where a Norman chief, by marriage or the strength
and good fortune with which he fought, got the headship
of some clan or territory, all the people of that territory,
whether one or more clans, usually adopted his name, or
were known to their neighbors by his title. Thus in time
numbers of Irish families, without a drop of Norman blood
in their veins, came to have Norman names. There are,
perhaps, ten Bourkes and Pitzgeralds without the least
strain of Norman ancestry in them, in any form, for the
one of the name that has. So that the Norman tint in the

^ When the above was written I had not read " Ireland's Case," by Mr.
Seamus MacManus, but I gladly recommend it to the searcher ^or knowledge
in this domain. It is a small and easily read volume, but I have never before
seen so much information put in so narrow a compass, and so well put, I wish
every Irish- Argentine would read it.

xxiv STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

racial color may be set down as not very much deeper than
that of the Firbolgs.

The campfollowers of Cromwell who seized the lands
were never of the people, nor the people of them, they were
hardly ever more than outlanders ; and they are, as Standish
O'Grady has written, "withering off the face of the earth,"
or, with the passing of landlordism, have to all intents and
purposes withered and need not be considered here. James'
plantation were mostly from Scotland, and they, like James
himself, were of the Milesians. They are the Presbyterians
and Orangemen of to-day, but that is only a matter of
politics with them, and in lands where they had the luck
to get away from that influence they have been one in
name and in fame with the rest of their breed. For all the
ups and downs of fortune the Irish Race is to-day Milesian,
or Gaelic, and the latter is the better term, I think, as more
inclusive and of a meaning with more in it. It is the purest
race in Europe, its civilization is as old as that of the
Greeks, it has done great things for the Christianizing and
civilizing of the old world and the new; no one here or
elsewhere need ever hang his head for being of that old Race.

II

AS the part of this introduction just closed is a sketch
of the principal sources from which the Irish Na-
tion is formed, so will this be a brief description,
historical, geographical and sociological of the country in
which this South American offshoot of that people has taken
deep and lasting root.

I shall not follow the lines of many other foreigners
who have written of the countries of the Rio de la Plata.
Nearly all of a goodly number of such authors whom I have
perused tell, in almost the same words, how Solis, Cabot,
Mendoza and many other discoverers and colonizers came
here and failed or succeeded in their mission. For me it

INTRODUCTION xxv

will be enough to say that Solis, the Spaniard, was the first
European who sailed into the Rio de la Plata. He went
on shore and the Indians killed him, this was in 1515. Cabot,
a Venetian whom Mulhall, like other English writers, calls
an Englishman, came ten years later and proceeded up the
Parana as far as Paraguay. This mariner had distinguished
himself in the service of England, but differing with the
English monarch on account of the latter's failure to duly
reward his labors,^ he took service with the Spanish king
and was the second commander to reach these shores. The
real colonizer, however, was Mendoza who brought a num-
ber of men and women, amongst them one hundred and fifty
Germans, with the horses, cows and sheep from which sprung
in a few years, troops, herds and flocks in wild abundance,
and which same stock in later years gave to Argentina its
greatest, and up to the days of agricultural advancement,
at the close of the Nineteenth century, its almost sole
wealth. Mendoza founded the city of the "Most Holy
Trinity, Port of Saint Mary of Good Airs," or in Spanish:
Santisima Trinidad, Puerto de Santa Maria de Buenos
Aires, in 1535. The settlement, however, was constantly
harassed by the neighboring Indians and in a few years
failed. Yet twelve hundred miles up the river, in Paraguay,
progress was being made and communications had been
opened across the continent with Peru. Forty-five years after
Mendoza's attempt to found the city of Buenos Aires, a
Spanish-Basque, Captain Juan de Garay, laid the founda-
tions of the present city, a little distance north of the
site Mendoza had chosen. The names of all the little band
who came down the river with Garay and formed the new
city are given by De Angelis, and number sixty-four.
Amongst them is the name of one woman. Ana Diaz, and
one of the men was Pedro Moran. The name, Moran,
however, like that of Martin, Colman, Galvan and some
others is as much Spanish as Irish. The sixty-four names
mentioned I suppose represented as many families, and
1 See De Angelis, v. 2, p. 84. '

xxvi STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

taking five for an average of the families the new city
would seem to have started with a population of some three
hundred souls. It is said that some of the first founders,
or their children, half Indianized, still lingered around the
old settlement. It was then, as was all the territory from
the Portuguese possessions, the present frontier of Brazil,
more or less, westward to the Pacific, under the control of
the Viceroy of Peru. In 1661 it got a governor of its own
with a sort of city council called an Audiencia, as did also
Paraguay and Tucuman. There is a stone set in the street
at the corner of the Cathedral and Plaza de Mayo where
Rivadavia and San Martin meet, which was the spot marked
by Garay as the center of the city.

The next event of importance in its history occurred
towards the close of the Eighteenth century when what
might be termed free trade with Spain, and greatly in-
creased commercial liberty with all the other Spanish
colonies, were granted under the governorship of Vertiz.
This was the second American-born Spanish subject who
had risen to the rank of Governor in these colonies.
Hernando Arias, a Cordobes, was the first. Vertiz was a
Mexican. They were both good Governors; in truth, the
best these countries ever had under Spanish domination. As
Americans, sons of the soil, they knew the wants and aspira-
tions of the people better than Spanish-born rulers could,
and they sought to serve those wants and respect those
aspirations from motives of natural patriotism as much as
from feelings of justice and wise statesmanship. Their gov-
ernment was something like native government — a kind of
home rule.

Spanish colonization down to the time of Vertiz may
be said to have followed the lines of least resistance in these
provinces. In Paraguay, where the Indians were less an-
tagonistic to the encroachments of the Europeans, and where
they were more easily converted to the new order of things,
cities were built, missions established and large areas of the
country occupied, while far richer lands twelve hundred

INTRODUCTION xxvii

miles nearer to the immigrant and colonizer, at the mouth
of the great river, in Uruguay and Argentina were left
for two hundred years almost untouched. Lujan, a dozen
leagues from Buenos Aires, a day's walk, was the western
outpost of civilization, while Chascomus in the South and
Carmen de Areco, Salto and Pergamino in the North were
border positions where the military were not always able
to hold their own, at the beginning of the last century,
and when Buenos Aires was already more than £50 years
old. The Indians in these parts were bold warriors and
only yielded to superior force and by slow degrees.

Through all this time none but a Spaniard was free to
enter the country. The English Government, as one of
the results of a long war in Europe, forced Spain to con-
cede her the sole right of importing slaves into Buenos
Aires, and an arrangement was come to whereby certain
English officials necessary for the transaction of the slave
business were allowed to live in the colony. In time, by
marriage, a few families with English names were estab-
lished in the city. These, however, were not the only fami-
lies of non-Iberian blood in Buenos Aires in those days.
Any free, native or naturalized subject of the Spanish
monarch could settle here, and so, at least two of the
leading heroes of the Reconquest and the Defense of
Buenos Aires, as well as of the Revolution of May, were
descended from such subjects, Pueyrredon and Belgrano.
The father and the mother of the former being, respectively,
French and Irish, while the father of the latter was an
Italian born. But these are exceptions, and it is quite
safe to say that at the time of the Revolution, outside the
port of Buenos Aires, and excluding some prisoners of
war and their children, scattered over Mendoza and Cordoba,
the people of La Plata Province were wholly of Spanish,
Spanish-Indian, negro and pure Indian blood.

The history of Buenos Aires from its founding down
to the days of the Revolution is very largely the history of
what is now Argentina. Although the cities of Tucuman,

xxviii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Cordoba and Santa Fe are older in years, and have their
days of "pride and sorrow" to look back to, their story
is rather of local interest, and the historic events in their
lives, though important in themselves are, owing to their
remote interior positions, wholly of the family affair order.
In Buenos Aires it was different. The struggle against the
invader and the pirate was fairly continuous from its first
days till the reign of Rosas. The city was but two years
old when the Englislmian, Fontain, in the name of Eliza-
beth, seized the island of Martin Garcia, the Gibraltar of
the Parana, twenty miles away. The people of Garay's
new foundation, however, made short work of his preten-
sions, and he never sought to reassert them. Five years
later another English pirate, Thomas Cavendish, attempted
the capture of the young city. Garay was no longer there;
his star had set some three years previously in a midnight
attack on his camp by Indians in Sante Fe; but the sturdy
citizens met and repelled the freebooter with such spirit
and determination that nearly two hundred years went by
before another Englishman sought to make his country
dominant in the Parana region. Forty years of peaceful
development gave wealth and business advantages enough to
the rising port to tempt Dutch greed. Those were the days
of Van Tromp's sweeping brush of the seas, yet powerful
as were the Lowlands arms at that period, one attempt on
Buenos Aires was all that Holland ever made; that one
lesson the Portenos taught her in 1628 sufficed to convince
her that La Plata was not to be hers.

The great Louis, who reigned over France for over
seventy years with such glory and power, and who boasted
that he was the state, sent his Captain Timothy Osmat to
add Buenos Aires to France's spreading dominions just
thirty years after the Dutch defeat. Osmat's failure was
the most complete so far, for when the remnant of his
attacking comrades retired to their ships it was without
their leader, and all he won for his king in Buenos Aires
was a soldier's grave.

INTRODUCTION xxix

The nest to break the monotony of peace in the port
of the "good airs" was a Dane, or as the old Gaehc writers
used to call his ancestors, a "Lochlannah" (a man powerful
at sea). As this was forty-one years after the Frenchman's
essay it is likely that few of the actors in that glorious
day's deed were on the ramparts when the Dane appeared,
but men as brave and free took their places and the de-
scendants of the daring Vikings fared no better than the
sailors of the magnificent Louis.

The French landing which occurred the year before the
Danish attack was probably only a piratical effort to sack
the city, which by this time had the name of being very
wealthy. Pointis got away with his life but that was just all
the advantage he could claim over his countryman Osmat.

And now a period of sixty-three years elapsed before
the Portefios were again called upon to meet an invading
foe. The city was not this time attacked; but twenty
miles away, on the eastern bank of the great river there
was a settlement which from its very beginning had been
an object of contention between the Spanish and Portu-
guese powers. At the time I am dealing with, however, it
was Spanish territory. An English naval expedition sailed
up to it one day in the latter part of 1762 and demanded
its surrender. The commanding officer of the English
forces was one MacNamara. Colonia, the town summoned
to surrender, replied by calling all its citizens to arms and
by appealing to the Government of Buenos Aires for im-
mediate help in its resistance of the enemy. Bombardment
and assault followed for some weeks till one day the ships
and men from Buenos Aires hove in sight. MacNamara's
flagship went smash under the Spanish fire, and in an effort
to swim ashore he himself was lost. Twenty-five hundred
prisoners and an enormous booty fell to the victors. Lopez
quotes a writer who says : "Twenty-five hundred prisoners,
a great number of cannons and a booty valued at four .
million pounds sterling were the fruits of the fortunate; !
victory of November 3, 1762." Funes gives the date of the

XXX STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

victory as January 6, 1763. The prisoners were sent to
Mendoza and Cordoba and may be considered the first non-
Spanish settlers in the interior. The last-named author
mentions that these prisoners were very useful because of
their knowledge of various handicrafts. As a boy Funes
must have personally known some of the captives in Cordoba ;
what a pity he has not told us something as to their per-
sonal appearances, manners and customs. There must have
been many Irishmen amongst them, for although a treaty
made soon after provided for their safe return, many of
them refused to avail of this privilege, and I incline to the
belief that these were mostly Irish who found captivity
under the Spaniards greatly preferable to the liberty Irish
Catholics then enjoyed under the English system.

Within ten years of the "fortunate victory" at Colonia
the Portenos inflicted another overwhelming defeat on the
forces of the same invader at the Malvina Islands and
secured numerous prisoners which like those taken at Colonia
were sent to the interior. A treaty, however, between Spain
and England, made in 1775, the one above mentioned, de-
prived the Buenos Aires Government of the fruits of its
victories, to a very large extent.

Someone has said, with more terseness than truth, that
the Bourbons could never learn anything and never forget
anything. Charles III of Spain, although scarcely the
brightest of that regal tribe, learned at least one lesson.
That one of world-wide import which commenced with what
was wittily called, "the Boston Tea Party," and which cost
England the best part of her North American colonies.
Charles of Spain was an apter student than George of
England and was not slow in putting in practice the knowl-
edge he had acquired. In 1778 the Plate provinces were
granted what amounted, practically, to free trade,^ and all
who treat of that period in Argentine history bear witness
to the progress and social betterment which attended the
measure. In this year Buenos Aires saw its first Viceroy,
* Hist. Argentina — Dominguez.

INTRODUCTION xxxi

and the largest military expedition that had as yet sailed
into the River Plate. A new era was opened for this part
of Spanish America. Surveys were commenced, boundaries
defined, with garrisons set along them sufficiently strong to
maintain them, for the time being, at least. ,The military
system was wholly overhauled and organized; hospitals and
colleges were regulated and equipped according to the new-
est and most approved methods ; a census of the population
made, and generally everything that good government could
effect in a brief period was proceeding encouragingly.
Ceballos was the new Viceroy, but Vertiz remained as Gov-
ernor and military chief, and to him is most largely due
the success with which the liberal and intelligent spirit of
the Spanish Government of the day was attended. Ceballos
returned to Spain after a couple of years and his place
was filled by Vertiz to the honor of Spain and the great
benefit of the Plate provinces. Succeeding historical events
are so much a part of the work I have in hand in recording
the story of the Irish in Argentina that I may close this
part of my introductory sketch here.

Argentina is in area very nearly as large as Austria-
Hungary, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain
and Ireland all put together. Its territory extends from
the twenty-fifth degree of south latitude to that of the
fifty-fifth, or a distance of about two thousand miles. Its
western limit is set along the principal peaks of the track-
less Andes; its southern extremity is found where the last
of the frozen islands of Tierra del Fuego is lashed by the
South Polar seas; the Atlantic, Uruguay and Brazil make
the line of its eastern border, while its northern boundaries
are traced through the tropical forests and plains where
Paraguay and Bolivia are its neighbors. It has, practically,
all degrees of climate in which man can make his dwelling
with anything like comfort. No nation has scenery more
varied, noble and beautiful. In the west the bold Acon-
cagua, lord of the Andean heights, is hers, while one of
the marks of her northeastern limit is the mighty Iguasu,

xxxii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

rivaling, if not outranking Niagara itself. There are
forests in the Gran Chaco and in Patagonia, as yet almost
unexplored, larger in area than Ireland. These forests
aiford timber from the hardest and heaviest to the softest
and lightest, for almost every known need. In the northern
provinces as well as in the Patagonian territories there are
mountain regions with valleys, passes, dells, cascades, water
courses, lakes and plateaus as wild and beautiful as any
in Europe or North America; while all the world beside
has nothing to compare with the luxuriant, boundless,
solemn but fascinating Pampa.

Her natural wealth would take a volume much larger
than this to even sketch in useful outline. For me it must
suffice to mention those of her products at present best
known and most in development. Beef, mutton, pork,
wheat, maize, oats, barley, rye, flax, hay, all the root crops
and vegetables of Europe; tea (yerba mate), coffee,
tobacco, wine; nearly all the fruits grown in Europe, and
many unknown there, are raised with great success. The
full mineral wealth of the nation is scarcely yet known to
even scientists in that domain of knowledge. Coal, iron,
petroleum, copper, tin, lead and the precious metals are
said to be plentiful, but as yet only very little has been
done towards developing them.

The climate is good. Most foreign writers have spoken
praisingly of it. Parish, who was English Consul to Buenos
Aires in 1824, says: "In the Census of 1778, 33 cases
are quoted of individuals then living in the city aged from
ninety to a hundred; and seventeen from one hundred to
one hundred and twelve. In the tables of mortality for
1823 and 1824, fifty-eight persons are stated to have died
between the ages of ninety and a hundred; six between one
hundred and one hundred and ten; three between one hun-
dred and twelve and one hundred and sixteen; one of one
hundred and twenty-eight and one of one hundred and
thirty." The two last were females. The population of the
city was then, according to Parish, about eighty thou-

INTRODUCTION xxxiii

sand. Mulhall and other writers note the many very old
people to be met with throughout the country. Captain
Page, U. S. Navy, writing in the Fifties, has this to say
of the Province of Santiago del Estero. "The salubrity
of the climate is unequaled. Fevers of a malignant type
are unknown. In the whole state there is neither physician
nor apothecary." That state, or province, had then fifty
thousand inhabitants. The climate is undoubtedly, one
thing with another, as good and agreeable as that of any
country of similar area in the world, but the foregoing
quotations are not to be taken as even suggesting that
everybody in Argentina lives to be old, and that doctors
and druggists are entirely needless.

The camp, "El Campo," as the country, as distinct from
the town, is usually called by all, suffers occasionally from
an over abundance of rain, but more frequently from pro-
longed droughts. The Argentine country, like most, if not
all, other countries experiences, from time to time, what
is known as a rainy year, or a dry year. Either one when
phenomenally extreme in its way is accompanied by very
considerable loss to the stock-raising and agricultural por-
tion of the community. Up to a generation ago when
tillage was comparatively little followed the rainy seasons
were less harmful than the long droughts, for although
animals, especially sheep, suffered from cold and damp, and
not a little from the rankness of the grass, the loss in deaths
from these causes was never very considerable; whilst long
droughts, with the consequent failures of all pasture foods,
oftentimes reduced people of liberal means to a state of
total bankruptcy. Cases in abundance could be cited of
owners of from two thousand to ten thousand sheep, who
when one of these very prolonged and widely-extended
droughts had run its disheartening course, found them-
selves possessed of but a few hundred wretched and sickly
animals. Frequently in such famine periods the death rate
would be so great that the owner could not find hands
enough to save even the skins. These visitations are, for-

xxxiv STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

tunately, not of frequent occurrence, perhaps three or
four in a generation would be about a fair average of their
count. How they affect life in the camp will be seen as we
proceed through the following pages, so I shall not dwell
further on them at present.

Public education has been well attended to since the very
beginning of the Republic, and even before the fall of the
Spanish regime considerable progress had been made in that
direction. When we consider the state of primary educa-
tion in even the most advanced countries in those times,
conditions in Buenos Aires were nothing to be ashamed of.
As far back as 1773 there were ten hundred and twelve
children in the public schools, besides a much larger number
in private establishments. At this time in Ireland, under
English rule, there were no public schools for the people,
and it was a crime, punishable by law, to teach or be
taught in the private schools, such as they were. It is to
this barbarous condition Davis alludes in his "Penal Days"
when he speaks of the people being "forbid to read."
Another of the Irish poets of the last century has a verse
more explicit of the educational opportunities then afforded
to our ancestors, which runs:

Where crouching 'neath the sheltering hedge

Or stretched on mountain fern
The teacher and his pupils met.

Feloniously, to learn.

In 1777 the University of San Carlos was opened. From
the banishment of the Jesuits, ten years previously, until
this date, higher education in the chief city was almost
non-existent. The progress of education, primary and
higher, was fairly regular, however, from this date onward.
The Revolutionary chiefs, especially General Belgrano and
Moreno, were enthusiastic believers and workers in the cause
of popular education. In 1825, as stated by Parish, there
were in the free schools in Buenos Aires and the adjacent
districts, 3384 boys and 1808 girls. At this time there

INTRODUCTION xxxv

was no public school system in Ireland, governed by
England.

Although there was a printing press in Buenos Aires
for many years it was not till 1801 that a regular news-
paper was published. "El Telegraf o Mercantil" was started
that year, but had a very short life. Many others sprung
up at intervals, with, however, scarcely any better success
until 1823 when Hallet, An American, started "La Gaceta
Mercantil," a daily paper which continued up to the fall
of Rosas, 1852. From 1820 there is no more want of
newspapers, but of the number which came, and went their
way, excepting Hallet's paper the most important were
the "Argos" and the "Lucero."

What the people did for a living, as the Americans
express it, that is, what the chief business of the country
was before the Revolution, will be instructive, and as far
as I have been able to find out I hereinafter set it down:

For a dozen years or so after Garay's founding of the
city there was no commercial intercourse directly with the
colony. Its wants were not very many, and whether they
were or not it had little to give in exchange for such
articles as it might need. The earliest trade we hear of,
although there must have been some trafBc going on for
some time before, is recorded in 1595, when one Gomez
Reynal got permission from the Spanish Government to
bring to Buenos Aires six hundred slaves. This is prac-
tically the date at which the commerce of Buenos Aires
commenced. Funes, however, tells that in the time of the
Governor, Torres de Vega, 1588, a shipment of sugar
and hides was sent to Spain, and adds that, these were the
first fruits which this province succeeded in exchanging for
the superfluous products of European industry. Export-
ing hides, furs and, probably, maize, and chandling ships
were the chief commercial pursuits for the first century or
so of the colony. The home industry consisted in raising
food stuffs ; maize, wheat, potatoes and vegetables in general*,

xxxvi STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

fencing in and extending their farms and minding their
live stock from the Indians who were on every side their
rather undesirable neighbors. In time it began to appear
that it was easier and cheaper to ship the products of the
mines and other industries from the northwestern provinces
by the Parana and Buenos Aires route than by the old one,
via Panama, and by the middle of the Eighteenth century
a ship sailed fortnightly from Cadiz to the River Plate,
and it is stated that the average yearly trade of Buenos
Aires at that time amounted to more than a million and a
half dollars, gold. A large portion of the goods making
up this total came overland from Chili and Peru. The
transshipping of this freight in Buenos Aires gave consider-
able employment, but the labor was mostly black, slave and
semi-slave labor.

Mariano Moreno, the ablest South American of his time
on matters of political economy, says that in 1806 three
hundred ships were trading with Buenos Aires, that they
annually carried away more than a million hides, a million
pounds of tobacco, forty thousand tierces of Paraguayan
tea and large quantities of timber, as well as meat, flour,
wool, furs and other products. He estimates the overland
trade at this time with Peru at eighteen million dollars,
and added that Buenos Aires was the only city in America
(South America?) that could be called commercial.

A little of what writers, native and foreign, had to
say about Buenos Aires and its people at this period, will,
I am sure, prove of enough interest to excuse me for
lengthening these pages with a few quotations. The houses
of the city would seem to have been not overstocked with
articles of luxury, nor anything too comfortable. Parish
(1824) says: "The floors were of brick or tiles, the
rafters of the roof seldom hid by ceiling, and the walls as
cold as whitewash could make them; the furniture generally
of the most tawdry North American manufacture, and a
few highly colored French prints serving to mark the extent

INTRODUCTION xxxvii

of the taste for fine arts in South America."^ Several
foreigners who visited or resided in Buenos Aires about
this time complain that there was no fire in the houses and
that in the cold weather they were most uncomfortable.
Some of the streets were paved in the old fashion of rubble-
stone pavement, and it is amusing to read that a certain
Viceroy, towards the close of the Eighteenth century, ex-
cused himself for not having continued the pavement by
explaining that paved streets were injurious to the houses
as the jolting of the heavy carts shook them so much that
they were in danger of falling. About these houses
Parish said, "I was struck with the cheerful aspect of the
houses." The sidewalks were very narrow, as may be seen
in some of the old streets still, arid to make them more
inconvenient, as pedestrian thoroughfares, the houses had,
generally, low thrust-out balconies which, when their occu-
pants, as was customary then, leaned over them in restful
mood, completely obstructed passenger traffic or turned it
out on the street. The principal streets were lighted with
oil lamps. The Portenos were very fond of flowers and
cultivated them in great abundance and variety. Many
writers allude to this pleasing characteristic of the Buenos
Aires of the Revolutionary time. The city then lay along
the river front between Retiro and Barracas and extended
westward only as far as what is now Irigoyen and Pellegrini
streets, these latter being really the suburbs.

As to the criollo Portenos, there were no Argentinos
then, Lopez says: "The great multitude, the part that
formed the people properly Argentine, was the criollos.
Most of them had white skin and European blood, but the
general form of the body and physiognomy was entirely
different (from the European born residents); they had
eyes lively and astute, looks full of alertness and penetra-
tion, critical and reserved at the same time, reckless inde-

* Parish, in this matter, must not be taken as quite correct, save in a general
way. Pictures and descriptions of the interior of some of the patrician houses,
and numerous articles of furniture, etc., of those days tell a very different tale.

xxxviii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

pendence and an absolute want of servility of manner. . - .
The limbs of the criollo were in general fine, they w^nted
in rugged development, but were very elastic and tempered
as spring-steel, while those of the European tended to
natural heaviness. The criollo had a delicate and flexible
waist, unencumbered body, firmly molded shoulders, neck
upright, well-cut features, fine mouth, shapely nose, head
well rounded and usually small with light springy step."
These were the common people, but he continues: "The
well-to-do had much of their ways and they had much of
the ways of the well-to-do."

"The difference of resources did not constitute a differ-
ence of class because there was no class which depended
on some other for its food and dwelling. This was always
a feature of Argentine life from Buenos Aires on to
Mcndoza and Salta. The common criollo family was always
the proprietor of some land in the outskirts, an acre, at
least, planted with peach trees which gave him fuel and
whereon he raised plenty of poultry freely. So that if in
the Argentine colony democratic habits of life prevailed,
they were not those of the democracies of the plebeian, needy
and half savage which huddled in the large cities, live from
hand to mouth; but a proprietary democracy with hearth
and home, with roof and board assured from father to
son, and with no servile tasks, which was a relative happi-
ness, but unfortunately impossible to continue when a people
reaches the proper age of virility."

Parish says he was "struck with the independent air
of the people." And Mr. Love wrote in 1825: "It is
rarely we see in Buenos Aires a person marked with small
pox, vaccination being generally practiced; and very few
deformed people. Indeed the generality of them may be
called handsome. The young men are well grown, possess
good figures, and their manners render them truly agree-
able." Mitre, in his "Life of Belgrano," speaking on this
subject says: "A profound observer who studied the coun-
try in those times said of the criollos: 'They have such an

INTRODUCTION xxxix

idea of their equality, that I believe that, even when the
king might confer the titles of nobles on any particular
ones, nobody would consider them as such. The Viceroy,
himself, could not procure a Spanish (pure blood criollo)
coachman or lackey.' " There was no shoneenism there!

Samuel Haigh who visited the country in 1817 writes
in his "Sketches": "The men of Buenos Aires are brave,
liberal and disinterested, but are somewhat proud and ar-
rogant; the latter qualities if not always excusable are at
least easily accounted for, no republic in South America
having contributed more to the destruction of Spanish
dominion in the new world than their own. They have
acquired the epithet of pintor, or boaster, amongst their
neighbors (the Chilians), and they are rather disliked by
them, but they are in general superior in talent and in-
formation to the inhabitants of any of the other republics,
which may account for this animosity."

I may finish up these extracts by a little story Mitre
tells in his "Life of San Martin." During the war of in-
dependence there was given a banquet in Columbia at which
the hero of northern South America was the guest of honor.
He, Bolivar, it appears was a very vain imperious man.
The Minister of the Buenos Aires Government was present
at the feast and happened to be seated opposite the great
personage. The Argentine looked at him with such an in-
terest as he might feel in looking at a fine picture or statue.
Bolivar was piqued by the unawed demeanor of the Minister
and asked, "Who are you?" "I'm the Minister of the
Buenos Aires Government," replied the Argentine, care-
lessly. "I thought so," Bolivar rejoined, "by your proud
air." The Argentine nonchalantly returned: "The proper
air for a free man."

The descendants of the old Spanish colonists, the men
who founded the Republic, the criollos of whom the previous
paragraphs treat are largely outnumbered by the mass of
foreigners and their children who have spread over the
country since. But wherever you meet them you find the

xl STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

old characteristics have stuck to them. They have still the
good looks, good form, politeness, wit, intelligence and in-
dependence of manner of their ancestors. I have not known
an Argentine of this stock, rich or poor, that was dull,
mawkish, mean-spirited or slovenly. [Their manners and
customs have greatly influenced the manners and ways of
the children and descendants of foreign settlers, and mostly
for the better. ,The old criollo pride and care for the neat-
ness of his person, according to his notions, shov/ them-
selves in almost all natives of the country. I have often
been amused for the care with which young men, employed
in very ordinary labor work, would redress, comb their
hair and brush their clothes, oftentimes poor enough clothes,
too, when their day's work was over, even though they had
no visits to make nor callers to receive. The foregoing,
however, need not be taken as an attempt on my part to
establish that Buenos Aires is the center of Paradise and
all its people the children of perfection. The most it intends
is to give a few opinions and experiences which may help
anyone so inclined to form a fair idea of a great city and
a great people at the most interesting period of their
history.

I have not found any criticisms of the Argentine woman
worth reproducing. Her sphere in the olden time seems to
have been mostly in the home and attending to her chari-
table and religious duties. She took her stand, however,
to good effect on the roof-tops of the city with her patriotic
brothers, husbands and sons in the glorious Reconquest and
Defense; and the public charities of Buenos Aires, than
which there are none in the world more meritorious, have
been in her hands for a hundred years. She is second to
none in virtue and faithfulness, and in this stands im-
measurably higher than her brother who is not usually a
husband whose faithfulness can with justice be boasted of.

What to a stranger from Northern Europe or the
United States seems outrageous rudeness on the part of
the Argentinos is their habit of staring at young women

INTRODUCTION xU

whom tliey meet on the streets. Sometimes to the extent
of leaning into their faces or turning about and gazing after
them. The girls do not seem to take this impertinence,
not to use any harsher word, badly, and all ages and con-
ditions of men seem to be alike in indulging the ugly and
idiotic practice.

The leaders in the Revolutionary days would appear
to have been almost all strictly religious men, at least in
so far as chuch-going would indicate, and yet comparatively
few men go to church nowadays. Boys attend church
until they make their first communion, then almost sud-
denly avoid the place as though it were, not alone of no
purpose to go, but positively some serious danger to their
well-being. Women of all ages attend their religious duties
fairly well.

The Constitution of the Republic is pretty much on the
order of that of the United States, the presidential term,
however, being for six years, and the chief city of the nation
being the Federal Capital. The population of the whole
country at the time of its independence was about three-
quarters of a million, it has increased some twelvefold since
then.

Having now sufficiently touched on the discovery, settle-
ment, geography, history and natural resources of the
region that has become the Republic of Argentina, to give
the reader a general idea of the country and its people,
the pages which foUow will be devoted to telling about the
coming into tliis land of the Irish, how in serving them-
selves they have served their adopted country, and as well
as the memory of worthy deeds of war and peace have left
a strain in the complex Argentine nationality that has given
much of good health and energy to the whole body. The
historic friendship which existed between the Spanish and
Irish peoples was noticeable in many ways in all the Span-
ish colonies of America, and when these young peoples
entered on a national career for themselves that old spirit
of the motherland did not change, and in the first genera-

xlii STORY OF THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

tions of this Republic no immigrants were so welcome to
its shores as those who came from Ireland. The govern-
ment, and leading public men, almost without exception,
have always treated our people with great consideration
and sympathy, and it can be said with all truth, and I say
it with all pride, no foreigners in the land have ever given
the government less trouble or have served it more loyally
than the Irish, and, on the whole, there are no more patriotic
Argentines in all this proud nation to-day than are their
children and descendants.

THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

CHAPTER I

Field and His Adventures — Men op Irish Names — Prisoners from

COLONIA AND THE MaLVINAS — Dr. MiCHAEL O'GoRMAN — FiRST-CoMERS

— The English Invasions — Irish Commerce — Shooting of MacKenna.

THE first Irishman who set foot on the shores of what
is now Argentina did not come to "seek his for-
tune," nor did he come in the search of adventure
or scientific knowledge as was the case with many in the
early days. His purpose was greatly more noble than any
of these, for he came as the angels of heaven came long
before to Bethlehem to announce glad tidings of great joy
to multitudes of mankind whose lives were sad and without
hope, and whose spiritual world was all darkness and fear.
If Solis, Cabot and Mendoza, unlike Columbus in his first
voyage of discovery, had no Irishmen in their hardy crews,
then Thomas Fehily, or Field, of Limerick, was the first
Irishman to tread on Argentine soil. In any case the
records have no Irish name before this one of the Jesuit
missionary. It may here be worth while remarking that
the first European to reach America was an Irishman, Saint
Brendan, who probably, like Field, was on missionary labor
bent.

Field was one of five members of the Society of Jesus
sent from Brazil, where the Jesuits then had a mission, to
labor in the conversion of the tribes of the La Plata
provinces. The history of the voyage and land journeyings

1

2 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of these five men has as much adventure and wonder in it
as may be found in most novels and romances.

In 1586, as stated by Dean Funes and Lozano, the
latter himself a Jesuit, the Order came into the La Plata
provinces from Peru. [They were three priests, and estab-
lished themselves in Tucuman, They were so effective in
their good work that other members of the Order were
sought by the Bishop of ITucuman, and in response to the
prelate's appeal five priests were sent from Brazil in the
following year, 1587. [They were, as stated by Del Techo,
also a Jesuit: Juan Saloni, Valenciano; Tomas Fields,
Irlandes; Manuel Ortega, and Esteban Grao, Portugeses,
and Leonardo Arminio, Italiano. I like to be precise in
the nationality of these priests as some writers I have
consulted give Father Field as a Scotchman. How this
error originated I can only suppose, and this is my con-
jecture: Lozano, who wrote about the year 1740, speaks
of Fields, as will be seen later on, as a British subject;
at a later period Charlevoix calls him a Scot, perhaps fol-
lowing the Continental name under which the Irish were
known, especially in the monasteries. Mulhall in his book,
"The English in South America," follows Charlevoix, but
that is not to be wondered at as he wrote his book, seem-
ingly, to suit the English and the pro-English of Buenos
Aires. I will have occasion to substantiate this statement
as I proceed with this work. Others than Mulhall, how-
ever, who appear to have depended on Charlevoix for their
information in this case, state that Field was a Scotchman,
but Del Techo's version leaves no doubt as to the mission-
ary's nationality.

That the name Fehily or Field does not appear in the
native form of spelling is accounted for by the fact that
all the non-Spanish Jesuits in the Spanish Missions had
to Spanishize their names; thus we find Lozano writing
the name Fielde whilst others write it Fild. Del Techo, a
Frenchman, writing in Paris, and from whom Lozano quotes
frequently, spells it Fields,

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 3

The voyage of the five missionaries from Brazil to
Buenos Aires was anything but prosperous, they having
fallen into the hands of the pitiless English pirate. Caven-
dish, who seems to have treated them with great cruelty,
as described by Lozano and other writers. I will give as
an example of MulhalPs manner of writing history an
extract from his work already mentioned. The "same
year," he says at page 77, "that Cavendish made his first
descent on Patagonia saw an expedition of a very different
character, consisting of the first Jesuits sent to convert
Paraguay, namely Father Thomas Field, a Scotchman, and
Father Manual Ortega, a Portugese: their vessel fell into
the hands of English privateers off the Brazilian coast, but
the sea-rovers respected their captives, and after sundry
adventures the latter landed at Buenos Aires." So far
Mulhall; this is Lozano's account of the way the "sea-
rovers respected them"; his book was published in 1745.
Notice that the author always speaks of the English as
pirates. The English ships were two in number and
mounted cannon; the Portugese ship which bore the
Jesuits was a merchant vessel. It was in the mouth of the
River Plate and about the end of the year 1586 the en-
counter took place. After telling of being hailed and
boarded, Lozano, V. 1, p. 24, goes on:

** As soon as the EngHsh took possession of the boat, although they
did not ensanguine their swords in the seamen, nor in the other pas-
sengers, pardoning them liberally their lives, and treating them with
humanity, they showed themselves out-of-the-way cruel against the
defenceless Jesuits, and resolved to sacrifice them as victims to their
inhuman fury, as much as on account of the state they professed as for
the end that animated their designs, the propagation of the Catholic
faith amongst the Gentiles and converting them to the fold of the
Roman Church. Because the knife or the rope would give a more toler-
able death than their natural hatred desired they determined to make
it more long-drawn-out and painful, exposing them to the rigours of
hunger, for which end they threw them on the island of Lobos, which
is totally desert, and without anything to sustain life, after having

4 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

loaded them with injuries and insults, which were the only provisions
with which they supplied them in their helplessness. But soon
reflecting that some happy chance might enable them to evade the ex-
treme risk of perishing, they determined at once to free themselves
from this fear, returning them to the ship to hang them from a yard-
arm. Desirous, before executing to find somethmg with which to
feed and even to satiate their greed they began to ransack whatever
luggage the missionaries had, and finding many Agnus Deis, which,
by the way, the Pope had blest, they let loose their sacrilegious tongues
in horrid blasphemies against the supreme head of the Church, and
burlesqued with unspeakable contempt the devotion of the Catholics.
Nor did their heretic impiety stop here, but scattering them over
the ship's deck commenced, one more daring than the rest of the
ruffians, to outrage them with his vile feet. The spirited Ortega
could no longer bear the outrage, but at such a sight roused in his
zeal for the glory of God and for the reverence which is due to sacred
things, he set to oppose by act and word the outrage, reprehending
the impiety of the enemies of the faith, and without thinking of his
own risk, caught the sacrilegious one by the foot, saying that he would
not permit before his eyes such an irreligious insult, and he pushed him
away from the holy relics. The pirate struggled with Father Ortega
and trying with fury to continue his evil extricated himself from his
hands; but as with the heat of the wine that had risen to his head,
for he had drank overmuch, he could not keep on his feet but fell on
the deck, and from a slight wound on the head was bleeding some.

** Here was the ire and madness of the perverse heretics who
attacked wildly with impetuous anger. They gave him terrible blows
and some gave him sword cuts, after which taking him in their arms
they threw him into the water alive that it might be to him a sepulchre.
After him they were about to throw the venerable Father Thomas
Fild^, all the vile crowd shouting that he was unworthy of life being a
subject of the British Queen, and despising the best of her laws, he
not alone preferred the Catholic religion, by them forbidden, but had
gone so far as to make himself a master of its dogmas amongst the
Jesuits, her capital enemies. But they suspended so violent an
execution for to couple him in death with Father Ortega, whom, it
appearing to them too kindly the death he was about to suffer in the
waves, rescued him resolving to give to him as to the other four some
kind of a death more cruel, by the steel files. It was this inconsistency
in their resolutions that saved the prisoners whom Providence had
reserved for greater works to his glory in all our province and in others;

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 5

for cooling with time the ardor of their furious hate they could advert
to the chastisment which Heaven executed towards the impious heretic
who had the hardihood to outrage with his feet the sacred relics, for
at last, although as a wise moralist said, the Divine justice moves
with slow steps to avenge, the delay is usually recompensed in the
gravity of the punishment. That soulless heretic experienced in him-
self the truth of this sentence, for God having borne so long his herecies,
his homocides, his robberies and other similar evildoings he had at
length his merits in an awful chastisment. For in the same foot
with which he trampled down the Agnus Deis there burst out a sore
which widening insensibly and spreading its poison little by little
over all his body it caused him such excruciating pains that not-
withstanding the amputation of the foot as a remedy against the evil
it killed him in inside of twenty-four hours, and in the midst of torments
and cries his unhappy soul was precipitated to the abysms.**

I have followed as closely as possible the Spanish
original, written some 175 years ago, which will account for
any seeming peculiarities of composition or punctuation.
And whatever may be thought of the old clergymen's con-
clusions, there will, I believe, be no second opinion as to
the manner in which the "sea-rovers respected their cap-
tives." Field and his companions had many adventures
and delays in their land journey. Buenos Aires City was
then but a collection of a few dozen houses built around
the fortress and inside a deep fosse. It was in its seventh
year of existence at the time. The journey inland was
started by the Parana, where the missionaries had some
new troubles and difficulties. They met accidently the
Bishop of Paraguay, escaping from the fury of his flock,
somewhere in the lower Parana. At first the fathers went
to Cordoba and after a short while there separated. Field
and Ortega, the latter being Superior, going to Paraguay.
This Irish priest seems to have been a man of great piety
and humility, of most exemplary habits, extraordinary
perseverance, and one who had great success in his labors.
It is told of him that even in the hottest seasons, through
all his day and night toils, in that land where the most

6 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

delicious fruits are in abundance, he constantly denied him-
self the pleasure of their use. He lived to be very old, and
in his labors amongst the tribes of La Guira, Upper Para-
guay, was so far separated from his brother Jesuits that
oftentimes his existence was forgotten for long periods. He
died in 1625 and must have been considerably over eighty
years of age. Del Techo in his history of the Jesuits re-
ports his death as follows:

" In Asuncion died Father Thomas Fields, one of the first Jesuits
who went to Paraguay. He was born in Limerick, a city of Ireland,
his father was a Catholic doctor. Being a youth, to avoid the dangers
of heresy and to devote himself to the studies, he went to Belgium
and soon after to Rome where he was admitted to the Society by
Father Everard Mercurian. Before his novitiate was finished he was
sent to Brazil. From Rome he went on foot to Lisbon begging his
way. In Brazil he accompanied Father 3os6 Auchieta and witnessed
the miracles of this latter. When on the voyage to Tucuman he was
made prisoner by the English corsairs in the mouth of the Rio de la
Plata, and suffered the insults which in their place we narrated. I
will add that the pirates, amongst whom were some Irish, treated him
worse than the other Jesuits, for they said that with his pro-religious-
ness and his zeal to propagate Catholicism, he was a dishonor to his
nation, and they went near killing him. He was saved by the mercy
of the Lord and was in Tucuman and Paraguay where he baptized
many thousands of Gentiles, and effected what we already know"
— that is, the many great works of the mission as told in earlier chapters
of the work.

The story of the conversion of the Paraguayan Indians
by the Jesuits is an exceedinglv interesting one. These
Indians had a tradition that a holy man once preached
Christianity to their remote ancestors, and the old Jesuit
writers would seem to have believed that this apostle was
Saint Thomas. The Mexican Indians had a similar tradi-
tion when the Spaniards first went amongst them, and many
believe that this white man who told them (the Mexicans)
about the truths of Christianity, and who, they said, went
eastward, promising to return again, was Saint Brendan

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 7

the Voyager, or some of his fellow-discoverers of the New
World. It is strange if he could have reached Paraguay,
and stranger still if Saint Thomas could have got there.
What a pleasant and useful subject it would be for some-
one, who has time and means for such things, to inquire
into! The Indians say that this good man past from La
Guira westward, and there is a road through Bolivia which
they call after him. In Asuncion there is a rock on which
is what appears to be the print of man's feet and here is
where they say "Pay Zume" stood while preaching to the
people. In Bolivia and Peru there were more or less similar
traditions. The Jesuits found a peculiar reverence amongst
the Indians for the Cross, and Prescott tells that the
Spaniards who went to Mexico with Cortes often met with
evidences of the same feelings amongst the aborigines of
that country.

It is mentioned in the "Memorias de Vertiz" that Torres
Vera was Adelantado, a sort of temporary Viceroy, in 1588,
and that in dividing the Indians and their lands in Cor-
rientes he gave lots to, amongst others, Rafael Farel and
Diego (James) Gorden. No doubt both adventurers were
Spanish subjects, but quite likely of Irish birth or par-
entage, the names surely point to such an origin. If Irish
they run Field pretty closely for the honor of being the
first of our nation to establish themselves in the Plate
country. The Mulhalls, who were very fond of making a
kind of jokes about the Irish origin of many Argentine
names, had it that the common Argentine name, Varella,
was only a Spanishized form of Farrell; their humor in
this case may have been an exemplification, in a way, of
the truth of the saying that many a truth is told in jest.
It was easy at the time under notice for Irishmen to be-
come Spanish citizens or subjects. The Irish princes and
chieftains were in a deadly struggle with Spain's enemy,
England, and the closest possible alliance was aimed at and
hoped for in both countries, but especially in Ireland.
Alas, as much almost for Spain as for Ireland, that it

8 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

failed to come about! Had it been effected and siifficient
assistance given to Ireland to establish and maintain for a
few generations her independence her horrible martyrdom
for the last three hundred years would have been avoided,
the English dominions to-day would be, probably, no more
than the Dutch or Danish ones, and Spain would be one
of the first nations of the world! And now I jump from
the date of Field's death, in 1625, to the defeat of the
English under MacNamara at Colonia in 1763. During
the interval no doubt some Irish found their way to the
La Plata provinces of Spain, but they came as priests in
the Jesuit, Franciscan or Dominican Orders, or as soldiers
or other officials of the Spanish Government. Thus we
meet such names as Porcell, Ennis, Machony, Smith,
amongst the missionaries and Murphy, O'Hara, Corr,
O'Donel in military or other official capacities.

The Portugese established in the early days of La Plata
colonization a settlement on the right bank of the great
river at a point which they called Colonia du Sacramento.
The place is now known as Colonia, and is an important
city of the Republic of Uruguay. [The Spaniards claimed
all that territory by right of discovery. They in due time
expelled the Portugese from this new settlement and were
in turn expelled by the Portugese. It was in an expedi-
tion with the alleged purpose of restoring Colonia to the
Portugese that the MacNamara squadron entered the Plate
in the year 1762, month of December. The Spaniards of
Buenos Aires went to the assistance of their brothers across
the river and inflicted a crushing defeat on the English.
McNamara lost his life, as already mentioned, but the battle
only interests me here because amongst the prisoners taken
were many men of Irish names, who were sent to the in-
terior, chiefly to Mcndoza and Cordoba. The Mulhalls
mention many prominent Argentines of their time who were
descended from these prisoners, but their books have a
number of inaccuracies and I do not think they took very
much pains to find out to what extent descendants of these

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 9

men could be found in Cordoba and Mendoza when they
wrote.

After the battle of Egmont, Malvina Islands, a treaty
was entered into by which the prisoners taken there and at
Colonia were given up to England. It is certain, however,
that some of them preferred to remain in their new homes,
for Mitr<* in his "Life of San Martin," V. 1, p. iS9, gives
the names of several families in Mendoza in 1815, descended
from these prisoners. English prisoners taken in the in-
vasion of 1806 were also held there until the treaty made
with Whitelocke in the year following, and not unlikely
some of these captives, also, became settlers in the new
land where they were so kindly treated.

Mitre writing of San Martin's efforts as Governor of
Cuyo to raise an army for the invasion and liberation of
Chili and Peru, says : "He stimulated the neutral strangers
to enlist, and the English residents were the first to respond
to this call. They sought to form, at their own cost, a
free company of light troops (casadores) with the right
to name their own officers, declaring that, 'grateful for the
good hospitality and full of enthusiasm for the rights of
man, they could not see with indifference the risks that threat-
ened the country, and they were ready to take up arms
and shed their last drop of blood, if it were necessary, in
its defence.' " He goes on : "It is curious to record the
names of the English residents in Mendoza at that time,
who signed the representation, some of whom have left
descendants in the Argentine Republic and in Chili. Here
they are: Samuel Chonk, Robert Barron, Juan Mass,
Santiago de Lindsay, Juan Makechen, Jorge Crafourd,
John Heffermon, William McGregor, Daniel Ferguson, W.
Malahan, B. Tuckerman, Thomas Knight, Samuel Enocoser
(sic), Timote Linch, Hector McNeil, Thomas Martin, John
P. Miller, Thomas Bradshaw, William Holmes, John Flem-
ing, Edward Laford, James Mermon, Robert Smith, Jorge
Row, Samuel Puch, Samuel Wise, Jorge Gillespie, John
Trast, Juan Brown, John Brown (other), William Forbes,

10 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Juan Young, Thomas Appleby, Juan Hefferson, Thomas
Hoghes, Samuel Knowles, Juan Rodriguez, Pedro Ayers,
Guillermo Hely, Pedro Smith, Jorge Milhan, Juan
Humphrey, Juan Ameres, Jose Androsfh, Guillermo Carr,
Daniel MacEchan, Jorge Collins, Roberto Johnston, Jacob
Brownsen, Julian Malahan, Juan Bautista MacEachen,
Thomas Hoghes Benitez, Manuel M. Gockes, Santiago
Fernandez."

It will be seen that among these names which Mitre
calls English (ingleses), there are many Irish and Scotch.
It is clear that many of them are badly spelt. For in-
stance, Heffermon is surely, if spelt properly, Heffernan;
Malahan is probably Manahan. Hefferson is almost
exactly the way Jefferson would be pronounced in Spanish.
Hoghes must be Hughes; MacEchen and MacEachan are
likely to be brothers and probably MacGeoghegans. This
latter name, as we now spell it, is to a Spaniard almost
impossible of pronunciation. The Christian names such as
Bautista, Manuel, Jorge, etc., would suggest that some of
these "English" were born in Mcndoza, and so must have
been sons of men captured in Colonia or at the Malvinas,
fifty and forty years previous to the date at which they
figure in Mitre's book. The reference to the hospitality
with which they were treated, and the wish to have their
own officers, men whom they could understand, would be
evidence that they were not long in the country, and would
suggest that a majority of them arrived in the time of the
Beresford attack on Buenos Aires. Be all this as it may,
there is one thing quite clear, and that one thing is, that
from 1763 there were some dozens of Irish-born men in the
provinces of Mendoza and Cordoba. A few men who have
risen to prominence in the Republic are, it is said, trace-
able to these prisoners, but the bulk of their descendants
have so mingled with the native stock of the country that
even their names are scarcely idiscernible now. They can-
not, of course, be considered as of the Irish colony in the
sense that the Irish immigrants and their descendants are.

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 11

but no record of our people here could have any just claim
to a reasonable degree of completeness and ignore them alto-
gether.

Fifteen years after MacNamara's defeat off Colonia, and
eight years after the capture of the English forces in the
battle of Egmont, Malvina Islands, June 10, 1770, another
Irish name comes into great prominence in the records of
Buenos Aires. This remarkable man does not come as a
missionary, a pirate, a prisoner or an immigrant, but as
a man of rare learning and scientific skill, with a great and
important work to perform, and with the Spanish King's
full confidence that he will perform it well. This man was
Dr. Michael O'Gorman, chief physician of the famous ex-
pedition which brought Buenos Aires its first Viceroy,
General Ceballos.

Gutierrez in his Argentine History sa3''s: "Dr. Michael
O'Gorman is considered by some people as the founder of
the Medical School of Buenos Aires, and he was the first
Protomedicato the country had." Vertiz, who was Governor
of Buenos Aires at the time the expedition with the Viceroy
arrived, and who became the second Viceroy of La Plata,
writes of O'Gorman: "He was ordered to remain in La
Plata to regulate the hospitals and economize their costs."
On December 3, 1778, Don Jose Galves, one of the min-
isters of government wrote of the Protomedicato: "By
agreement of your honor and that of the Viceroy this sub-
ject has remained here for the present for the arrangement
of the hospitals and to correct the abuses notorious up to
now in the professors of medicine and surgery. His Majesty
approves that it may so be effected, and desires, for this
reason, you regulate and contribute any help of costs for
this work and while he remains charged with this com-
mission." A royal order of September 18, 1779, creates
him Protomedicato and Professor of Medicine in the new
Academy of Medicine. This establishment seems not to
have been opened until the following year. In those days
it took a long time to get from Spain to the Plate, and yre

12 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

can well imagine from the irregularity with which ships
sailed, the slowness of the rate of speed, and the time it
would take, even at the present day, to get buildings and
other preparations in order, that some months should pass
before the founding ceremony could take place; anyhow,
it was in 1780 the institution was first opened. At the open-
ing O'Gorman delivered a notable speech, in Latin — perhaps
he did not know Spanish sufficiently well to meet the re-
quirements of the occasion. From that on he became
prominent in the life of Buenos Aires, and we shall meet
him again as we go along. After some years he seems to
have separated from the actual military service and to have
become a sort of director of medical and sanitary affairs in
general. It will be worth noticing that just at the time
O'Gorman came, 1778, Vertiz had a census made of the
city and of the province, as far as Spanish colonization
extended, which census gave the following result, within the
city: 15,719 Spaniards, 544 Indians, 674 Mestizos (bred
from Spanish father and Indian mother), 3153 Mulattos
(bred from negro and white parents) and 4115 negroes,
mostly slaves. Thus the city had some 24,000 inhabitants.
The province, or country outside, under Spanish sway, was
comprised within a line which might be drawn from the
seashore across to Chascomus, by Monte, to Lujan, to San
Antonio de Areco, thence to within a few leagues of the
Parana, and northward, at this distance from the river, to
include San Nicolas. The Fortin, now Carmen de Areco,
Salto, Rojas and Pergamino were known, as also Melincue,
but only as military posts on the road to Cordoba, and
even as such were not always able to keep the wild men in
check. All this district was given in the census aforesaid
as having a population of 13,000; making a total for city
and country districts of some 37,000. It will be noticed
that there are no foreigners included, although there must
have been some in the city at the time as the English had
their slave market and slave dealers at Retiro at this time.
I suppose, however, they were not regarded as of the popu-

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 13

lation, which under the circumstance? was a correct view
to take of them, for they were there as an unwelcome gar-
rison, a mere agency of this English traffic, or as they and
their friends were probably calling it at the time: "Free
institution of civilization and evangelism." Apart from
such as these it is quite certain that other foreigners in
the city had become Spanish subjects before leaving the
Peninsula. There were French, Italian and Irish born
people in the city at the time, as for instance, the fathers
of Belgrano and Pueyrredon were Italian and French re-
spectively. The mother of the latter, Rita Dogan, being
the daughter of an Irishman.

About the year 1798 an English ship was wrecked on
the shores of Patagonia, amongst the crew were some Irish.
The half-civilized Indians into whose hands the unkindly
elements had thrown the survivors of the wreck in due time
delivered them up to the Spanish authorities and they found
their way to Buenos Aires. Some writers have pointed out
that because they were Catholics the authorities treated
them humanely, which would suggest that were they other
than Catholics things might have gone rather bad with
them. English and pro-English writers never fail to em-
phasize this point, and in doing so are not alone unfair
but most ungrateful. Anyone who will read the story of
the sackings and burnings of the Spanish- American ports
and cities for centuries by the English and consider how
Beresford's and Whitelocke's men, not to go back to earlier
epochs, were treated by the victors here in Buenos Aires,
will understand how far from the truth, and how un-
scrupulously malicious the suggestion is. One of the wrecked
navigators was Thomas Craig, then about twenty years of
age, he remained in Buenos Aires and did his part in re-
covering the city from the English in 1806; he was also in
the defense against Whitelocke, a year later, and attained to
some rank in the patriot army. He married later on a
Miss Donovan and lived to be a very old man, 84 years,
dying in 1863. He used to tell how he, the ship's carpenter

14 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

and two other sailors escaped to an island whereon, from
wreckage and other materials, they formed a raft which
floated them successfully to the main land. They were then
but two, however, the other sailor having died on the island.
At Buenos Aires they were kept for some time in confine-
ment, but long before the Enghsh invasion he and his com-
rade were free men. As well as helping to repel the in-
vaders he served with distinction under his fellow-Mayoman,
Brown, against Spain and Brazil. He had the title of
Captain and a pension in accordance with that rank from
the Argentine Government. For many years before his
death he was the foreign-born citizen of longest residence
in the city. From about the time of Craig's coming we
begin to find Irish names with increasing frequency in the
various registers, rolls and notices which go to make up
the political, military and social records of the rapidly ris-
ing city. Craig and his comrade, whose name I have not
been able to get, although coming to Buenos Aires by mere
accident, may be considered the first Irishmen who settled
in the country to make a living by the work of their hands.
Just at this time, 1800, the name of another O'Gorman
meets us, whose family was destined to fill no small place
in the political and social life of the Argentine capital.
This O'Gorman, Thomas by name, came from France and
married a daughter of Madame Perichon, who like so many
of her countrymen and countrywomen, was a political
exile. O'Gorman seems to have been a man of affairs, for
he soon established a considerable shipping business, mostly
of a contraband nature. At tliis time the import and export
trade of the country was to a great extent in the hands of
smugglers, the custom authorities being either in league
with the smugglers or utterly incapable of discharging the
duties imposed upon them. Don Tomas made money fast,
but his French connections could spend it at a much more
rapid rate it would seem. He had a brother in London iii
commercial life, and on a certain occasion he dispatched
a couple of ships laden with raw products to this brother.

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 15

following them himself in a faster vessel. On his arrival
in England he got into great difficulties about the ship-
ments and they were seized by the authorities. Delay and
disappointment were weighing heavily upon him in London
when the news came of his wife's unfaithfulness. He soon
after retired to Spain where he became somewhat deranged
and ended his days in poverty and alone. Mrs. O'Gorman's
relations with Liniers, the hero of the Conquest and Defense,
were the scandal of Buenos Aires for many a day and had
not a little to do with the after unpopularity and downfall
of the brave but unfortunate Frenchman. O'Gorman's
house was at 77 calle Paz, now Reconquista, between Sar-
miento and Corrientes — there was but one number to each
house at the time. Mrs. O'Gorman's name was Ana and
one of the many terms of opprobrium used against her for
her misconduct with the Captain was that of "Ana Boleyn."
Gutierrez has much to say on this subject.

In June, 1802, Maria Isabel Dogan, widow of A. del
Rincon had a house advertised in the "Telegrafo Mercantil,"
first newspaper of Buenos Aires, for sale. In August of
the same year Hugh Macoy has a notice in the same paper
to the effect that he will sell out all his stock of woolens
and hardware cheap, as he must return to Europe at once.
In November, 1803, Dr. O'Gorman presided at a meeting
of the Medical Academy and certified the fitness of various
doctors to practice their professions, amongst them one
Dr. David Reid. In the same year a sort of official direc-
tory of the city gives Don Justo Linch as Royal Ac-
countant, Dr. Michael O'Gorman as Protomedicato and
Captain Michael O'Rian as at the head of the Provincial
Militia of the district of Maldonado. He had, in officers
and men, one hundred under his command, and considering
the place and the kind of people he had to keep in order,
and not forgetting the time of his incumbency, I have no
doubt Don Miguel had plenty to do for his one hundred
men.

Patrick O'Gorman passed his general examination in Sari

16 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Carlos College in 1805. This young man must have been
a son of the Protomedicato. In the same year the Proto-
medicato, himself, edited the instructions which the medical
practitioners should follow in the operation of inoculating
with vaccine, thus, as the chronicler relates, doing a great
service to the country — un gran servicio al pais.

When the English invaded Buenos Aires in 1806 there
were many Irishmen in their ranks — unwillingly a great
many of them, perhaps the majority of them. At that
time, and for some years before and after, it was the com-
mon usage with the English Government and military
authorities to seize young Irishmen, against whom any
charge, political or otherwise could be proved, and these
same authorities had the deciding of when these charges
were or were not proved, and condemn them to terms of
service in either branch of the military forces. Thus num-
bers of young Irishmen were forced into the army and
Navy, and particularly the latter, against their will. It
was this practice by England of seizing Irishmen that was
largely the cause of the war between England and the
United States in 1812. The English claiming the right to
overhaul American ships on the high seas and to ';arry
away any of the crew or passengers born under the English
flag, for she then, and for many years afterwards, where
able to make her claim respected, held to the principle of,
an English subject once, an English subject forever. Thus
in the forces which invaded Buenos Aires in 1806 there were
numbers of Irishmen who yearned for the opportunity to
escape from a bondage so cruel and so hated. Beresford
having taken the city with such ease, owing wholly to the
cowardice of the Spanish Viceroy, Sobremonte, who ran
away with the best of the army to Cordoba, hardly waiting
for the first shot to be fired, believed, true Englishman-like,
that the people of Buenos Aires were really glad of his
coming to be their master; and, no doubt, there were some
of a sufficiently slavish or traitorous breed to give him, by
their sycophantic adulations and their readiness to fawn

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 17

on him and his officers, some reason for this belief, and to
lead him to think that he was popular with the people.
Englishmen, in general, feel that they are very superior
beings, and that all the world ought to like and admire
them, but when they find out their mistake, and that the
opposite to what they believed is the real fact, they blame
this on the ^'treachery" and "deceit" of the people whom
they so snobbishly misjudged. Beresford was a perfect
type of the Englishman who feels and acts thus, and, of
course, as tricky and wanting in honor as Englishmen in
similar position have always shown themselves. The un-
soldierly manner in which he obtained a favor from Liniers
and then used this favor for his own good against the
generous Frenchman, as well as the dishonorable manner
of his flight to Montevideo, reminds one of countless similar
episodes in the history of England's conquests, especially
in Ireland. Having established himself in Buenos Aires he
gave orders to his men to mix freely with the citizens of
the seized city. This mixing, he felt, would enable the
Spaniards, all the inhabitants of the place were, by
foreigners, called Spaniards then, to see of what a superior
order the English were. He and his officers mingled in very
friendly fashion with the society element, and he lost no
time in introducing Freemasonry, establishing a lodge at
once, some of che members of which, Pena, Padilla and
Lima, soon afterwards betrayed their country to him, and
were paid the price of their treachery by the English Gov-
ernment in life pensions.

During these days of enjoyment and success for the
English, two things were happening, which when they came
to the notice of the victors, put a sudden stop to the enjoy-
ment and began to make the success look anything but
hopeful of permanency. The "Spaniards" inside and out-
side the city were busy organizing for its recapture and the
expulsion from their country of the so-much-to-be-admired
and beloved superior personages who had vouchsafed to
come amongst them. A good many of their own English

18 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

soldiers were having their throats cut in the taverns and
lanes of the town by patriotic criollos of the less formal
and distinguished order of society, while a larger number
still, made up of their Irish bondsmen were escaping to the
outskirts of the city, and in many cases joining the forces
that were being organized for the reconquest. Amongst
these latter was one, Michael Skennon, who joining the
patriots under Pueyrredon fought, and was made prisoner,
in the first battle of the Reconquest. Perdriel where this
battle was fought is not far from what is now La Paternal
Railroad Station.

Beresford hearing of the preparations marched out from
the Fort on the night of the 31st of July. On the follow-
ing morning he came in contact with Pueyrredon's men and
the battle was at once commenced. The English were gain-
ing in a frontal attack; Pueyrredon charged them on the
flank with his raw cavalry and while staggering the column
for a moment narrowly escaped falling into the hands of
the enemy, his horse having been killed under him. Skennon
had charge of a cannon and although his comrades had
fallen back, whether under orders or in panic is uncertain,
he remained firing on the enemy, utterly reckless of the
consequences. The gun was rushed, he fell prisoner, and
strapped on a gun carriage he was taken into the city and
shot in front of the fort. His execution must have taken
place about where the statue of Belgrano now stands.

Mitre, who tells the story in his "Life of Belgrano,"
seems to think it was a great concession on the part of
Beresford that he allowed him to be attended in his last
moments by a minister of his own religion, and indeed, this,
too, in the face of the fact that his proclamation of re-
ligious liberty was posted up all over the city a few days
previously. He adds: "He fought for his Catholic faith
against the heretic English side by side with the Argentines."
Mitre was, I believe, only about twenty years of age when
he wrote this, his knowledge of world politics at the time
could not have been very great, and he need not be too

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 19

hardly judged for the view he takes of Skennon's purpose.
It is a very erroneous view, however, as will be seen
presently. If Skennon and his fellows did not hate the
English and grasp the first opportunity to escape from
the captivity in which they were held, and do what in their
power lay to assure their new freedom by the destruction
of their cruel captors, they would be less than human. The
many thousands of Irishmen who fought with all the strength
of their bodies and all the fervor of their souls side by side
with their non-Catholic comrades under Washington against
England were not fighting for their Catholic faith against
the heretic, but for human freedom and against the enemy
of their native country and of the country in which they
were fighting. Skennon was comforted in his last moments
by the ministrations of the Bishop of Buenos Aires, pos-
sibly because the English would allow no less a dignitary
of the Church within their lines, or it may be that he under-
stood English, and was on this account the most capable
to perform the solemn duties of the occasion. Skennon is
probably the first non-Spanish foreigner who fell in defense
of the liberty of Buenos Aires. He ought to have some
public comm.emoration, if it were only the calling of a street
after him, especially so since we see public places called
after Garibaldi who actually fought against the country.

Several comrades of Skennon took part in the Recon-
quest, or at least joined the Argentines. So strong was
this movement among the Irish soldiers and sailors that when
discovered Beresford at once issued an order forbidding the
Irishmen in his forces to leave barracks. But the order
came a little late, for already a goodly number had effected
their escape, and were under the protection of the Spanish
authorities. .This is the date of the first considerable influx
of Irish into the citizenship of Buenos Aires; but as there
were no Irish women then in the country it is fairly certain
that but few of them married. ,The stirring times of
the second invasion which took place a year later, and the
Revolution with its many years of warfare which soon after

20 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

followed tHese exciting events attracted many of the refugees,
so that few of them founded famihes and it is not easy
to-day to meet with anyone who will trace his origin to
those of our race who came thus strangely, but honorably,
to Argentina's hospitable shores.

Before proceeding to consider the effect the second
English invasion, in 1807, had upon Irish colonization in
Buenos Aires, it is worthy of mention that Charles O'Don-
nell commenced in this year giving military instructions
in Cordoba. This Don Carlos will be heard from again in
the educational line.

But eleven months had gone by from the Reconquest
when another attempt, and one that proved more disastrous
than the previous one, was made by England to seize Buenos
Aires and thus possess herself of Spain's La Plata provinces.
Some historians, for reasons difficult to understand, if
wholly free from mercenary motives, try to popularize the
belief that England had no purpose in her two last attempts
to seize Buenos Aires, save those of friendliness towards the
Spanish colonists and the opening up of the country to the
trade of the world. But this proposition does not look
so well when inquiry is made into trade relations and con-
ditions in the Plata ports in those days, and when it is
seen that the English General, Whitelocke, gets the enor-
mous salary of twelve thousand pounds a year and the
high sounding title of Governor General of South America.
It will not be amiss here to mention that it was for pur-
poses of trade and the "opening up of the country" that
England went first to India, she is there still, and we have
been hearing ever since her getting in there of periodical
famines and shootings of patriotic Indians. No doubt there
can be got Indians who will write that her coming to their
country was a great blessing to it! "Trade" is a handy
imperialistic or piratical term, if you succeed it matters little
under what name, if you fail, well it was only a bit of a
business matter, anyhow.

In this second expedition there were many officers anH

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 21

men of Irish birth. One whole regiment was purely Irish,
the 88th — Connaught Rangers. The English commanders
must have had deep fears of the loyalty of these men,
and must have felt that most of them were, or ought to
have been Skennons, for they sent the unfortunate fellows
into the conflict with rifles and ammunition, but refused
them the flints wherewith to fire the pieces. Even the flag
of the regiment was held at headquarters instead of being
unfurled above the front rank. Duif, the regiment's first
officer, said he left it in the rear, feeling beforehand what
was going to happen. The men were formed in two
columns, the one under Col. Duff, the other under Van-
deleur; the first marched down what is now Bartolome
Mitre, the other taking calle Sarmiento for its route. Duff
lost half his men before he reached San Miguel church,
where there was a strong barricade; he tried to break into
this church but failed and took refuge with his men in a
house close by, and surrendered. Vandeleur's section got
on some seven hundred and fifty yards further and were
reduced to a little over two hundred when they surrendered.
Many of the wounded were taken care of, most kindly, by
the householders along the streets where they fell, and no
doubt the fact of their being CathoKcs and countrymen of
Skennon and his fellow refugees of the previous year mili-
tated a good deal in their favor. When the count of killed,
wounded and missing was made there were two hundred
and eight under the latter heading, and I think we may safely
conclude that a large majority of these, if not all, were
Irishmen. So that there must have been a considerable
number of our countrymen in the city when the Revolution
of May was accomplished.

In 1810 we begin to find advertisements and business
notices in the newspaper, the only one then in Buenos Aires,
"Correo de Comercio" (Commercial Post). Here is one
such advertisement that I believe will be interesting in two
ways; it is published on the 7th of April, 1810, and is to
the effect that Marcos Riley, Captain of a Spanish ship,

22 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

sailed from Buenos Aires with a mixed cargo in which were
five bales of wool. So that there was something of a wool
business being done in 1810 and a man with a Spanish-
Irish name was a party to it. Dr. O'Gorman figures again
in the public eye this year. He writes a very encouraging
letter to the Protector of the Public Library, and in terms
which show him to be a man of the most enlightened ideas;
he also contributes a donation of very important and valu-
able books to the institution. An advertisement in the
"Correo" for December ISth, says he, the Doctor has an
American coach of luxury for sale, and that he lives in
Santo Domingo Street, now Belgrano, three and a half
squares out.

A couple of advertisements met with in the "Correo"
about this time, although in no way relating to the subject
of this book, will be worth quoting as throwing a little ray
of light on an almost forgotten phase of Buenos Aires
social life in the dying days of the old regime and first
dawn of the new era. November 7th, 1810: "Senor Juan
de Lafranca sells two negro women, one of them with a
baby, in S80 pesos, free of conveyance, and the other, with-
out certificate, for 300 pesos. The one with the baby will
be about twenty-six years of age, and the other about
twenty years of age. Whoever may want to buy them can
call on their owner, the aforesaid Lafranca; he lives in
Torres St., in front of the drug store, behind San Miguel."
In another issue of the same paper a widow Funes offers
for sale a "servant maid of twenty years of age, with milk."

Advertisements like these, and of and for wet nurses
were very common in this old paper.

As there was always, from the remotest times, a con-
siderable trade between Spain and the West and South of
Ireland it is natural to suppose that this intercourse ex-
tended to the Spanish- American countries. As a matter of
fact ships came and went between Irish ports and those of
Spanish-America quite commonly in the latter decades of
the 18th century, and the "Exile from Mayo," at an earlier

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 23

date still, laments "on the deck of Patrick Lynch's boat"
to have to be going to "leave his bones in Santa Cruz far
from his own Mayo." Irish commerce was then, however,
more with Mexico and the West Indies than with the lower
South American ports. But Munster and Connact harbors
were not the only ones from which Irish trading ships
sailed to the countries of the romantic Spanish Main. On
the fateful and glorious day on which the people of Buenos
Aires broke forever with Spanish rule. May 25th, 1810,
a ship "La Esperanza," commanded by Captain John Stew-
art, sailed from Belfast, arriving at Buenos Aires on August
27th of the same year, with, according to the "Correo de
Comercio," the following items in its cargo: Cotton goods,
delph-ware, a piano, a monochord, five boxes of hats, five
boxes of cotton-britains, five boxes of cotton-linen, one
hundred and twelve pipes of alcohol, a box of saddles, a
coach, seven boxes of articles for private use, one box do.,
two boxes of thread, one box of linen thread, one leather
pouch, thirty tons of coal, fourteen tons of iron, one ton
of iron hoops, nine-and-a-half tons of iron pots ; all con-
signed to Miguel Antonio Saenz. The saladera business
had already been in progress and Robert Staples started
in the business on his own account in September of this
year at the Ensenada of Barrigan.

When the General Congress met. May 22, 1810, to
decide whether or not they should depose the Spanish Vice-
roy, Cisneros, one of the members was Don Justo Pastor
Linch, Administrator of the Royal Customs, and he voted
not to wholly depose the Viceroy.

Next year there is a new newspaper, "La Gazeta," and
here are a couple of interesting items from it, although they
are somewhat outside my range: Under date of September
14, John MacKenna signs in Chili the document which
was, practically, the declaration of independence of that
country. Writing from Lima under date of October 3,
1811, Brigadier Fleming speaks thus of England's double-
dealing: "It would, therefore, be an absolute contradiction

24 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

to sustain with one hand the interests of Spain in Europe
and destroy them with the other hand in America, thus re-
ducing her power and strength to fight the common enemy"
(France). Fleming strengthens his argument as to EngUsh
duplicity by explaining that he knows the English so well
for being an "individuo britanico," a British subject, of
course, an Irishman. How wisely he wrote will be proved
by a study of England's diplomatic dealings with the
Argentine patriots. In the early days of the Revolution
she gave them much unofficial encouragement and word-of-
mouth sympathy until she had obtained from them for her
"services" free trade with the Plate ports. In due time
Spain's star seemed to be rising and that of Argentina
none too bright; at once England's policy was fixed to
suit the circumstances and Spain was promptly informed
that if she confirmed England's trade privileges now estab-
lished in the Plate, she, England, would bind herself not to
supply the patriots with any more war materials. Strang-
ford, who pretended to be very friendly with the Revolu-
tionaries, while the trade arrangements were being worked
up, was then England's representative at Rio de Janeiro,
where the patriots had also a representative, but a change
of policy being now necessary, a change of ministers was
the easiest way of saving appearances. Strangford was
recalled, and the new minister. Chamberlain, came with
orders not to "disturb the operations of His Catholic
Majesty's troops against his rebellious vassals." Garcia,
the agent of the Buenos Aires patriots in Rio at the time,
wrote them: "But let me repeat for the thousandth time
the independence of America is not Great Britain's wish"
(Lopez, V. 6, p. 159). This may seem something of a
digression from the path I have proposed to lead my readers
along, but will be found to be interesting and useful as
showing how correctly Fleming judged, and also on what
unsound bases the fabric of "English assistance" in the
founding of South American independence is built up.
Writers, English and Argentine, have gone suspiciously out

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 25

of their way to make it appear that England was the great
friend of the patriot cause in Argentina, while the opposite
is really the truth. Thus that Irish-Argentines may not
be misled by such writers I shall have to touch on matters
of this kind once in a while.

May, 1812, the "Gazeta" reports Mrs. Mariana and
Mrs. Catalina Linch as receiving grants from the authori-
ties of Buenos Aires. There must have been a great de-
mand for iron pots in the country in revolutionary days,
for in May of this year I find that the "Zephir" arrived
from Belfast with 688 of them; she had also ten tons of
coal, three boxes of barrel-staves, two carts and two bar-
rels of wine. In this same month Patrick Linch dispatched
an American schooner, George T. Mackey, captain, with
a general cargo. Don Patricio would seem to be some way
specially connected with the United States, and one of the
principal Lynch families of this country, at the present
time, claim to be of Irish-American descent. There were
probably two Lynch families then in Buenos Aires, one
Irish-Spanish and the other Irish-American, or Irish-Mexi-
can;^ there was also Timote Lynch, the son of the prisoner
of war, in Mendoza. In this same month and year there
is a list of subscribers to a patriotic fund in which the name
of Benito Lynch figures for four doUars.

There must at this time have been a large agriculture
and milling industry carried on in the vicinity of the capital,
for I find that both flour and wheat were being exported.
Patrick Lynch figures in June as receiving an American
ship from Philadelphia with goods consigned to him. A
couple of months later the "Favourite," under command of
Capt. Everard arrived from Dublin, but her cargo is not
specified.

The Provisional Government issued a decree in Septem-

1 Lavelle's song, " The Exile from Mayo," written about the middle of the
18th century, laments the fate of its subject, who is sailing " on the deck of
Patrick Lynch's boat " from Mayo to leave his bones in Santa Crijz. Possibly
thefsame Lynches; they are in the sapip business, anyhow.

26 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

ber, 1812, allowing strangers to sell consignments whole-
sale, and to attend to the discharge and embarkment of
cargoes. From this it can be seen that Patrick Lynch was
a native of the country, as he was already long in that
business, and the naturalized citizens, Winton and Miller,
in these transactions are always termed "citizen," but no
such qualifying epithet is attached to Don Patricio's name.
The saladera established by Staples two years before was
advertised for sale by Staples and MacNeile. MacNeile
was a Scotchman, the saladera was in Ensenada. In a list
of patriotic subscribers from Cordoba published in the
"Gazeta" there is no more Irish looking name than Escot;
most likely the son of some one of MacNamara's men
whose name was Scott, but whether Irish, Scotch or Eng-
lish does not appear. Amongst the numerous promotions
in the national army, gazetted in December, 1813, is the
name of Francis Lynch to the grade of 2nd lieutenant.
In a list of contributors to a fund for the maintenance of
the widows and orphans resulting from the battle of Salta
are to be found the following names : MacNeile, Mac-
Farlane, MacPhial, Darby, Maclnnon, Dillon and Brown.
They were merchants of Buenos Aires, and I believe, with
the exception of Dillon, all Scotch. At that time the Scotch
were the most prominent business men in the city. There
is another interesting list of subscribers published this year,
that of contributors of horses to the national army. It
includes, probably, all the stock-raisers within convenient
reach of the capital, but there is no Irish name on it, nor,
indeed, any other non-Spanish name, from which it would
seem that no outlanders had established themselves as yet
beyond the city limits.

With the recording of a most lamentable tragedy I will
close this chapter. MacKenna, the Chilian patriot, came
on a mission from his country to the Buenos Aires Govern-
ment. The ill-starred Carrera family of that country had
some quarrel with him previous to his leaving on said mis-
sion, as they had with O'Higgins and many of the other

FIELD AND HIS ADVENTURES, ETC. 27

leaders. After the defeat at Rancagua the brothers fled
from Chili, and while in Buenos Aires, one of the younger
of them renewed the old controversy with MacKenna and
in a duel shot the brilliant Irish-Chilian who had already
made so honorable a name for himself. The three Carrera
brothers were some years later executed in Mendoza for
various acts of treason to Argentina. They were jealous,
unscrupulous and vengeful, but their story is an extremely
sad one.

CHAPTER II

Beown

WILLIAM BROWN was, like Michael Davitt, the son
of a Mayo peasant, and was bom on June 22nd,
1777, at Foxford. Whether eviction drove him,
like Davitt, from his native fields is not recorded, but his
father took him to the United States when he was nine
years of age, and some three years after America, at the
end of eight years of a tremendous struggle, had estab-
lished her independence. It is stated that Brown's father
had a friend in Pennsylvania and that to this friend he
made his way with his family, when he reached the Ameri-
can shore. Very soon after the arrival of the immigrants
the friend died, from yellow fever, as did also the elder
Brown. William was now an orphan, his people were in
poor circumstances, and he, by this time, probably ten or
eleven years old, took service on a coastwise trading ship
as cabin boy, or as it meant on such craft, servant of all
work to the skipper. He evidently had a bent for the sea
and stuck to it from that on. He sailed to many parts of
the world as the years went by, and while engaged on an
English ship was made prisoner by the French, then at war
with England. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Verdun,
now being battered to ruins by the German cannon, from
which he made his escape, but was rearrested and lodged
in Metz, then a French stronghold. From this place, too,
he contrived to effect his escape and succeeded in reaching
Germany. The tale Mulhall tells about the Grand Duchess
of Wiirtemburg, "who was an English princess," interesting
herself in his adventures and befriending him and his com-
rade in misfortune so generously, is, for all I have been

28

BROWN 29

able to find out on the matter, mere romancing. A couple
of distressed and obscure fugitive sailors do not usually
find Grand Duchesses so accessible and hospitable. But this
was Mulhall's way. He never fails to avail himself of an
opportunity to bring his countrymen under some obliga-
tion to their enemies, and to show the world what good,
kindly people these enemies are, I am afraid he does not
hesitate to indulge in a little imagination when the bare
facts do not fit in as he wants them. He was, however, a
personal acquaintance of Mrs. Brown and may have got
some facts from her that others had not access to.

Brown made his first trip to the River Plate in the year
1809. Two years later he returned again to Buenos Aires.
The La Plata provinces had rebelled against being gov-
erned from Spain, although they had not yet declared their
independence of the mother country; so far they had only
been fighting for what we have latterly come to know as
home rule, nevertheless, it was war to the death between the
Spanish forces and the insurgent colonists. Buenos Aires
and the country inside to the extent, roughly speaking, of
what is at present the Argentine Republic was in the power
of the patriots, although on the western and northern
frontiers, now Chili and Bolivia, respectively, the Royalists
were in large force and quite confident of the reconquest
of all the rebelled territory to the east and south, even to
the city of Buenos Aires, which was the heart and soul and
right arm of the revolutionary struggle. But although for
hundreds of leagues landwards not a shred of Spanish
authority remained, eastward, within sight of the fortress
of Buenos Aires, Spanish warships rode defiantly on the
yellow bosom of the great river. Montevideo was still a
stronghold of Spain and was, as might be expected, being
used as a base of operations against the armed colonists
on the opposite bank of the river. Buenos Aires was block-
aded and all sea-borne trade with the place forbidden.
This was the condition Brown found himself face to face
with when he arrived off Montevideo, in his ship "Eloisa"

30 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

in 1811. He had a valuable cargo which he knew would be
doubly valuable if he once got it beyond the blockade lines.
Sailing close to the south shore of the great estuary, with
the hope of slipping by the not over vigilant blockaders,
his ship went aground and became a wreck. He saved some
of the cargo, getting it ashore with such little damage as
permitted its sale, and with the aid of an American, one
William P. White,^ disposed of the goods to such advantage
as enabled him to buy another ship, a schooner, which he
called the "Industria." With this ship Brown and White
sought to establish something in the nature of a coastwise
trade; the Spaniards, however, seized the ship and the
enterprise failed. This misfortune, seemingly so disastrous
to Brown's business prospects, was the event which his in-
domitable grit made the deciding factor and happy chance
of all his glorious career. He had great faith in himself,
his courage was infinite, and he was possessed of great
commonsense; but he had another little quality which on
this occasion prompted him to the deed which was the "open
Sesame" to fame for himself, and to what was to him of
greater satisfaction still, of service beyond measure to the
country of his adoption, and to the cause of human progress.
This little quality it would not be just to call a desire for
revenge, although something not far from it. But Brown's,
as he many a time proved, was a nature utterly above
any such unworthy feeling. He had, however, what I may
call a passion for getting even with anyone who gave him
the worst of the game, or for paying back an old score,
which in the instance under consideration was rather a
virtue than anything else.

The "Industria" was lost, but there were ways in which
the loss might be indemnified, and it was Brown's purpose
now to try these ways. In addition to the indemnity the

^ White figured in the English invasion of Buenos Aires and was accused of
giving valuable information to the invaders. He managed to clear himself
of that charge somehow, and stood high at times with the patriots, but wag on
one occasion banished by them.

ADMIRAL WILLIAM BROWN
( Founder of the Argentine Navy )

BROWN 31

enterprise might afford the satisfaction of getting square
with the Spaniards who had caused him so much loss and
disappointment. He, very likely in conjunction with White,
searched the beach resorts and boat-slips along the shore
from the Retiro to the Riachuelo and picked up a couple
of dozen English-speaking sailors to whom he could ex-
plain his purpose and on whom he could safely rely. They
were Irish, English, Scotch and American; with them he
manned two little sail-boats, and in the guise of fishermen
beat about until they had got within reach of a Spanish
cruiser which had ventured too far away from the fleet.
They immediately grappled with her, boarded her and
brought her in triumph to Buenos Aires. In the light of
present-day naval equipments, steam, armor-plate, high
bulwarks, quick-firing guns and personnels of many hun-
dreds of men to each ship, this seems an impossible feat.
But Brown's time was that of the clumsy sail, the low
wooden-walls, the slow and uncertain muzzle-loader, and
crews of a few dozen men. Combatant ships once within
grappling reach of each other, number and daring of the
crews counted for everything.

Soon after this feat, which was the talk of all the city
in a few hours. Brown was engaged by General Alvear,
the then head of the Buenos Aires Government, and who
was preparing an army and navy for the liberation of
Montevideo and all Uruguay. The fleet which Brown was
made commander of consisted of three corvettes, two brigs
and seven or eight small river boats. Lopez, the Argentine
historian, describes at this time, "the most glorious of
South American mariners," as follows:

"The young Irishman, Don Guillermo Brown, counted
37 years when he took command of the little squadron with
which Buenos Aires set out to dispute with Spain the
dominion of the waters of the Rio de la Plata. His man-
ner, tranquil and pleasing, his countenance cheerful and
open, his air, his words, his habits, were exemplarily modest
^nd gentle. He made no requests, nor was he alarmed at

82 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the defects and imperfections of the armament with which
he had to solve the supreme question of the moment. On
the contrary he showed the plainest confidence in the result,
we would almost say a childish confidence, if it were not that
in the depths of that soul, apparently so placid, there
burned the conviction that the gifts with which nature had
endowed him would be sufficient to supply all deficiencies
and enable him to triumph over the enemies he was about
to engage" (Vol. 4, p. 416).

Brown received his appointment as Commodore in the
middle of February, 1814, and on March 8th, following,
he sailed out from Buenos Aires to his first battle with the
Spaniards. The island of Martin Garcia which commanded
the entrance to the great waterways, the Parana and the
Uruguay, and which was strongly defended by the Spanish
fleet and a formidable system of fortifications, was his ob-
jective. On March 10 he was reinforced to some extent,
and next day attacked the Spanish position. He was un-
fortunate in this attempt. His pilot falling a victim to one
of the first shots of the Spaniards, his boat ran aground
within range of the enemies' guns. He was mercilessly can-
nonaded by the opposing fleet, wliile the other ships of
his command having suffered some loss withdrew to safety.
Next morning, owing to a favorable wind or a chance rising
in the river tide, his boat was released from her embarrass-
ment and he got to Colonia where he hastily repaired her
by staunching her battered timbers, and refilled, from the
material at hand in that port, the many vacancies the
Spanish cannon had made in his crew. On March 17, St.
Patrick's Day, he resumed the combat, landing a party of
his men in the teeth of a vigorous fire from the shore guns,
and captured the island. One of his men to distinguish him-
self greatly in the assault on the land forces and entrench-
ments was Lieutenant James Kenny, leading the 3rd troop
company. The Spanish Admiral, Romerata, at once with-
drew up the River Uruguay with his ships and never again
sailed them past Martin Garcia. Brown reported duly to

BROWN 33

his Government, got some further reinforcements and sailed
for Montevideo where the main body of the Spanish fleet
was gathered. The Buenos Aires Governor, Alvear, was
then beseiging the Uruguayan capital from the land side.
Brown made a demonstration against the Spanish forces,
which were much stronger than his, but as though cowed
at the immense superiority of the enemy, withdrew hur-
riedly. This was a ruse to draw the Spaniard in his pur-
suit away from the fort guns ; it worked exactly as he had
intended and resulted in the utter defeat of the Spanish
fleet and the immediate surrender of the city. In this en-
gagement. May 16, 1814, Brown was wounded in the leg,
but not severely. After conveying his prizes to Buenos
Aires and receiving the thanks and plaudits of the Govern-
ment and people he returned to Montevideo. The Spanish
Governor, when the capitulation was arranged, gave him-
self up to the Admiral. The beseiged garrison, although
well supplied with war material, must have been very badly
off for food, as the Governor, Vigodet, was in such a state
of destitution that Brown generously supplied him, from
his own resources, with a considerable sum of money, in
gold, to provide for his needs on the homeward voyage to
Spain. This unselfish and kindly treatment of enemies was
characteristic of Brown in all his dealings. If a public
subscription was started for any purpose he was always
to the fore with his contribution; if the Government, as
it often was in those days, was hard pressed for money,
Brown was ready to forego his salary, and although he was
never more than a poor man, comparatively, there is not the
record of an ungenerous or selfish deed in all his glorious
career. A couple of stories often told about him will not
be out of place in connection with this fine trait of his all
round very noble character.

It was when the battle of Costa Brava was won and
Garibaldi who commanded the Uruguayan ships had set fire
to his shattered barques and was trying to get to land in
a small boat, the Argentine captain, Cordero, hurried to

34 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Brown and while handing him a telescope, exclaimed : "Look,
Admiral, the enemy commander is escaping in that boat.
Shall I give orders to pursue him?" Brown replied: "No,
let him go in peace; he is a brave man, and the brave are
not to be persecuted. Let him go, and may God be with
him. If we take him prisoner, Rosas, in a bad humor may
put him to death. I don't know why it is, but I have a
feeling that Garibaldi is destined to do great things yet."
This is the way the story is recorded, but I would not
say that the recorder did not embellish it somewhat.

In March, 1843, Brown was once more before the be-
seiged city of Montevideo. Bells and guns and lowered flags
told of the death, within the city's walls, of the brave and
patriotic Argentine statesman. General Martin Rodriguez,
now an exile by the wrath of Dictator Rosas. Brown was
commanding for the Dictator, but he served the Republic also
with and under Rodriguez, who twenty years previously
was at the head of the Argentine Government, and now
when he learned for whom the mourning was he ordered the
flags on the fleet to be put at half mast. Some of his lieu-
tenants reminded him that the fallen patriot was not only
of the party to which Rosas was opposed, but was an un-
compromising enemy of the dreaded Dictator, and that this
action would be likely to provoke the latter's fearful anger.
Brown, in a mood the most undisturbed, explained to his
kindly anxious friends. :

*' At this moment I don't know whether Rodriguez was a friend or a
foe of Don Juan Manuel. I only know that he was a great patriot,
had a great heart and was a noble citizen, and that is what I am
honoring,"

His battles were fought with crews picked up chiefly
from among the cast-oif or deserted sailors who led a more
or less . disorderly and wild life along the river front from
Ensenada to Retiro. They were good enough as sailors
and fearless as fighters, but they were the merest mer-
cenaries, always hard to control and never wholly reliable
in the hour of need; their heart was not in the cause and

BROWN 35

so Brown proposed to supersede them with men who would
have a patriotic as well as a material motive in fighting
for the young republic. He, therefore, selected crews of
native Argentines. These men were usually of the poorest
and most uneducated classes — hardly any others would ven-
ture into labors so trying and dangerous and, with all, so
ill-requited. A writer who says that these sailors were
sometimes Indians, in the majority, describes them thus:
"They did not know how to read, nor even to count, and
it was almost an impossible task to teach them the names
of the ropes, of the sails, and of the movements." But
Brown was equal to any task in sailoring; he knew that
however ignorant his men might be of written words or
signs they were all expert card players, and further that
the names of all the cards in the pack would be sufficient to
go around on all of the riggings and machinery of the ship
that he would need to use them hurriedly at. He then gave
to these parts, according to their importance, the names
of the cards. So that his orders were given somewhat in
this wise: "Let loose the ace!" — "Make fast the king!" —
"Tighten the queen, there!" — "Slack off the knave!" etc.,
etc. It seems like a joke, but it is the duly recorded fact.
There was no obstacle that Brown's patience, courage,
perseverance, good humor, wit — in short, his genius — could
not overcome. His popularity with the Argentines never
slackened or paled, unlike that of Admiral Cochrane, who
quarrelled with everybody, and was always ready to fight
for whoever gave him the largest recompense and never
fought for any cause except as a salaried employee. In
comparison with these disfiguring features in Cochrane's
otherwise splendid career, hear Lopez: "Brown loved the
daring deed for the deed itself, and found sufficient com-
pensation in the applause of Buenos Aires and its people,
without ever changing his aims or ambitions from the day,
in his youth, when he first set foot on the soil of his second,
or I should say, the only country he had from that day
to th^ Ia§t day of his long life, and in which he was always

36 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

honored and always beloved." With this little sketch I
shall leave our great countryman for the present. We
shall meet him again through these pages and more about
his great deeds, his adventures, his peculiarities, and the
calm end of his stormy life will be told.

CHAPTER III

Dr. John Oughan — Dr. O'Gorman Pensioned — Captain O'Brien's Bull-
fight— Reception to American Delegates — Irish Citizens — Lynch's
Generosity — Jorge O'Brien — Estanislao Lynch's Services — Othbb
O'Briens — Raymund Morris.

AS well as Lynches, O'Gormans, Dogans, Cullens and
O'Ryans there was a family of Butlers, or Butelers,
■ in Buenos Aires in the early days of the 19th cen-
tury, and I find that one of them, William, was in Decem-
ber, 1814, promoted from Lieutenant in the Grenadiers to
a higher rank in the National Infantry. At this time the
Lynches seem to be one of the most prominent families in
the city, or, indeed, in the country. Three of them, prob-
ably brothers, Justo, Patricio and Benito, subscribe for
themselves and their wives fifty-seven dollars cash, twenty-
eight marks and twelve ounces of worked silver to the
patriot funds. A couple of months later, August, 1815,
Patricio is made Adjutant Major of the Civic Infantry.
In the following year they are to the fore again with sub-
scriptions : Patricio, Benito, Estanislao and Justo give six
hundred dollars to the public funds. Soon after Benito
gets command of the first battalion of Civic Militia, and
Patricio is chosen a city councillor. But these Lynches
were only Irish by ancestry and now I turn to one who was
Irish in birth and spirit, and whose services to Argentina
ought to have made him better known to, at least his own
countrymen here, if not to all Argentines.

This very remarkable Irishman who aided so materially
the liberating armies in the northwestern country campaigns,
and afterwards contributed much to raise and perfect
medical science in Buenos Aires was Dr. John Oughan.

37

38 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Although born in Ireland he came in the Carrera expedition
from the United States, sailing from Baltimore in the
"Chfton" on December 3, 1816, reaching the Plate capital
on the 9th of the following February. Carrera, as already
shown, was a Chilian and the expedition he got together
in the United States, although financed by the Buenos Aires
Government, he intended would be used for the liberation-
of his own country. He was well known to be an unre-
lenting enemy of O'Higgins and San Martin and the then
governing party in Buenos Aires; so, when he arrived in
this city, and his plans became known, Supreme Director
Pueyrredon made him a prisoner and placed the new ships
and their complements of men and munitions at the service
of the common cause. Oughan passed over to the liberating
armies under San Martin and remained for some time in
Peru after the independence of the western Republics had
been secured. He returned to Argentina in the early
Twenties and at once became a very noted doctor. He
quarrelled with Parish, the English Minister, and was
shamefully persecuted by him and the English then in Buenos
Aires, but more about this later on.

About the time Dr. Oughan was leaving the United
States in a military expedition the purpose of which was to
rid South America of Spanish domination. Dr. Michael
O'Gorman, who came nearly forty years previously as the
physician of a great military expedition intent on making
secure and everlasting that domination, was being pensioned
off by the government that replaced the old order of things.
O'Gorman, it is evident, was in sympathy with the patriotic
cause, as his contributions to the new public library,
already referred to, show. The pension granted him was
two-thirds of his regular salary, which terms must have
been considered exceptionally generous as the order fixing
them reminds the public of his great services to the country.

Another Irishman who greatly distinguished himself
afterwards began to figure in Argentine life in this year,
and the following little story taken from Hudson's "Re-

DU. JOUN OUGHAN, AND OTHERS 39

cuerdos de Cuyo" (Memories of Cuyo), will be found some-
what amusing as well as serving to introduce him. In a
great tournament which San Martin's army gave in Men-
doza in the latter part of 1816, amongst other items on
the programme were bull-fights, and a Captain O'Brien pre-
pared to display his prowess as a "toreador" in one of
them. The bull was let into the arena, O'Brien awaiting
him standing on a table in the center of the scene, the
animal gazed in wonder for a moment and then rushed for
his antagonist carrying the table before him on his horns.
The Captain was very tall and thin and when the bull
struck the table he jumped clear over the animal, landing
on his feet as the maddened beast crashed forward with his
head through the broken boards of the table. O'Brien re-
tired quite undisturbed amidst the wildest applause. This
is the earliest reference I have found to this notable Irish-
man, but he will be often with us from this on for some
3^ears.^

A Don Felipe Reilly, who was in business in Buenos Aires
in 1818, wrote a letter, which came into San Martin's hands,
in which he explained that it was said that General San
Martin seizes and sacks, without paying their owners, all
American ships carrying powder and arms along the Chilian
sea-front, and for this reason no American ships cared to
pass beyond Buenos Aires. San Martin at once wrote to
Don Estanislao Lynch in Santiago de Chile, who was the
agent of such ships, asking him to say whether or not there
was any truth in the statement. Lynch publishes a letter
assuring him that there is no truth in the story, and that
it was circulated by the enemy, mentioning that his brother,
Patrick Lynch of Buenos Aires, had made all contracts with

^ John Thomond O'Brien was the son of a wealthy County Wicklow man.
He was still in his teens when he joined the army of liberation in Buenos Aires,
but young as he was his career had already been one of unusual romance and
adventure, and in this order it continued to the end. His life, by a Chilian
historian, published in 1904, is one of the most interesting little books, of its class,
that I have read.

40 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the Chilian Government in the matter. I have not been
able to find out who Don Felipe was, whether Irish, Span-
ish or Argentine bom. The O'Reillys like the O'Donnells
were plentiful in Spain, and at the very time I write of
there was an Irish-born General O'Reilly fighting on the
side of Spain up in Bolivia.

This year there are more subscriptions from Patrick
Lynch, and Mr. Buteler also contributes; the fund is for
the support of some refugees from Entre Rios. Lynch has
also been liberal to the National Library.

An advertisement in the "Gaceta," 1818, is to the effect
that a very learned and high society young lady who pro-
posed to teach the young ladies of Buenos Aires everything
that was good for young ladies to know, was staying at the
house of Don Daniel Donohue, near San Nicolas Church.

The following report from an American paper is given
in the "Gaceta": "On the 26th of March, last, Messrs.
Lynch and Zimmerman, rich and respectable merchants of
Buenos Aires, gave a magnificent dinner in honor of the
American delegates. They were received in a spacious court
tastefully illuminated with brilliant globes over which a
beautiful shade hung and from which was gloriously sus-
pended the flags of the United States and South America.
Over two hundred young people, distinguished for their
opulence and elegance of dress and personal beauty were
present."

It was in 1815, according to DeMoussy, that emigra-
tion to the La Plata countries commenced, but in the
previous ten or twelve years a goodly number of foreigners
had gathered into Buenos Aires. They were generally people
who came with some capital, in the interest of some business
concern, as military adventurers, or men of some profes-
sion; few had come as manual laborers or settlers with the
purpose of making a home for themselves by the sweat of
their brow, so to speak. By this time one can find ample
evidence of the existence of a little Irish colony in the city.
Craig, John Dillon, Brown, Coyle, Armstrong, Sheridan

DR. JOHN OUGHAN, AND OTHERS 41

were prominent names, but there were many others in less
important social grades whose traces it is harder to find.
An American youth who landed here in the latter part of
1817 or the early part of 1818, and who afterwards be-
came Col. King, and wrote a book called, "24 Years in
Argentina," tells how when he was put off a ship, in the
privateering business, he tramped through the streets in
search of work, or some one or something he could under-
stand, or who could understand him, he saw a sign over
a door which read "P. Flush." Greatly cheered at the sight
of a name with so familiar a look about it, he went into
the house, which was a tavern, and found its owner to be
an Irishman. Flush gave young King his keep till he found
employment, he was soon after in the army and had a very
adventurous career. In this same year the "Gaceta" pub-
lishes an advertisement from the British Consul announcing
that if Gerard Kavanagh of Waterford will call on him
he will give him some important news. The most interest-
ing event, however, about this time is recorded on the 30th
of August, when the first really Irish name amongst those
reported as acquiring citizenship is met with in that of
James O'Brien. O'Brien was not the first Irishman to
become a citizen of the Republic, for Brown and many of
those who served under him were already citizens ex officio,
but his is the first unmistakably Irish name I have met with
as applying for citizenship.

In telling of the Irish in Argentina throughout the years
of the struggle for independence, I have, to a very con-
siderable extent, to follow the campaignings of the Argen-
tine army, and thus must often travel beyond what is to-day
the boundaries of the Republic, and especially into Chili.
Don Estanislao Lynch is very worthy of recognition here
for two noble acts of generosity and patriotism. After the
battle of Maipu he inaugurated a subscription for the
widows, orphans, and disabled soldiers, which, as well as
glorious memories, that great combat left to Argentina and
Chili, with a contribution of twenty ounces of gold. And

42 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Lopez tells how when San Martin was in straits for money
in Chili he appealed to "Don Estanislao Lynch, Argentine
citizen, of very respectable position in Valparaiso to get the
merchants of the place to come together and subscribe the
necessary funds, which the Chilians could not do, to buy
the 'Whitman' afterwards the warship, 'Lauturo,' a fri-
gate belonging to the East Indian Co." This first Chilian
warship was placed by Senor Guido, Argentine Minister
to Chili, under the command of Captain George O'Brien,
then in San Martin's army. O'Brien at once sailed out to
make prisoner of a Spanish ship, the "Esmeralda." It is
said by Lopez that O'Brien took upon himself to capture
the ship or to die in the attempt, and that he was a man
to comply with his word. The Spanish and Chilian ships
met; O'Brien and a party boarded the Esmeralda and the
ship seemed theirs when a Spanish bullet through the head
ended his life, and the victors of a moment before were
now prisoners of the Spanish Captain. Mitre, in his "Life
of San Martin," tells that O'Brien's djang words were:
"Don't abandon her, boys — The frigate is ours." Soon
after the "Lauturo" returned to port with a captured ship,
and as the account Lopez gives of what happened interests
us for the part Lynch played in it, I will give it in short:
When Don Estanislao succeeded in getting his fellow mer-
chants of Valparaiso, native and foreign, to contribute the
necessary funds, $80,000, to buy the "Whitman" an agree-
ment was made that any prizes she took would be the
property of said merchants until the amount subscribed,
and interest, should be paid off. The prize brought in was
the "San Miguel," with a valuable cargo, the Captain of
the Port held her and her cargo for the Government. The
merchants became furious at the seeming treachery; the
English owner, Andrews, who had not yet received payment
in full for his vessel, with the help of the English Admiral
present, took possession of the boat, and but for Lynch,
who was a man of great energy, getting the Argentine
Minister at Santiago to come immediately to Valparaiso and

DR. JOHN OUGHAN, AND OTHERS 43

have the Englishman paid off, the whole enterprise of the
purchase of the "Whitman" would have fallen through most
disastrously.

The battle of Maipu is as glorious an event for Ar-
gentina as it is for Chili, for although fought and won
beyond the Andes it was the Argentine General, San Martin,
with an army almost wholly Argentine that effected the
great triumph for South American Independence. One of
the men who won high distinction that great day was
O'Brien of the famous bull-fight of Mendoza. John Tho-
mond O'Brien was then somewhere about twenty years of
age and had already become a great favorite with San
Martin, who made him one of his aids and entrusted to
him many very important missions. Mitre calls him San
Martin's "inseparable adjutant." In the battle of Maipu
it was O'Brien San Martin sent in pursuit of the defeated
and fugitive Spanish General, Osorio, and although he did
not succeed in overtaking the enemy commander he pressed
him so hard that the Spaniard and his few survivors had
to abandon all their luggage, even to correspondence and
private documents. He fought through all the Chilian and
Peruvian campaigns, and in 1821 when the great Argentine
general had liberated these countries, and decided to send
the flags he had conquered in his glorious campaigns to the
Government of Buenos Aires, the officer he chose to be the
bearer of the precious trophies was Colonel don Juan
O'Brien, and these flags were deposited with great pomp
in the Cathedral of Buenos Aires. When the struggle was
over in Peru, and Independence established, San Martin
presented O'Brien with the state canopy under which all
the Spanish Viceroj^s from Pizarro's time used to walk on
state occasions and at official functions. The presentation
was public, and the Liberator of the western republics
addressed some very complimentary words to the worthy
recipient of the historic memento.

O'Brien had a very varied career and died at Lisbon
in 1861. He tried his hand in many lines of business,

44 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

chiefly in mining, but does not seem to have been a success
in any of them. He left two daughters surviving him;
about the narrowest escape he had in all his adventurous
career was when he brought a message to Don Juan Manuel
Rosas which the latter did not like and for which he, the
Dictator, was for many days between two minds as to
whether he would have the distinguished messenger's head
cut off or not, but Don Juan's angel of good counsel, his
beloved Manuelita, interceded and the General left the
country alive. As with the interesting characters in a novel
O'Brien will come up again in this narrative, but I will
give here a little story Mitre tells about him, in a good-
humored way. "General O'Brien, in spite of his long resi-
dence in America, could never speak Spanish correctly.
Thirty years after (the battle of Maipu), in 1849, in Val-
paraiso, relating an occurrence (of the battle) he said that
San Martin had exclaimed: 'Que bruta esta gota Osorio —
Triunfo nuestra — Sol testigo !' " This is very poor Span-
ish, but means, what a brute this Goth, Osorio, is — by the
sun, the victory is ours! Of course San Martin's Spanish
was correct, and Mitre, with the humor of the true criollo,
which was his in plentiful measure, must have greatly en-
joyed O'Brien's attempt at repeating it. General O'Brien,
like Brown, was always very popular with the people with
whom he threw in his lot, but unlike the Admiral he had no
toleration for Rosas and openly and bitterly denounced him
when he had escaped from the clutches of the dreadful
Dictator.

There is still another O'Brien who took part in the War
of Independence under General San Martin. His name was
Joseph and he had the rank of Sergeant-Major of Mounted
Grenadiers in April, 1820. In Mitre's book, so often re-
ferred to in these pages, he is mentioned as having at-
tended a meeting of officers to elect a Commander-in-Chief,
a change in the civil government having nullified the ap-
pointment of the actual commandant, it was felt. O'Brien
was one of the officers who refused to consider the appoint-

DE. JOHN OUGHAN, AND OTHERS 45

ment of the Commander-in-Chief as ceasing on the grounds
submitted. This Joseph is the third O'Brien who served,
with rank, under Argentina's greatest general.

An Irishman of whom we very seldom hear, yet who
rendered great service to the cause of South American free-
dom was Raymond Morris. From Mitre's "Life of San
Martin," vol. 2, p. 284, I take the following, which is not
the only notice of this distinguished soldier: "The first
ship to fly the flag that was to rule the Pacific waters was
the Spanish brig, 'Aguila,' of 220 tons. After the
battle of Chacabuco it was decided to leave the Spanish
flag flying over the port of Valparaiso. Deceived by this
stratagem the 'Aguila' entered the port and was captured.
Armed with sixteen cannon and manned by seamen picked
up from the port her command was confided to a lieutenant
of the Army of the Andes, Raymond Morris, by birth an
Irishman. Her first naval campaign was the rescue of the
Chilian patriots, imprisoned on the island of Juan Fernan-
dez, by Osorio and Marco. Among the first of those rescued
was the future Chilian Admiral, Manuel Blanco Encalada."
Morris, I believe, was a Sligoman.

With this short reference to a few of the many of our
countrymen who marched in the conquering hosts of the
hero of the Andes, through Chili and Peru, I will turn back
to the territory where the people it is my purpose to tell
about particularly belong. And so my next chapter will
commence where the seven currents gave name to the north-
ern part of the Argentine Mesopotamia, and a most inter-
esting, if not always most commendable, character will be
with us for a few pages.

CHAPTER IV

Campbell — O'Brien's Scheme of Irish Immigration — The First Irish

Chaplain, etc.

WHEN Beresford turned his soldiers loose to go
among the "natives," freely, one of the men who
interpreted his orders rather too liberally was
Peter Campbell. So freely did Peter go amongst the
"natives" that he kept going until he got a very respectable
distance between himself and his indulgent and considerate
General. Campbell and some of his friends, unlike poor
Skennon, made very few halts, for the purpose of convert-
ing the "natives" into good loyal and fond English subjects,
until they got up as far as Corrientes. There he settled
down, and after some time when he did go into the "con-
verting" line, it was in a fashion of his own invention, and
entirely for his own use and benefit, as he saw these things.
Lopez, who wrote with Robertson's "Letters," Mitre's
"Belgrano" and other works, in which Campbell is referred
to as an Irishman, within his reach, says he was English
or Scotch. Probably he did not think the question of
enough importance to bother looking up his references
thereon, and so made the little slip which speaks rather
badly either for his memory or for his knowledge of the
subject. Mitre, however, in whose boyhood Campbell must
have been a good deal talked about, as a sort of dare-devil,
outlaw and resourceful guerrilla fighter, somewhat in the
order of our Mexican friend of the present day, Pancho
Villa, cannot but have met with many who knew him per-
sonally, described him as an Irishman and a Catholic. The
book of the Robertson brothers, of course, puts his nation-
ality and coming to the country outside all question of

40

CAMPBELL— O'BRIEN'S SCHEME, ETC. 47

conjecture. J. B. Robertson first met Campbell in 1813
and he was a man already a good deal talked of, locally, on
account of his deeds of daring and prowess in the struggle
against the Spanish authorities and river forces under
Romerata. He held some kind of office in the years fol-
lowing when Artigas and his governors ruled in Corrientes.
The Scotchman's account of his first meeting with "Don
Paythro," as he, in his truly Scotch humor, calls him, is
very interesting, but is somewhat spoiled by the author's
evident prejudice against the Irishman, firstly for being an
Irishman and secondly for his having succeeded in effecting
his escape from the English army. According to this ac-
count Campbell was a tall, red-haired, rawboned man who
adopted as far as he could the manners, customs and dress
of the natives. In Ireland he had served some time as a
tanner, and when he made his way to Corrientes secured
employment in the tannery of a Sefior Blanco, a Spaniard.
When the Revolution came on, four years later, he joined
in with the patriots and as a guerrilla leader on the Parana,
among its many islands, and along its woody shores, as
well as on the spreading plains, rendered the patriots very
considerable assistance, and was to their enemies, whether
Spaniards or Paraguayans, of the Francia persuasion, no
small terror. Things in the way of fighting, at the time
Robertson fell in with him, being rather dull he proposed
settling down to business, on a salary, in the employ of
the young Scot. Robertson was in the business of export-
ing everything that could be exported at a profit, the chief
articles, however, of the trade were cow and horse hides.
The country was in a very disorderly state, and Campbell,
who was evidently an orderly disposed and industrious man,
proposed that for a certain salary he would act as agent
for him, restore order in the province and get all the ex-
portable products on the farms and estancias in to his
establishments. The canny Scot saw business and profit
at once, quickly employed Campbell, and, according to his
own account, they soon changed a bankrupt and lawless

48 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

region into one of order and prosperity. The story of the
progress and success of their enterprise, as told by the
brothers, seems, as the saying is, almost too good to be
true. Robertson made an immense fortune and retired.
The civil wars of Artigas, Ramirez and Lopez of Santa Fe,
against the Buenos Aires Government brought Campbell
from his paths of peace to the strenuous life once more.
His old employer, although with little desire to be friendly
to his useful agent, praises him for his organizing powers,
good business sense, tireless energy, amazing courage and
dexterity with arms, and strict honesty in his dealings. He
never shunned a row, no matter what the weapons employed
in the combat were, and he never entered one except in
self-defense or to make peace; his peace making, it is true,
was often of an order, from the health of the combatants'
point of view, not greatly preferable to the row itself. The
Robertsons say he never used his arms, whether sword,
pistol or long knife, with fatal intent — disable his opponent
was as far as ever he wanted to go in a row or local quarrel.
When this Scotchman first knew him he had a page or
servant, a smaller, dark-complexioned gaucho whom he
called Don Eduardo and who came to Corrientes from
Tipperary under the same conditions as Don Pedro him-
self. He was the inventor of what was called "a new fight-
ing tactic," which was a sort of combination of cavalry and
infantry in one and the same force. His men carried rifles
with long bayonets which they used with equally terrible
effect mounted or on foot. They were a new thing at the
battle of the Herradura in 1819.

Campbell cannot be spoken kindly of by Argentine
patriotic writers, nor, indeed, is he. His military activities,
after the Revolution, were always on the side of the factious
local leaders who made the first civil wars of the country,
wars which proved so disastrous to the young Republic,
and to which writers trace most of the country's political
misfortunes, even the evil regime of Rosas. It has to be
remembered, at the same time, that this is but the view of

CAMPBELL— O'BRIEN'S SCHEME, ETC. 49

one side to the quarrel, and that in Uruguay they regard
Artigas, Campbell's chief as the founder and martyr of
their liberties, while Lopez is Santa Fe's greatest man, and
but for the miserable fate that overtook Ramirez he would
stand as high with his people as either of the others do
with theirs. These caudillos were, no doubt, a great mis-
fortune for their country at the time, but it is equally be-
yond question that in the view which they and their fol-
lowers took of the then conditions they were acting
patriotically.

It is said that Campbell married a daughter of Artigas,
but I have not been able to make out if he left any de-
scendants. Another Irishman who figured in these parts
in Campbell's time was one Yates. He, too, came in the
English invasion and his story, although not so well known,
and so picturesque as that of Don Pedro, is very much on
the same lines. In all, some twenty or thirty of the Beres-
ford-Whitelocke fugitives made their way to Entre Rios
and Corrientes, and most of them took part in the Revolu-
tion and the civil wars. Several were in the battle of San
Nicolas with Carrera and Alvear, and a few of them fell
prisoners to the National Army in the taking of the town.

There is a very pleasing story told by Miss Pastel, and
given in Robertson's "Letters," of Campbell having rescued
a white girl from the Indians. It runs somewhat like this:
Don Pedro was on board his boat with a small force of
his men, sailing northwards on the Parana, when he saw
a party of Indians on the Corrientes shores. The Indians,
it seems, were regarded as in their right while they kept
on the west bank of the river, but they stood as trespassers
on the opposite side. Campbell hove to and disembarked
to find out the wherefore of this encroachment. The chief
explained, and while explaining, Don Eduardo from Tip-
perary, discovered one side, in a group, a white girl, and
communicated, in his own language, the information to
his leader. Don Pedro accepted the Indian's explanation
and returned to his boat, making the customary signs of

50 • THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

peace. He at once got all his men under arms, proceeded
to the camp again and demanded that the white girl be
forthwith surrendered. The Indian found it very hard to
part with her, but Campbell came with his mind made up
and the wherewith to make good his demand. The girl was
placed duly with a respectable family who clothed and cared
for her. She had been seized in Cordoba, with others of her
family, in an ambush by the Indians, and after months of
the saddest life imaginable was thus rescued and restored.
What fine dramatic material there is in the story. The
ambush in the late afternoon in some lovely glade among
the Cordoba woods; the seizure, and the sudden disappear-
ance of the savages into the dark forest; the dawn in some
distant tolderia; the quarrel between the tribes, and the
flight for safety of the weaker force across the great river
to the "White Man's Land" ; Campbell's coming ashore with
his rough and desperate guards ; Eduardo's suspicious curi-
osity and strange discovery, and then the rescue and re-
storation! This is not the only good and brave deed to
the credit of Don Pedro, and although a desperate man who
did dreadful things in the border warfare of his day, one
might say of him as was sung of a similar type: "He
wasn't no saint, but at jedgement I'd run my chance with
Jim 'longside of some pious shentleman who wouldn't shook
hands with him."

In 1820 one meets the name of some Lynch in all the
records of the day. Thus Dona Rosa Lynch de Castelli,
widow of one of the foremost men of the Revolution, has
to be denied her pension, owing to the bankruptcy of the
state treasury. Don Benito Lynch is one of the City Coun-
cillors who will take over the government of the province
in the midst of an anarchical civil conflict between ambitious
military leaders. Don Patricio Lynch is a candidate for
the representation of Buenos Aires in the legislature of the
state as is also Don Pastor Lynch, whilst Francisco Lynch
is a Sergeant-Major, with Colonel Jerome Colman in the
armies of Carrera and Alvear, fighting against the Na-

CAMPBELL— O'BRIEN'S SCHEME, ETC. 51

tional Government. They were amongst the prisoners at
San Nicolas in the battle of August, 1820. The year before
one of the oldest and most noted Irish-Spanish families in
the country came into my notice for the first time when
I found Domingo Cullen the owner of a ship, the "Minerva,"
carrying, stone, iron, etc., from Montevideo. The Cullens
were a great Irish family with a history going back into
the remotest times. In the Penal Days a branch of them
fled to Spain, and from Spain, in the 18th century, some
of them came to La Plata. Although Domingo Cullen had
his boats plying as aforesaid he was of the Santa Fe
family which soon after began to figure prominently in that
province, and members of the clan have distinguished them-
selves in the affairs of the country almost continuously ever
since.

The years 19, 20 and 21 of the last century were years
which upset and undone many in Buenos Aires, but I find
the Lynches managing to keep pretty well on top all the
time. Don Justo Pastor was pensioned off from his posi-
tion of chief accountant in this latter year. Patrick was
then a ship owner and in very close touch with the govern-
ment. He and three others were appointed a commission
to distribute fifty thousand dollars amongst the patrician
class. These were the needy amongst families of former
prominence whose change of circumstances came to them
through their loyalty to the patriot cause. We may be
sure that Dona Rosa Lynch de Castelli was paid that back
pension which we noticed a little while since, seeing that
Don Patricio was one of the commission charged with the
payments.

Richard Duffy was amongst the business men who paid
taxes. The Armstrong firm was under the name of Bertram
Armstrong this year. Edward Gahan was captain of the
Argentine schooner, "Paquete del Rio de La Plata," trading
with the Uruguayan ports.

Whether it is that Irishmen through some natural talent
easily absorb medical knowledge or that the Irish people

52 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

are as a rule so healthy in their own land as to make the
medicine mean's trade a bad one, I do not know, but the
country seems always to have had physicians and surgeons
to supply to other lands. There has not been a year since
Dr. Michael O'Gorman came to Buenos Aires, to the present
day, but some of the leading medical men of Argentina were
Irish. In 1822 the Academy of Medicine was opened and
one of its fifteen members was Dr. James Lepper, an Irish-
man who had been for some years practicing in the city at
the time. He was already a noted physician and was ap-
pointed to the charge of the public health of the South
Section of the Municipal area.

This little item of news from the "Argos" of April 3,
will be interesting: "On Saturday, 30th ultimo. Colonel
Don Juan O'Brien entered the city with the five banners
and two standards which His Excellency, the Protector of
Peru, consigned to this people in the name of the victorious
armies."

In this newspaper I find a long article translated from
the "Liverpool Mercury" comparing the religious equality
and toleration guaranteed by the new Constitution of
Mexico with those England maintains in Ireland. The
article is very favorable to Ireland, and an interesting com-
ment is published soon after on the state of Ireland. It
says the Dublin papers are full of hateful news on this
matter, and that conditions in Waterford and Cork are so
bad that the people are wild against the priests for re-
straining them. As showing how little the aspect of
political affairs has changed in nearly a hundred years I
will extract a news item from the "Argos," a paper seem-
ingly very friendly to Ireland, it is a report of a remark-
able debate in the English House of Commons: Sir Francis
Burdett made a motion to have something done to relieve
conditions in Ireland, and was supported in an excellent
speech by Mr. Hobhouse, both Englishmen, but on a vote
being taken on the motion it was found that there were
four against it for the one in favor of it. Last year, after

CAMPBELL— O'BRIEN'S SCHEME, ETC. 53

a serious rebellion, in which there was a considerable loss
of life and property, a proposal to "relieve the situation"
met a similar fate, save that it was not thought worth
while putting it to the vote, it being shouted down almost
as soon as made.

When Captain O'Brien came to the city with the flags
from Peril he did not long remain inactive, but went right
into an arrangement with the Government which provided
that he was to go to Ireland and bring out 200 skilled
laborers to be employed in public works in Buenos Aires.
The suburban town, named Belgrano, after the patriot
then recently deceased, was founded to be the residential
quarter of the new colony. The terms on which the colonists
were to be contracted were all arranged, and the families
were to be "moral and industrious," but the scheme, like
so many of Rivadavia's, and, indeed, of O'Brien's, too,
fell though, this time for want of funds. Belgrano is now
one of the most important of the suburban townships of
the capital, and instead of the dwelling place of imported
laborers is the residential quarter of some of the wealthiest
patricians of the land.

The "Argos" gives some more news items in which our
people figure in one way or another; and hoping that they
may prove as interesting to my readers as they did to me
when they came my way I shall set down a few of them
here. A Mr. Beazly, a stranger, is reported as having in-
sulted in the grossest manner the United States representa-
tive, Mr. Forbes, through his friend and secretary, Mr.
Duffy. Forbes had no notion to let Uncle Sam be treated
with any discourtesy, especially by a stranger, and so he
made a serious complaint to Minister of State, Rivadavia,
who at once sent the police after Beazly to caution him on
his peril not to repeat the offense. The thing happened
in a drink-shop in what is now the Paseo de Julio, and
Beazly, the stranger, was, I believe, the grandfather of
our Lord Mayor of a few years ago.

Whatever changes may have come in the order of busi-

54 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

ness, politics, religion or any other phase of our city life,
the ways of womankind seem to have been pretty much the
same a hundred years ago as they are to-day. Mr. Bevans,
a Quaker, arrived this year to do some engineering for the
Rivadavia administration. The paper I am quoting from
comments on the arrival of the distinguished engineer, and
one of the benefits it most hopes to see come through his
influence is a reform in ladies' fashions. Because of the
delightful simplicity of dress he and his family were examples
of the editor recommends all the ladies of the city to at
once become Quakers, and thus avoid the awful cost of
dress which was then forbidding many a man of small
means to dare the responsibility of marrying a wife.
Quakerism, on this account is as much to be desired, and
as little popular among the fair ones, to-day as it was when
the "Argos" editor wailed his sorrows, but I am afraid it
is not a religion for women, and I should not wonder, if
it has not been reformed since then, to hear of its having
ceased entirely as a feminine cult. William Buteler has
been serving as judge of the first district since the begin-
ning of 1822.

As tending to show the interest taken in Irish affairs,
here, in the first Twenties I may mention a long account
of a fight between the Orangemen and the Catholics, at
Mehera, in the County Derry. The "Argos," unlike some
of our present day newspapers, takes no pains to hide the
facts or shift the blame for the disgraceful condition of
affairs from where it justly belongs. It plainly states that
the government policy has been to set faction against faction
for its own purpose. The "London Times" is quoted as
saying that the Orangemen sought safety in the military
barracks and were there supplied with arms to slaughter the
Catholics, a dozen or so of whom were killed. There is an
article in the same issue in which it is shown that Ireland
and Holland supply the world with butter and cheese. The
principal Irishmen in business in Buenos Aires at the end
of 1823, were still Dillon, Armstrong and Sheridan. In

CAMPBELL— O'BRIEN'S SCHEME, ETC. 55

addition to these strong business establishments, which gave
employment to many Irishmen, and the smaller business
concerns already named, Mr. Keen had a hotel, Edward
O'Neill had a school where he gave night lessons as well as
day instruction, Tomas O'Gorman was a grocer, I believe
this man was a son of the O'Gorman who came from France ;
R. B. Heppel sold Irish butter at 47 Piedad; Daniel
Donoghue kept a boarding house; Francis Bradley was in
the liquor business on the Almeda, now Paseo de Julio;
Florence Coyle kept a livery stable at 7 La Plata, now
Rivadavia, and between the Bolsa and the Banco de la
Nacion; Richard Hynes sold pictures in his shop in Calle
Victoria; William Jennings was a bootmaker at 106 Bib-
lioteca, now Calle Bolivar; James Coyle had a tailoring as
well as a dry goods business ; he is said to have been the first
Irish shopkeeper of Buenos Aires. There are many names
besides these given, which may or may not be Irish, such
as Smith, Cooper, Wilson, Tailor, McCall, Bagley, Ken-
nedy, etc., which figure in the business advertisements of the
day. Kennedy I believe was a Scotchman. There were no
Irish, English or Scotch lawyers to be found at this time
in the lists, but in addition to Oughan and Lepper there
were Doctors James Donnell and John Sullivan. Dr.
Michael O'Gorman is not heard of any more, if alive he
would be a very old man at this time. There was little or
no emigration from France or the South of Europe then
and none at all from the northern countries, excepting Ire-
land and Great Britain. Skilled labor was, therefore,
scarce and well remunerated. There were comparatively a
large number of new industries, chiefly saladeras, beef salt-
ing and curing establishments; and gracerias where fat
animals, mares especially, were rendered into grease; brew-
ing houses and other factories, and about this time Sheridan
and Harrat started their felt manufacturing. Already the
Las Heras Government had prohibited the importation of
flour, and this enactment had given the milling and agri-
cultural industries a considerable impulse within the vicinity

56 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of the capital. New streets were being opened and paved,
new roads and docks were being made; building, planting
trees; fencing in gardens and farms (work which was then
done with the spade and shovel, there being no wire fences
in those days), all these activities offered ready and profit-
able employment, and the workmen who most availed of these
opportunities, and whose services were most in demand, were
Irishmen. In 1832, the English Minister, Parish, after a
somewhat careful eifort at making a census of the British
residents of Buenos Aires, gives their number at from five
to six thousand. As the English and Scotch were almost
wholly engaged in commerce, and the Irish were mostly
workmen, it is reasonable to conclude that they outnumbered,
or at least equalled in count the other two elements in what,
as a whole. Parish called the British community. This
calculation would leave our countrymen in Buenos Aires,
in 1832, numbering about twenty-five hundred. Then bear-
ing in mind that there was a considerable influx of Irish
immigrants in the five or six years preceding the date of
this census, I think it safe to fix the number of Irish in and
around the city in 1824 as not greater than five hundred,
probably a little less. And now that I have made some-
thing of an attempt at counting them, seen to their em-
ployment, shown that their business affairs must have been
fairly hopeful, explained that they were well provided for
medically, I will close this chapter by introducing their
spiritual guide, and who, by the way, was the first "Irish
Chaplain" in Argentina. Father Burke was his name, and
like his great namesake of the latter half of the Nineteenth
century, he was a Dominican. Santo Domingo Church was
then the Irish Church as San Roque was in years after-
wards. After the Revolution, and on its account, relations
were broken off somewhat between the Pope and the Church
in Argentina and a certain amount of disorganization and
laxity had spread, it appears, amongst some of the orders;
anyhow, on the grounds that such was the case, Rivadavia,
who was Minister of State at the time I speak of, and who

CAMPBELL— O'BRIEN'S SCHEME, ETC. 57

had a bent for regulating everything, had a law made to
regulate the Church, and this regulating was so planned that
it soon amounted to the suppression of all the orders of
priests and nearly all the communities of nuns. The
Dominican monastery shared the fate of the others, of
course; but Love, an Englishman who wrote a little book
on Buenos Aires in 1825, mentions Fr. Burke, the Domini-
can, as being allowed to remain in his monastery "from
motives of kindness." To me, however, it would seem that
he was left to attend to the spiritual needs of the Irish
Catholics. Brown, O'Brien, Dillon and many others had
rendered great service to the patriots in the struggle for
freedom, they were practical Catholics and leaders among
their people, they would have had no hesitation in demand-
ing, as a concession, that the Irish Chaplain be left to at-
tend to the Irish people, and the authorities would grant
their so reasonable request without a moment's pause.
Love was a typical Englishman and hated to admit that
the Irish were of any consequence or consideration in Buenos
Aires, or anywhere else, hence his "motives of kindness" to
Fr. Burke. As an instance of his hostility to our people
I will take the case of two Irish doctors who were practicing
their profession in the city without the necessary local
diplomas. They were summoned before the Medical Board
and forbidden to practice further until they could satisfy
the Board that they were duly qualified. One of them. Dr.
Henry Donelly, stood up at this point, put on his hat and
told the Board of Examiners that he had a very small
opinion of them. The official gentlemen felt offended, of
course, had recourse to the law and the offender was ordered
to quit the country at once, and to never return. The
Englishman tells the story as though it was a sort of street
brawl, and speaks of the two doctors as "the Paddies"; but
Oughan and Lepper being men of high importance are just,
Britishers, with him. In his reference to Father Burke he
says he is over seventy years of age and "mucli esteemed
by the British as well as the natives, being divested of those

58 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

prejudices which so often disgrace the cloth." It was in
this same church of Santo Domingo, and by these very
priests who "disgrace the cloth" that the parole-breaking
Englishman, Captain Pack, was shielded, at the risk of their
lives, from the victorious defenders of the city in the second
English invasion. See how the Englishman, writing eighteen
years after, repays the kindness ! However, apart from his
anti-Catholic and anti-Irish bigotry, Love's book is a very
interesting and useful little volume, one of the most so that
I have found as treating of Buenos Aires at that time.
Father Burke may, I believe, be considered the first of the
long and unbroken line of Irish priests who nobly and un-
tiringly devoted themselves to the service of God and their
fellow-countrymen in this land of many dangers and many
handships for the last one hundred years.

CHAPTER V

Sheepfarming, Etc.

THE story of the Irish people in Argentina, so far,
when not one of warfare on the adjacent waters,
in the English invasions, or in the liberating cam-
paigns of the North and West, has been a record of or-
dinary efforts in the battle of life here in Buenos Aires
City. This chapter, however, will treat of a turning point
in their affairs, and will try to trace the first beginnings
of the new industry which it was their good fortune to be
among the earliest, the most persevering, and most suc-
cessful in pursuing, and which has been for them and for
the Republic a source of great wealth and advancement.
I begin the story of our people's connection with sheep-
farming in the year 1824 as that is the earliest at which
I have been able to find proof of Irishmen being engaged
in the business. Although I have no doubt there were Irish-
men employed in tending sheep some years anterior to this
date. However, in 1824 the Government imported more
than one hundred head of merino sheep from the Ramboullet
breeders, with the purpose of improving the native stock.
These animals were purchased by Peter Sheridan, an Irish-
man, and by an Englishman of the name of Harrat, the
two men were in partnership in other lines of business.
Sheridan and his brother had been in the importing and
exporting trade for some time previous to this purchase of
the bred sheep, and evidently must have already made some
start in sheepfarming. Mere merchants would hardly in-
vest a large sum of money in imported rams and ewes
unless they had some practical use for them and a place
wherein to use them.

59

60 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

But neither to the Government nor to Sheridan and his
partner is due the credit of having commenced the improve-
ment of the breeding of sheep in Argentina, but to the North
American, Thomas Lloyd Halsey, who was U. S. Consul
in Buenos Aires in 1813.

The story of this enterprising man's introduction of
fine sheep to the La Plata country has something of ad-
venture in it not usually met with in plain business enter-
prises. Spain was for long the first country in Europe for
the raising of fine stock, as horn-cattle, sheep, asses and
mules, and the exportation of these species, for breeding
uses at least, was guarded against as jealously as was the
loaning of the historic bull of Cooley. Halsey seems to
have had some of Meav's ways with him for he decided,
whatever the Spaniards or their laws might say, he would
have some of their fine sheep on his farm in Buenos Aires
or know the reason why. At considerable risk and great
cost he contrived to get some thirty-five animals across the
Portugese frontier, and shipped to Buenos Aires in 1814.
Smuggling in those days was a profitable business all along
the Spanish frontier, the officers appointed to prevent it
frequently coming out with the largest part of the profits
therefrom. Halsey with this plantel set to raising an en-
tirely new breed of sheep, and by the year 1821 had a
flock of some four hundred superior animals. A camp fire
of the dry cardos, this year, reduced his flock to a number
somewhat less than the original thirty-five of the Tain
Caorach Halsey^ from Spain. Some authorities say that
the campfire in question took place in the year 1819, but
Love, who wrote in '25, says it happened in 1821, and he
is probably the best authority as he wrote so soon after the
mishap. It may be, too, that there were fires in both years.
The farm whereon the destroying fire occurred was at Alto
Redondo, in the partido of Canuelas, about eight leagues
from Buenos Aires. After the misfortune of the fire he
disposed of the survivors to a German of the name of Dwer-
1 Sheep Spoil of Halsey.

SHEEPFARMING, ETC 61

hagan. This man had a farm at Quilmes and thither he
brought his new stock to try his luck in the enterprise in
which the American had been so unfortunate. By 1825,
four or five years after the purchase, his score-and-a-half
merinos had increased to the figure at which the cardo fire
had found Halsey's flock after six years of patient care.
The German then sold half his precious upbringing to a
company of men deeply interested in the improvement of
the breed of sheep, whose names were, Aguirre, Rojas and
Haedo. These gentlemen took their portion to Corrientes,
and Dwerhagan, because of the coarseness of the then
Buenos Aires camps, brought his to Santa Fe. Canuelas,
Ranchos, San Vicente and the further out partidos were all
pajonales then, and water from natural sources was too
scarce to make these districts suitable for sheep breeding.
The balde sin fundo, that simple, but, to the early sheep-
farmer, invaluable invention, had not yet come to make the
want of streams on a sheep run so small a consideration.
If the dry thistles had played with Dwerhagan the same
pitiless trick with which they disheartened Halsey he would
have been a fortunate man; instead he succeeded sufficiently
to be tempted to go northwards with his portion of what
I may call the enchanted sheep, for such they would seem.
All kinds of bad luck followed the little flock to Santa Fe,
and after enduring hardships and disappointments that
would drive anyone but a German to the most unconditional
abandonment of the enterprise, Dwerhagan gathered up the
remnants of his fairy flock and brought them to Uruguay.
All the further information I have been able to glean relative
to this portion of the Tain Halsey is that the animals
dwindled down and scattered into other flocks, and that poor
Dwerhagan went bankrupt.

The company of three who set their hopes for success
in the territory of Corrientes struggled on somewhat longer.
Haedo became disheartened, returned to Buenos Aires and
was very successful in other lines of business. His com-
rades later on sought to return with the remnant of their

62 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

fine, and now very travelled and experienced merinos, but
having reached the northern part of the Province of Buenos
Aires they found the Lavalle-Dorrego revolution in strenu-
ous progress, their peones deserted the ill-starred animals
and these drifted into other points of sheep here and there
on the camp, some were stolen for meat, some were drowned,
all were lost to Aguirre and Rojas, but they improved the
breed of sheep up around the Arroyo del Medio, and that's
the best that can be said of them.

But even before Halsey's venture sheepbreeding was at-
tracting some attention, for the "Telegraf Mercantil" in
1802 had some criticisms on the abundance of wool and how
little it was being taken advantage of. The following is a
translation of a paragraph: "Sheep stock which is in
abundance in this district is not appreciated as it deserves.
Owners contenting themselves with shearing the little which
they need for home consumption and an occasional little
lot to be shipped to Misiones. This is all the use that is
made of it; its usual value being from six to eight royales
the arroba." Later in the same year another paper, the
"Semanario de Agricultura," had an article on the improve-
ment of wool by cross-breeding, so the possibilities of the
industry were, at least, being considered. The wars and
troubles in the mother-country, the English invasions, fol-
lowed so soon by the Revolution gave native enterprise
other things to think of and turn to for many years after,
and gave to foreigners the opportunity of establishing this,
Argentina's greatest industry in the nineteenth century.

We have seen already that shipments of wool had been
made from the Plate country in Colonial times. Parish,
who is a good authority on statistical matters, writes that
in 1822 there were exported from Buenos Aires 33,417
arrobas of wool, worth one dollar per arroba; in 1829,
30,000 arrobas at same price. In 1837 the export had
risen to 164,706 arrobas, and the price to two dollars per
arroba. It can be seen from these figures that there was
a considerable trade in wool before the end of the first

SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 63

quarter of the nineteenth century. And without the statis-
tics quoted this fact could be reasoned out from the efforts
of Halsey and the Government to improve the quality of
the wool. Parish further says: "To the late Mr. Peter
Sheridan and Mr. Harrat Buenos Aires is indebted for
this new source of wealth which bids fair to rival in im-
portance the most valuable of her old staple products."
No doubt Sheridan and Harrat were the two most success-
ful and enterprising men in the sheep-raising business the
country had in the early Twenties, and their care and skill
did much to establish it secure and permanently, but they
were not the founders of the industry. In so far as I can
find out this honor, as well as that of founding the first
daily newspaper of the country, belongs to Americans,
Halsey, in the one case, and Hallet in the other. And as
Hallet made the first Irish- Argentine journalist so I believe
did Halsey make the first Irish-Argentine sheepfarmer.
When the business had grown to enormous extent and pro-
portioned to the Republic immense wealth, of course, it was
the duty of the English Minister, as a true Englishman,
and in consonance with English principle, to claim the honor
of it for subjects of the English Monarch. This writer
remarks that when he arrived in Buenos Aires, in 1823,
sheep carcases were "used for little else than fuel for brick
kilns." This statement is rather sweeping, and I am in-
clined to think that if the author of it saw such a use
being made of the carcases of sheep they must have been
those of animals that died from the effects of long drought
or a bad rain-storm. For at that time there were several
gracerias where it would surely be more profitable to turn
them into grease than to dispose of them as fuel for brick-
making. And again, the people by this time must have
had an appetite for mutton, as in 1821 Governor Rodriguez
issued a decree forbidding the slaughter of cows, as cattle
were getting scarce, which would suggest that beef must
have been, consequently, too dear for common use amongst
the poor. And as the people were always great meat-eaters

64 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

one can imagine that mutton, however despised by the
Argentine in happier circumstances, could now find more
worthy use than that of baking bricks.

Although it can be gathered from the foregoing that
sheepfarming was already under way, not for many years
yet had it become the principal employment of the Irish
immigrant, but there is found from about this time, 1826,
frequent mention of men of Irish names going landward
from the city, presumably as herdsmen and corral-makers.
Already a considerable number of Irishmen had come down
from the United States, probably attracted by the favor-
able reports on prospects in the new republic published,
some time before, by the Commission sent to Buenos Aires
in 1818 by the Washington Government. Several of our
most prominent Irish-Argentine families, at the present
time, are sprung from those immigrants who came from the
United States in the Twenties. Love, in the book already
referred to, speaks of having met many of these Irishmen,
naturalized citizens of the United States, or what he calls
"Irish Yankees," and he does not forget to mention how
heartily they all hated England.

Before turning away from the years I have been deal-
ing with principally in this chapter, I will select a few items
of interest met with in the advertisements of the "Gaceta
Mercantil," Hallet's paper, in its two first years, '23 and
'24: The Sheridan Brothers' establishment was at 13
Chacabuco; Thomas Armstrong was also importing and
exporting; William Buteler and Anthony Lynch had trains
of freight and passenger carts trading with the interior of
the country; John F. Kennedy bought a beached ship from
Stuart and M'Call; Lynch and Zimmerman made up a new
partnership ; the Argentine brig "Porteiio Libre" sailed for
Rio de Janeiro with freight and passengers under command
of Captain Edward Gahan; in a benefit given in the Theater
of Buenos Aires, in November, Signor Ricciolini and his
wife performed the tragedy, "Oscar hijo de (Son of)
Oisin"; Tomas O'Gorman had a square of land for sale in

SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 65

front of the Retiro ; Captain Shannon was in command of
the mail boat plying with Montevideo (probably the same
who was one of Brown's officers). The agitation for
Catholic Emancipation is, apparently from reports in the
papers, growing steadily in Ireland, and it is striking how
much the tactics of the Orange element then resemble those
had recourse to lately against Home Rule. Here is an
example quoted from the "Dublin Star" : "A certain priest
tried to exorcise an evil spirit from a man of the name of
Halloran by plucking out his tongue. Halloran, of course,
died and the priest was suspended for three months." Not
too unlike the M'Cann case of a few years ago. The priest's
name is not given in either instance. It was a rather crude
political sensation, but it worked all right with the Orange-
men, who do not usually use their wits, if they have any.
Indians were on the warpath around Lujan, Carmen de
Areco and Salto this year. Curitipai was the name of their
chief, he also did some fairly successful raiding in the
neighborhood of Arrecifes towards the close of the year.
At 57 Calle Victoria there was a double child on show that
had but one chest, although it had two bellies, four legs,
four arms and two heads. It was born in Uruguay on
June 24, 1824, of South American parents, minors of age.
The mother was confined without any nurse assistance, and
was then in good health — the notice is headed, "Fenomeno."
It may be asked: what have these last items to do with
the story of the Irish in Argentina? and I answer, nothing
at all, but they interested me when I met them, and feeling
they may similarly interest my readers, I place them at their
disposal.

CHAPTER VI

1825-1829 — Dr. Oughan and the British Minister — " Irish Yankees "
— Cranwell Irish Chemist — Kiernans, Astronomer and Editor —
More Brown Victories — Oughan Again — Irish in the Camps — ^King,
the Scot and the Gael — Miscellaneous — Government Honors
Brown — Westmeath and Wexford Men, ctc.

ALTHOUGH it in no way relates to the story of the
Irish people and their descendants in Argentina,
" I think it well that I should begin this chapter by
recording, to the credit of the young nation, that full
liberty to all sects to adore "Almighty God," as the edict
has it, was decreed during the Supreme Directorship of
Las Heras, the good General and good Governor. It was
an act that all true Argentinos should be proud of, and
as I am writing for Argentinos, why not remind them of it?
Early in January Dr. Oughan's furniture was sold in
public auction under orders of the English Minister.
Oughan, it appears, had made himself objectionable to the
English residents, and the English representative had him
confined in a hospital as a lunatic, and in due time shipped
to England — queer things could be done then in Buenos Aires.
Love says, "some eccentricity in his conduct" occasioned
the deportation. His house was in Calle Catedral, now
San Martin. When he got home he instigated proceed-
ings at law against the Consul, in the high courts, and got
judgment in his favor. Soon after he returned to Buenos
Aires, and, as we shall see, made things rather unpleasant
for both the English Legation people and himself. David
H. Connell was carrying on an extensive saddlery business.
Somebody had been trying to coax his apprentice to leave
him before his apprenticeship was fully served and Connell

66

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 67

offered a reward of one hundred decimos for the identifica-
tion of this somebody. Admiral Brown had his house on
the Barracas Road advertised for sale ; it had about twenty
acres of ground to it. John Dillon had his stores at what
is now Bolivar and Calvo Streets. Mr. McKenna, fresh
from London and the United States, opened a tailor shop
at 25 de Mayo 15 ; he was probably one of Mr. Love's
"Irish Yankees." The Government sent out doctors this
year to vaccinate, in all directions; every town and settle-
ment in all the Province was visited. Edward Joseph Cran-
well, an Irishman, after passing two examinations, was
authorized by the Medical Board to practice pharmacy and
was thenceforward recognized a professor therein. But the
most remarkable event in my chronicle for this year is the
discovery by Bernard Kiernan of his first comet. Kiernan
was a native of the county of Derry and before coming to
this country had lived for some years in North America.
He seems to have devoted himself almost wholly to
astronomy, and I find him going to Cordoba soon after
this discovery, presumably to avail himself of the better
facilities for observation which the institutions and location
of that city afforded. He compiled several almanacs and
was employed by the Government as professor of astronomy
and mathematics. Later he removed to Soriano in Uru-
guay; his wife's name was Mary Devlin, and his eldest son,
James, in 1830, became chief editor of Hallet's paper, "La
Gaceta Mercantil," and a couple of years later a partner
with the founder in its ownership. The "Gaceta" has an
article, October, 1825, on Kiernan's discovery which con-
cludes thus: "We cannot close this article without render-
ing thanks to Mr. Kiernan for the information he has
supplied us with, and we hope he will continue to favor us
in this way. We shall always find it a pleasure to publish
whatever intelligence he may be pleased to let us have. Al-
though at present it may be that it interests few, never-
theless, we flatter ourselves that the time is not remote when
the study of the noble science of astronomy will be more

68 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

general and of more interest to the many. This gentleman,
moved by a laudable zeal for the promotion of this science,
is preparing the result of his observations with the purpose
of remitting them to the Greenwich astronomical institu-
tion, for there is an opportunity here of studying the
phenomenon now which there they have not."

1826. Glorious as were the triumphs of Brown in the
war of independence his feats this year almost minimize
them into pettiness. In the campaign against the Span-
iards I did not follow the Admiral from battle to battle,
nor from cruise to cruise, as to pursue such a course, and
to treat all the details of those homeric years in the career
of the illustrious Mayoman would demand a volume not
less bulky than what I have designed this whole work should
be. Nor do I propose to sketch in even a small way the
numerous engagements in which he wreathed in everlasting
fame the naval banner of Argentina, and made his own name
a foremost one among famous seamen.

The year was but a few days old when the Government
called Brown once more into action. A mighty Brazilian
fleet was in front of the city, holding up all commerce in
a manner the most ruthless and defiant. David going forth
to meet Goliath was, to all appearance, a much more even
match for his antagonist than Brown standing out in his
schooner to battle with Lobo and his numerous and pow-
erful ships. The first clash with the Imperial forces was
on January 15, and resulted in the Argentine Admiral re-
turning to port with the prize of a warship and a transport
captured from the enemy. This daring and brilliant feat
of seamanship was accomplished under the full gaze of the
people of the City, assembled along the shore and on the
house-tops. It was something in the form of a reconnoiter-
ing raid affected while a few ships were being made ready
for the real contest. Early in February the little fleet,
consisting of six ships and a dozen small boats manned by
six or seven hundred men, being ready, Brown attacked the
blockading squadrons. As happened on other occasions,

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 69

some of his captains played him false, leaving the brunt of
the engagement to the flagship and two others. After in-
flicting severe damage on the enemy ships the Argentine fleet
returned to port and the Admiral had the three betraying
captains discharged from the service. They were Azopardo,
Bouzley and Warms. Within a few days he had his forces
organized again, but when he went forth anew the enemy
quickly retired to safer quarters. He came in with the
Brazilians near Colonia and in the engagement both com-
batants suffered serious loss ; but at Martin Garcia he once
more triumphed and seized considerable booty. Again, in
March, the blockaders appeared before Buenos Aires, and
again did Brown's men fail him in the hour of need. May
brought several battles and on Independence Day, the
glorious 25th, in full view of the citizens of the Capital,
he inflicted another tremendous defeat on the enemy who
fled pursued by the Argentine ships. Next month the
Brazilians returned to the fight and were again defeated,
this time more hopelessly than ever before. But the Im-
perial forces were not yet prepared to give in and July
closed with a renewal, in great strength, of the blockade,
and the battling and blockading continues on through the
rest of the year. Brown's next move was in the order of
that of Scipio and while the Imperial ships were tossing
idly on the bosom of the Plate he suddenly appeared before
Rio de Janeiro in a most threatening mood. He cap-
tured and sunk many enemy ships, returning to Buenos
Aires with his prizes towards the end of the year. It is
noticeable that twelve years previously, when the Argentine
Navy was founded, all its commanders were men of Irish,
Enghsh or Scotch names; now fully one-half are men of
Spanish descent, while the crews are almost entirely of the
country-born. Not one of the captains of the campaign
against the Spaniards is any more to be found on the
Argentine decks. Michael Brown, the Admiral's brother,
who distinguished himself in the campaign of the Pacific,
and who rescued the Admiral when he fell into the hands

70 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of the Spaniards at Guayaquil, when last heard of was in
Brazil. He commanded the Hercules on the trip to Gala-
pagos and homewards around the Horn. Owing to danger
of falling into the hands of a Spanish fleet reported to be
in the estuary of the Plate the Hercules proceeded on the
venturesome trip to the West Indies. On this trip Brown
had an adventure with the EngHsh, out of which he came
with great credit, and wherein he made the English officers
look extremely stupid and incompetent. Michael Brown
being in weak health was put on shore at Rio Grande; W.
D. Chitty, the Admiral's brother-in-law, replacing him in
the command of the boat. It would seem that Michael
returned to Ireland after this, for the Admiral visited a
brother there in the Famine Year.

In July the Argentine Ladies presented the Admiral
with a flag in recognition of his great services and as a
token of gratitude. Seiiora Maria Sanchez de Mandeville
in making the presentation said:

"Sir: Full of admiration and enthusiasm for your con-
duct in the deed of the 11th of June, the Argentine Ladies
have decorated this banner and elected me to offer it to
you in their name as a small but sincere expression of their
gratitude. They hope it will accompany you in the battles
you have yet to wage in defense of our country."

Brown made no effort to reply in any grand oratorical
flourish, but it would be hard to find words to fit the man
and the occasion better than the few he used, and which
were to the effect that, he highly prized the flag and that
it would never be lowered unless the mast it floated from
fell, or the ship that bore it went to the bottom.

J. H. Duffy through the "Gaceta" cautions people not
to believe some calumny which evil-doers were circulating
about him, and promises soon to disprove it. He had some
question with the captain of an American ship, wrecked on
the coast of Patagonia, as to its cargo. The Argentine
authorities interfered on Duffy's behalf to prevent the
cargo being sold. Francis Lynch is still Captain of the

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 71

Port and has just been acting something of the censor. He
has had to severely reprimand the newspapers for giving
out news about the fleet which was useful to the enemy —
very much like what we have been reading in the cables from
Europe regularly for the last couple of years. An inter-
esting advertisement is one which Mr. Palmer has in the
"Gaceta" to the effect that he has some whitethorn quicks,
just imported, for sale. The growing of this kind of tree
must have proved a failure, for in my time in the country
I have seen but two such trees and they are not yet twenty
years old, and they have to be watered frequently in the
dry weather, to even keep them alive. John Dillon the
rich merchant died in September. His wife was a native
or a Spaniard, and she had a great funeral Mass celebrated
for him in San Telmo church. Mulhall, under the heading
"Public Men of English Descent," had this to say of him:
"John Dillon, Commissioner General of Immigration in the
Argentine Republic, is son of an Irish gentleman of the
same name, who came to Buenos Aires in 1807, and estab-
lished a saladero at Montevideo, as well as a flotilla of
schooners for river traffic. He was the first to start a
brewery in Buenos Aires, for which purpose he brought out
workmen and machinery from Europe. During the war of
Independence he lent his vessels free of charge to the patriot
Government, and was allowed all the privileges usually re-
served at that time to native citizens." There are some
who say that this John Dillon was born in Spain, and the
fact that he started an extensive business in Buenos Aires
in Colonial times goes to strengthen this assertion. He left
two sons who will be heard of further on.

James Fitzsimmons, another of Love's "Irish Yankees,"
advertises a great machine he has for cleaning and grinding
grain. John O'Reilly asks people to whom he owes anything
and people who owe him to come and settle up accounts.
There was a race held at Barracas in November and the name
of the winning horse was "Shamrock," owned by Mr. Whit-

72 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

field. In view of the name of the horse we may suppose
Whitfield to be an Irishman.

1827 finds Brown still the first figure of the times.
If last year commenced all hope and expectancy in the one
man believed to be capable of coping with the perilous situa-
tion then threatening, this year opens in aU the wild en-
thusiasm of hopes and expectations realized. But deeds of
greater glory than any so far recorded were soon to crown
the hero of so many triumphs and of not one single defeat.
The day of Juncal, February 9, saw destroyed a splendid
Brazilian fleet and added some dozen units to the Argen-
tine navy; the enemy Admiral was a prisoner with only two
ships of a fleet of 18 sail escaping. Two weeks later, off
Quilmes, another Brazilian fleet saved itself from utter de-
struction by flight.

The story of Brown's naval career reads more like a
romance of an enchanted knight or a champion equipped
with magic weapons and armor than of that of a man in
real life having to do with real men. He seemed to be able
to win great victories under any and all circumstances and
conditions. If ever a man was a host in himself, and an
unconquerable one at that, Brown was that man. No won-
der that a people so patriotic, so enthusiastic and so
generous-souled as the Argentinos should give way to the
wildest outbursts of rejoicing when such a hero returned to
them, the spreading expanse of their mighty river speckled
over with the numerous trophies of his battles. Lopez de-
scribes the reception accorded to the great victor on his
return from the Brazilian campaign as follows :

" The scene which took place in the city is indescribable. The
whole people maddened with the fever of triumph, rushed to the
streets and the river side with bands of music and banners to receive
Brown, who was momentarily expected to step on shore. Numbers
of skiffs had gone out to the anchorage of the squadron to receive the
victor mariner, and bear him to the shore making the welkin ring with
their thunderous cheers, when freshening a southern breeze the boat
in which the hero was coming was borne to the beach at the Recoleta.

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 73

There rushed the multitude and instantly raising him on their shoulders
carried him without his once touching earth to the Almeda.

The Port Captaincy and the adjacent streets were thronged with
enthusiastic crowds; and so in the arms of the whole people who
poured blessings on him he was borne to the aristocratic caf6, the
Victoria, where he remained an hour, durmg which time the people
acclaimed him untiringly. From there he was taken to his dwelling
in a carriage drawn by the people." (V. 10, p. 111.)

Thomas and John P. Armstrong returned to Buenos
Aires in February after a visit to the old country. By the
same ship Dr. John Oughan sent a pamphlet accusing
various personages in high places of having tried on two
occasions to poison him. There is something strange in
this case. Oughan, as already stated, was sent home as a
man demented, and his effects sold by the English Consul.
The head doctor of the hospital where he was confined re-
fused to give a certificate that he was insane, on the con-
trary he stated that Dr. Oughan was then, and always had
been, in his right mind. The other doctors said he was not
and made out the documents to that effect. The pamphlet
he published has a lot of revelations reflecting so badly on
some of the high society people that a person writing in the
"Gaceta" asks the public to suspend judgment on the
matter for some time. There were a number of very bitter
articles and letters in the papers against Oughan for some
weeks, and so talked of was the subject of the pamphlet
that it was commonly referred to as the "question of the
day." The Doctor returned while the "question" was in
its most exciting stage and was arrested at the instance of
the English Minister, Lord Ponsonby. It is remarkable
that all the anti-Oughan letters in the press are anony-
mous; but this much can be deduced from the correspond-
ence: his chief enemies are Ponsonby, English Minister,
and Parish and Passet, Consul and Vice-Consul, respec-
tively, and that the authorities were not treating him as
the law demanded, but rather as the Minister of England
wanted. The case has become of such public importance

74 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

by the beginning of May that he has to be released and
is given a passport to Chili. He had some very staunch
friends as well as bitter enemies. Dr. John Sullivan was
also interested in the case, and favored Oughan; the alleged
insane Doctor showed very few signs of insanity in the
manner in which he conducted his case.

People entering and leaving Buenos Aires at this time
had to report their movements to the authorities — Riva-
davia being at the head of affairs he was bound to have
everybody and everything duly tagged and pigeon-holed.
This formality, doubtless, caused a good deal of grumbling
and objection for the trouble it occasioned, but it turns
out to be a very useful thing as affording a record of
arrivals and departures to and from Buenos Aires of people
of whom otherwise we would scarcely have ever heard.
Thus we find that in May, 1827, Daniel Mackey went to
Entre Rios; Edward Hore and John Norris went to Chas-
comus; in the next month Michael Cromley and Patrick
Whalen followed Hore and Norris, and two months later
Matt Smith took the same course while Stephen Donnelly
went to Canalones. Earlier in the same year Frank Parker
left for San Pedro, and at the same time Thomas Jones
reported himself as bound for Baradero. These were un-
doubtedly Irishmen and were probably amongst the first
of our people who went to work at any great distance out-
side the city; they were some of the first real camp Irish.
It is true, however, that Irishmen had gone, for one cause
or another, to many points in the interior some years
previous to the time I write of. I have already referred
to Campbell and his friends in Corrientes, and the men of
Irish names in San Nicolas with Carrera and Alvear.
Colonel King tells a story of meeting an Irishman and a
Scotchman in San Juan in the early Twenties, and the
meeting was a rather unfortunate thing for the Colonel.
As his account of the affair is very short I will give it in
substance here; it conveys a moral, too, that it would be no
harm for us to bear in mind even in quieter and much less

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 75

strenuous times than were those of the Colonel in his Cuyo
days. King had been a soldier of the Government; his side
had suffered a defeat which had scattered their forces be-
yond reorganization; he was trying to make his way back
to Buenos Aires or to get in touch with the Government
army at the nearest point, and so was travelling in dis-
guise, for he was in the enemy country. In conversation
he told all this to a friendly Scotchman whose acquaintance
he had made in the town, while taking his bearings. One
day, the two friends having a walk, they met an Irishman,
a neighbor and acquaintance of the Scot; they all became
good friends and continued the walk. A discussion got up
between the two neighbors which became so very hot that
the Irishman challenged the Scot to fight him over it; the
canny one refused, but the law v/as called in to regulate the
matter. The American was the only witness and his evi-
dence, as the Irishman was completely in the right, had the
effect of casting the Scot in the suit. Next day the Colonel
was arrested as an enemy in disguise, a sort of spy, and
narrowly escaped being shot ; he was detained for a long
time and suffered great hardships; he was too confiding.
The moral is, never tell things about yourself or anybody
else that you do not need to tell.

A Major Furnier was court-martialled in August for
seizing an English ship. Francis Lynch defended the
Major, and did it so well that the court entirely approved
Furnier's action. Thomas O'Gorman had a law-suit with
his brother-in-law about the possession of a house, the court
favored O'Gorman, but there is a long argument in the
newspapers about it. Michael Rourke, an Irishman, was
stabbed by a woman on the night of the 25th of May; but
Michael did not think of telling the police about his mishap
until the latter part of July, following, at which time the
police explained that the lady of the knife had disappeared.
Charles O'Gorman and Patrick Hamilton made distinguished
passes in the Gimnasio Argentino. Mr. Duffy and two
partners, Sissons and Taylor, were buying and selling

76 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

estancias, houses and lands, in their offices at 57 Chacabuco ;
at this time it is common to meet with advertisements for
men and their wives to go work on estancias.

With the exception of the more or less well defined and,
in ordinary weather, fairly passable highways to Mendoza
and Cordoba the Province of Buenos Aires was, in 1828,
without what we now call public roads. Shallows and safe
passes on the rivers were known to the professional guides
and to the engineer department of the army, but the or-
dinary man who left the Capital to go to Chascomus, Monte,
Mercedes, Areco or Baradero, had no more idea of the
course he had to take to get to his destination than had
Ponce de Leon of the direct course to the Land of Perpetual
Youth when he set out to find that coveted region. There
was no such thing as a beaten path over the camp; there
were no such things as bridges over the rivers, and the
passes that last year or last month were fordable might
in the meantime have so shifted or modified themselves, with
heavy floods or a fall in the current, as to be no longer safe.
All this made communications with the new towns and settle-
ments not on the principal highways exceedingly slow and
costly. Efforts, however, were being made by the authorities
and by private enterprise to cope with these difficulties, and
early in this year a meeting was held at the Sala de Comercio
Argentino to devise means whereby to establish quick and
regular communications with the Salado district. Mr. Duify
was one of the men who urged this scheme. The enterprise
must have been very warmly taken up, for, within a few
weeks, a mail passenger coach started on its first trip to
Chascomus and Salado, making the journey in two days
and having accommodation for twelve passengers. William
Orr, who, I believe, was an Irishman, and a very well-known
business man of Buenos Aires, was elected one of the
Directors of the National Bank. Charles O'Donnell adver-
tised himself as an architect and engineer who was ready
to do all kinds of surveying. The Court of Commerce made
a licensed broker of Adolfo O'Gorman, son of O'Gorman

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 77

who came from France. Sabino O'Donnell was professor
of French in the University.

The question on which Brazil and Argentina had come
to blows, although being negotiated, was still unsettled, and
so sound a diplomat was Brown that he knew that one of
the best arguments that Argentina could have at the peace
council was a good strong navy in prime battle trim. So
he set too to put his st3^1e of diplomacy in action by start-
ing a subscription for the purchase and equipment of addi-
tions to the navy. His own subscription was one thousand
dollars, and his two boys, William and Edward, then at
school, gave twenty dollars each. There are not very many
Irish names on the list of subscribers, but our old friend.
Dr. John Oughan, is in line with one hundred and fifty
dollars. The subscription call was being very well re-
sponded to when peace terms were arrived at between the
two combatants. I should note before passing from this
event in the Admiral's career that a short while previously
the Government decreed special premiums for him and his
men in the following grateful and generous terms :

The naval forces at the command of General WilHam Brown, sent
to dislodge the enemy who occupied one of the interior riverS have
castigated the proud flag of Brazil and fixed the domination of the
Uruguay and Parana in his campaign of sixty days; and especially
in the brilliant deeds of the 8th and 9th of February, last, the Govern-
ment appreciating in their full value services so distinguished and
glorious, wish that the Chief of the fleet may be able to maintain the
dignity and elevation to which his talents and merits raised him,
and that the crews of the ships receive a proportional benefit to his.
In consequence, the President of the Republic has agreed to and
decrees: — Art. 1, The General-in -chief of the Fleet, Don Guillermo
Brown, shall receive in public funds the sum of twenty thousand
dollars as a premium to perpetuate the advantages of his merit.

James J. Grogan and R. W. Peacock joined in partner-
ship to carry on the business of Sutton and Gregory; they
had also an importing business in Valparaiso.

The four years, the record of which I close with this

78 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

chapter, were very important ones in the founding of the
Irish-Argentine colony. In these years arrived in Buenos
Aires the two men to whom, it is said, may be attributed
the early coming of so many emigrants from the Counties
of Westmeath and Wexford — John Mooney and Patrick
Browne, respectively. What particularly induced Mooney
to come to Buenos Aires, I have not heard, but Browne
came, in the year 1827, representing a Liverpool commer-
cial house, and replacing his elder brother who had filled
that position for some couple of years previously. Browne
soon went into business entirely on his own account, and
was one of the first Irishmen to establish a saladera. It
would appear he had two of these concerns, as it is stated
by Mulhall that he had one at what is now the Plaza Once,
while I have often heard some old Irishmen say that they
worked in his saladera at North Barracas. Although busi-
ness affairs went bad with him in his later life he was very
successful in the early years, and brought out and en-
couraged to come out a great many of his fellow- Wexford-
men, and always befriended them loyally. Mooney settled
here about the same time and soon with his neighbor and
son-in-law, Patrick Bookey, were the most extensive em-
ployers of Irishmen in the country. Mooney, like Browne,
brought out many men from his own neighborhood and the
fame of the good progress of these of course influenced
others, till within ten or fifteen years the preponderance of
Westmeathmen in the Irish-Argentine colony was strikingly
noticeable.

Another very well-known Irishman of those days was
Bartholemew Foley, a Meathman who came in 1825. He
was a man of good education and something of a leader
among his countrymen. He took part with O'Brien in
organizing a movement to demand Catholic Emancipation,
in 1829, and in the early Forties founded a Repeal Club.
When Father Fahey formed the Irish Hospital Committee,
in 1848, Foley was its Secretary, and in the establishment
of the Irish Convent he took an active part; he was, too, I

DR. OUGHAN AND THE BRITISH MINISTER 79

believe, the first Irish broker in Buenos Aires. He had two
sons, a daughter of one of whom was regarded as the lead-
ing beauty of Buenos Aires in her day, and who married a
nephew of the one and only Rosas. In speaking of remark-
able Irishmen of that time I must not forget Patrick
Donohue who walked most of the way from New York to
Chili and from there across the Andes to Buenos Aires,
arriving here in 1827, at the age of about forty-five years.
He was a Kilkennyman and a great seannachie. He could
repeat all the stories he ever heard, and had, as might be
expected, from his strange travels, many wonderful experi-
ences of his own, and related them with great picturesque-
ness. He reached the age of 85.

CHAPTER VII

1829-1840 — O'Brien and Emancipation — Local Politico — Brown Gover-
nor— Kiernan's Second Comet — The First Irish Chaplain — The
Irish in Business — Strange and Instructive Newspaper Corre-
spondence— Irish Tax-payers — Comings and Goings of Irishmen
— Wool-raising — Land Tenure — Miscellaneous Items — Father
Michael M'Cartan — Boom in Camp Business — O'Connell and
Galileo — O'Brien and the Two Dictators — Brown Farming — Taxed
Irish — Oughan Goes Home with a Bride, ctc.

POLITICAL affairs in Ireland were very much disturbed
for some years previous to the date at which this
chapter commences. Civil war seemed almost in-
evitable. The Catholics, four-fifths of the people, still
ground down and outraged by the remnants of the atro-
cious Penal Laws still in operation were not in open re-
bellion, only because they had no one to lead them in a
contest with the enemy, and this lack of leaders was the
result solely of the hopelessness of an open struggle with
the Government, under the conditions of the absolutely dis-
armed state of the enslaved and persecuted peasantry. Still
hopeless though such a struggle might be, the people were
so goaded to desperation that an explosion, the conse-
quences of which none could foretell, was possible at any
moment. The Buenos Aires papers printed alarming com-
ments and reports from time to time on the critical condi-
tions. Here is a couple of quotations from the "London
Times": "We tremble for every breeze that blows from
Ireland, and our fears are doubled by every advice we have
from there. Ireland is on the point of being devoured
by civil war." The article goes on to paint the horrors
of the coming strife, closing in these words : "Such are the
calamities inseparable from the struggle provoked by the

80

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 81

Orange Clubs and accepted by the Catholic multitudes who
have nothing of their own to lose and who belong to a race
of men ignorant and impetuous." What an indictment,
unintentional, of course, of English Government in Ireland!
Four-fifths of the people, the native race, having nothing
of their own, and densely ignorant after six hundred years
of English civilizing. Soon after this is published a report
of a great meeting of Protestants in Fermanagh to protest
against giving the Catholics any more liberty. How proud
the Irish Protestants ought to be of themselves, and how
fond the Irish people ought to be of them and their Church!
Does all the world beside provide us anywhere with such a
type of Christians? A great meeting of Protestants to
protest against giving the Catholics any more liberty! And
these Protestants were the followers and disciples of the
Dutch usurper whom Argentine historians have set up as the
great hero of human liberty, beside no less a figure than
George Washington. What fools even brilliant men can
make of themselves when they venture to expatiate on
things they know little or nothing about!

These press reports of the horrible condition of affairs
in the old country were not without their effect on the Irish
residents of Buenos Aires. Our people must have felt par-
ticularly strong and proud at this period, and no doubt
had many friends amongst the leading families of the
Capital, for Admiral Brown, the only foreigners ever so
distinguished, was then Governor of the country. Meetings
were held to devise means of expressing sympathy with and
lending assistance to the people at home; many of the
foremost Argentines of the time identifying themselves
warmly with the cause. The leader in this movement was
General O'Brien, the trusted friend of San Martin, but, of
course, all the prominent Irishmen of the city, Foley, Arm-
strong, Sheridans, the Kiernans, O'Gormans, Oughan and
many others took part in it. The following circular issued
in April, by O'Brien, will give an idea of how closely the
progress of affairs at home was being followed by the exiles

82 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

in Buenos Aires. The circular was issued in English, but I
have been able to get only a Spanish copy of it, which I
translate :

Buenos Aires, April 28, 1829.

Dear Sir: Many respectable persons, friends of the cause of the
Catholics, being of the opinion that ia this session of Parliament will
be decided the great question of Emancipation (although for myself
this is problematical), and in accordance with the desires of these
many friends, and in consequence of the state of disturbance in which
this country finds itself, I have determined to suspend for a few days
my efforts to hasten that very important event. As it is very probable
we shall know the result by the next mail, a meeting will be then
called together, not only of all the Irish, but also of all the friends of
civil and religious liberty, of every coimtry and faith for the purpose of
deliberating upon the most eflScacious way of communicating with
and helping the Universal Irish Association — for Mr. O' Council and
the other principal members of the society, in whom the people have
placed their confidence, have changed the name of the Catholic Asso-
ciation, which in the future will be known by that of the Universal
Irish Association.

The undersigned judges it necessary to give this public announce-
ment of the cause of his present inaction, that his friends may not
suppose that his zeal, in a cause which he never can abandon save with
life itself, has in any way grown tepid.

The undersigned further offers to his friends and the public his
gratitude for the benevolence and liberality which they have mani-
fested on this occasion, and has the honor to be, etc.

J. T. O'Brien.

This movement with the purpose of lending assistance
to their friends at home in their struggle for civil and re-
ligious liberty is the first indication we have of anything
like organization or combination amongst the Irish of
Argentina. That we hear no more of the movement from
that on is explained in the fact that the Emancipation Bill,
as it was popularly called, became law, and that particular
question was more or less settled. The disturbed state of
affairs here in Buenos Aires, to which O'Brien refers, had

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 83

surely not a little to do with the disintegration of whatever
organization or combination may have been getting into
form under O'Brien's leadership. There is no period in the
whole history of the Republic in which its political affairs
were so sad and discouraging as just at this time. Revolu-
tions within revolutions and counter-revolutions were the
order of the day in the city and the provinces, and the
darkest political crime in Argentina's whole story, the
shooting of Governor Dorrego by the insurgent General,
Lavalle, had taken place but a few months previously.
Nearly all the best men in the country seemed to have been
stricken with some uncontrollable mania for rebellion and
disorder. The nation was not yet twenty years old, and
although nearly half that period was occupied by three
fairly orderly and decidedly progressive Directorial terms,
those of Pueyrredon, Rodriguez and Las Heras, the other
ten years, or so, of this period knew more than twenty dif-
ferent Governors and Dictators. Some of these adventurers,
or victims of unfortunate circumstances, as not a few of
them were, scarcely assumed authority when it was wrenched
from them again by another turn of the revolutionary
wheel, a mutiny, a desertion or the coup of some ambitious
military officer. The story is told of an American resident
who, wanting to be a little facetious at the expense of the
Portefios, during one of these quick-revolution seasons used
to open his window every morning, the first thing when he
had got out of bed, and inquire from the first passer-by
that came the way: "Quien manda hoy?" (Who rules
to-day?) The Yankee had been having his fun for some
days before the knowledge of his mode of diversion came
to the man who happened to be ruling that day, but just
as soon as it did get to the ruling one's ears the American
was left no longer in doubt, for he got a polite but very
imperative order to be off Argentine territory before sunset
or take the consequences. He slept that night on an
English gunboat out on the river.

At the period of O'Brien's circular political affairs had

84 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

hardly anything more settled or permanent about them than
in the days of the American's curiosity. Failures for some
few years before this by various leading Argentine public
men to form and maintain a government had led the political
group strongest at the moment in the Capital to name
Admiral Brown, Provisional Governor. Brown knew abso-
lutely nothing about party politics, and many a joke has
been told as to his utter inability to see any difference be-
tween one form of government and another, much less to
have any understanding as to the difference between federal-
ists and unitarians. He was respected by all as a fine type
of frank, upright citizen and good seaman, and the populace
adored him for the things he had done as a sea-fighter; it
was this adoration by the people which the politicians cal-
culated on to keep their side in power. The Admiral would
be Governor in the eyes of the people, but in the govern-
ment, they, the politicians, would govern the Governor.
Lopez dealing with the selection of Brown for Governor
writes in his history, V. 10, p. 362:

"Brown was named Governor in the supposition that he
was one of the great favorites of the people. So he had
been, in effect, during the years of the Brazilian blockade.
But neither then nor after was he anything more than a
play toy, without contact with the parties or with political
passions. Away from his ships Brown was in every way
useless. In the streets he was to all an object of affec-
tionate curiosity, but on land he was out of place, without
footing. Nobody, in a word, capable of mounting a horse
or handling a rifle would think of sacrificing himself for
the political ideas of Brown. To this may be added that he
was not a daring and insolent adventurer like Cochrane,
but an honest sailor, brave, modest and sober-minded, al-
most timid in his manners ; a sea-lion if you will, but better
a child of the billows, a subject of Neptune opportunely
thrown up by the waves on the shores of Argentina. A
patriot unrivalled in the fight beneath our banner, of a
nature active, flexible, enamored of the country in which

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 85

his glory was won and his future established. So destitute
was he of political talents that he could never really under-
stand whether a republican president or governor was not
just the same thing as a monarch. He served our govern-
ment without bothering what this or that represented, what
it was then or what it was at some other time; and instead
of Castillian he spoke a jargon sui generis in vacillating
phrases that scarcely reached beyond monosyllables. One
thing only had he any fear of: England and her govern-
ment, and two things only did he love, the Argentine flag
and his family. In the position in which the intrigues of
parties had placed him he was a mystification so strange,
that all, in one spontaneous accord, felt the ridiculous ex-
travagance of the invention."

Brown did not in the least ambition the Governorship.
He was too wise a man not to see that the position was
hopelessly beyond the order of his talents. He probably
found it the most unhappy time in all his varied career.
He only accepted it in the hope that he might be useful
to allay the bitter party strife that was threatening the
national ruin, and he retired at once from the position when
he discovered that his hopes were vain; his resignation ap-
peared on the same day as O'Brien's circular. Although
his term in the Governorship added no luster to his already
great name, his satisfying none of the parties surprised or
annoyed nobody, and it lessened or changed the people's
veneration for him not in the least.

James McCarty commenced the year advertising a won-
derful new apparatus for making soda-water which he has
installed in his "Sun Tavern" at 25 de Mayo No. 15. He
promises to make soda-water with this machine "superior
to anything of the kind hitherto in the city." The Ameri-
can Consul seeks to have Daniel Kilpatrick, John Mallison
and Michael Whelen arrested for having mutinied on board
the American ship "Rebecca," and having carried away
some of her belongings. Messrs. William Murphy and John
Barra are empowered to transact all F. S. Barra's business

86 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

while he is absent in Chili. Among the fifteen land-holders
named a commission to establish a rural police is Benito
Lynch. Domingo CuUen of Santa Fe was on a visit to
Buenos Aires, he was then high in Santafecino politics and
represented his government at the National Capital where
he was very heartily welcomed. This year Santiago
Kiernan became chief editor of the "Gaceta Mercantil,"
he had been some five years on the staff of the paper and
was still a very young man.

Early in March, 1830, Bernard Kiernan discovered his
second comet, of which he gives a full description in the
papers. It was near the most southerly nebulas, which is
known as "El Sud." Kiernan was not without his op-
ponents and jealous neighbors, and these people often gave
expression to their feelings in the press of their day. But
his son being the editor of the principal daily paper left him
pretty much at ease in so far as answering his critics went.
The following letter which he published in the "Gaceta" of
March 22, will, I am sure, interest many:

Senores Editores de la Gaceta Mercantil: It came to my notice
sometime since that the prediction in my almanac of an extraordinary
rise in the river on the days 23, 24 and 25 of the present month has had
the effect of inspiring fears of a great inundation amongst certain of
the credulous and less instructed of the people. I did not, however,
feel it incumbent upon me to dispel such extravagant ideas, which could
in no manner be justified from the plain and unequivocal terms in
which my announcement was made. But now that Senor Masotte
has commenced this task I must declare that the principles which he
sets out in the " Lucero " of to-day are the same as those on which
I started in my calculations, and which, consequently, make his
deductions correct. There is, therefore, no reason to fear any prejudi-
cial consequences from the causes which combine to produce a tide
somewhat higher than the ordinary in the days mentioned, unless the
wind conspires against us. I am yours, etc.

Bernard Kiernan.

The second comet was a great deal talked of and written
about, and Kiernan seems to have studied it very closely ancj

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 87

patiently ; his description of it in the "British Packet" is able
and comprehensive.

The first Irish Chaplain who came to the country, really
as such, was Father Patrick Moran, a priest of the Arch-
diocese of Dublin. He had a very tedious voyage, for al-
though he left Dublin in November he did not reach Buenos
Aires till the following February. His death occurred on
one 30th of April, 1830, making his term as Irish Chaplain,
here, of a duration of only fourteen months. The "Gaceta"
refers to his death, editorially, in the following words : "On
the 30th of the month just past. Father Patrick Moran,
a native of Ireland, and Chaplain to the Catholic Irish
resident in this city, died. The deceased had won the sin-
cere esteem of his fellow-countrymen for his untiring zeal
in the discharge of his sacred ministry, and for his dis-
tinguished personal qualities. His loss will be very much
felt, not only among his own people, but amongst many
Argentines who cultivated his friendship. The burial took
place on Saturday with the assistance of a numerous ac-
companiment." Father Burke, the old Dominican, died in
'28, and soon after, within a few months. Father Moran was
sent to fill his place; thus in 1828 the Irish chaplaincies
really commenced, unless it be that Father Burke was sent
by his Order purposely to meet the requirements of the little
congregation of Irish Catholics which began to form in the
city from the day that Beresford surrendered to the
Portefios and Spaniards.

The lesser events of this year may be summarized as
follows: James MacCarthy, the same who had the won-
derful soda fountain and who was then M'Carty, has opened
the hotel, "Tres Reyes" in 25 de Mayo; Grogan and Pea-
cock have taken Edward Morgan into partnership with
them; Daniel Harrington, aged 25 years, died in Septem-
ber; John H. Duffy seems to have gone broke as he calls
all who have accounts pending with him to come to his
private house to try to regulate them in a satisfactory
manner; Mrs. Elena Brady died in October; Mrs. Connel

88 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

keeps her hotel still; Oscar son of Oisin is being staged
again; Thomas Armstrong was one of the commission of
three appointed to oversee the accounts of the National
Bank; Sabino O'Donnell passed an examination in physics
and mathematics for which he got a valuable premium in
books and was mentioned as "surpassing." Mr. Brogan
had a commercial house at Corrientes 67; Mr. Brian had
one at Cuyo MS; James Co34e continues his dry goods and
tailoring business; Mr. Coffey is a merchant, and Patrick
Daly is a grocer. There was another Grogan in business
at Piedras 43'; Richard Higgins had a shop in the Recoba
and also brick kilns out Flores direction; John Terril had
two carpenter-shops in what are now San Martin and
Florida; William Buteler's warehouse was in Piedad 130;
Adolfo O'Gorman, the broker, had his office at 66 Cathedral
St., now San Martin; Peter Bergin was a coach-builder
at 153 Mexico; Lepper and O'Donnell, both Jameses, are
physicians, and John Sullivan is a surgeon — all three Irish-
born. Armstrong and Sheridan are still the big business-
men of our community.

The "Gaceta" tells how the Lord Lieutenant of Ire-
land has proclaimed as dangerous to the peace of the realm
the organization known as the "Society of the Friends of
Ireland," an association of people of all the religious sects,
and that in so doing he has caused great sensation. The
proclamation was made just as soon as O'Connell left Dub-
lin. Several of the old members of the Catholic Association
who had separated from their old chief, seeing the coercive
means adopted, have publicly declared that they will be the
first to sustain the new society, and that the Duke of
Cumberland deceives himself if he hopes to crush by violence
the patriotic spirit of Ireland. The difference of English
rule in Ireland, after 87 years seems to be that then it
was only coercion, now, 1917, it is martial law. In Buenos
Aires a notable difference in this connection is, that the
newspapers then were friendly towards Ireland and the cause
of liberty, they are now for England and massacre. Not

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 89

one of them, save "La Union" and "La Critica" had a
word of protest to utter against England's shooting of the
Dublin patriots last year, nor against the hanging of Case-
ment. Indeed a special correspondent of the "Prensa,"
one Maetzu, went so far as to express the hope that he,
Casement, would not be shown any clemency. It is scarcely
unfair to suppose that something more than mere sympathy
for the Allies was at the bottom of such strange principles
in a republican press. The indifference and want of spirit
of our people here, at the present time, which is very cul-
pable, cannot wholly account for the attitude of the Buenos
Aires press, for whatever individuals or groups of indi-
viduals, may do or neglect to do, the cause of liberty is
always and everywhere the same, and should be as worthy
of, at least, a fair word in Ireland as in Belgium or the
Irredenta. There is, therefore, to my mind, no accounting
for the action of the Buenos Aires press in regard to the
treatment of the Irish patriots by England, in the recent
rebellion, save that said press has been secured to the neces-
sary extent as a part of the English Foreign Service. I
do not desire even to hint that the editors have been taken
in hand and a quid pro quo arrangement made, but we all
know how the constant and very useful friendship of certain
able Argentine lawyers has been secured. There was no
price fixed beforehand for Padilla, Pena and Lima, but they
were good and honored pensioners of the English Govern-
ment from the day of the betrayal of their country to the
day of their death. There are dozens of ways of buying the
sympathy and service of a newspaper besides the plain and
rather unrefined one of going into the office and counting
out the price in gold sovereigns on the editor's or manager's
desk. But to return to my theme, the newspapers of Buenos
Aires, in 1830, were friendly to the cause of Irish liberty,
in 1916 their friendship was for England and Russia, the
destroyers of the liberties of more people than all the other
nations of the world since Rome fell.

For our people the chief event of the next year was the

90 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

coming of Father Patrick J. O'Gorman, as Chaplain. The
Irish community was now of considerable importance and
increasing rapidly. The colony of Irish sought to be estab-
Hshed in Brazil, a little while before, had resulted in failure,
and a number of the colonists had come on to Buenos Aires
where so many of their countrymen were in very prosperous
circumstances, and where a much more agreeable climate
awaited them. At this time, too, there was much more
shipping from the United States to the River Plate ports
than there was from any of the European countries, and
hardly one of these ships came that did not bring Irish
immigrants. But by far the greater part of such immi-
grants came direct from the homeland, via Liverpool.
Archbishop Murray must have been very well aware of the
importance and increasing growth of the Irish community
here, for although the Chaplain previously supplied it was
fated to live in his new field of endeavor but a little more
than a year, the good Primate was prompt in providing
another pastor for the flock. Father O'Gorman's mission
must have been an exceedingly laborious one, for apart from
a very large congregation scattered throughout the various
parishes of the city, a considerable number of his people
had already gone to the camp districts, especially south-
ward. He was not many months in his new scene of activity
when some good people sought to make trouble for him,
because of his not attending to the grave the funeral of a
Mr. E. Chambers. It seems that Mr. Chambers had be-
come converted to the Catholic belief and had been at-
tended by Father O'Gorman; the burial, however, was made
in the Protestant cemetery and the Chaplain declined to
officiate there. The family and some friends of the deceased
gentleman could not understand this scrupulosity on the
priest's part and so complained of his "bigotry" that he
had to write to the press explaining his position ; there was
quite a little hub-bub about the matter.

Thomas Armstrong failed in business, there used to be
crises then, too, and is accused in the newspapers by Bernard

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 91

Jones with fraud; Armstrong sues Jones to the courts to
prove his charges, and there is a tedious law-suit and lots
of correspondence in the papers on the matter. Admiral
Brown was made a Director of the National Bank; Mrs.
O'Gorman's house was up for sale, for the payment of
taxes owing on it; James Maclntire went to Ranchos ; and
Francis Carey to Cordoba; John Gorman arrived from
Montevideo, and Thomas Egan from Brazil; James Fitz-
simmon returned from Cordoba and John Sullivan, aged
30 years, died. James Kerney went to Paysandu, and Dr.
Oughan, Admiral Brown and Grogan, Peacock and Morgan
subscribed to the fund for the erecting of an iron railing
along the beach side of the Almeda. This street, then the
promenade of the city, now Paseo de Julio, was along the
beach, or fore-shore, and was reached by the inflow of high
tides, it was very dangerous in case of run-away horses, as
also for pedestrians after dark, hence the necessity of put-
ting up a railing on the open side. There is an article in
the "Lucero" on English intolerance in Ireland which draws
an anonymous reply in the "Gaceta"; it is interesting to
see how much alike the quarrels then and now are; the
"Lucero" writer seems to be very well informed. The
President of the Medical Faculty and Dr. Oughan have a
correspondence in the press on the latter's form of opera-
tion for the cure of lythotrisia. Jones and Armstrong still
keep up their charges and counter-charges as to the failure
of the latter. It is amusing, and somewhat curious, to
read the things that are treated of in the correspondence
columns of the papers in those days. Everybody who has
anything to complain of or to explain seems to turn to
the newspapers with it, and sometimes even very serious
charges are made therein. Whether or not such corre-
spondence would be more interesting and edifying than the
war-news which fills the newspapers of the present day is a
question not for me to judge, but I am certain a few columns
of that kind of matter would have more readers than the
copious opinions of the innumerable war experts, who never

m THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

warred, except with the pen, which are served up to us daily
in these times of endless cant and falsehood.

Santiago Kiernan begins the year 1832 with a letter
defending his father, who is out of town, from some criticisms
in the "Lucero." In a few days afterwards he returns to
the combat and gives the omnisapienti Senor De Angelis
some lively handling. Jones and Armstrong, too, are in
their respective trenches still and handling their gray-
goose quill ametralladoras with great spirit and constancy,
and except for the comings and goings of a few of our
people there is very little else to be recorded this year.
Rosas has been district military commander now for a
couple of years and in the contributions made to the upkeep
of his army I find a few Irish names, for fairly important
sums. These people were evidently in the stock raising
business at that time. Don Juan Manuel had already the
title of "Restorer of the Laws," and was then building up
the army which kept him for twenty years not alone the
restorer of the laws but to all intents and purposes the
very law itself. Here are some of the names I find in the
list of contributors to the maintenance of the restoring army :
Martin Brien, $179; Thomas Sullivan, $760; John Moore,
$100; Neal McCulloch, $400; Thomas Sullivan, again,
$600; Francis Mahon, $1000.

John H. Duffy went to Arroyo de la China, John Butler
went to San Antonio de Areco, as did also William Like
(Locke?). John B. Kiernan, son of the Astronomer, went
to Soriano, Uruguay; Peter Sheridan visited Montevideo,
John Carey went to Las Vacas and Michael Hines to
Colonia; while James Breslin and Patrick Locke went to
Mercedes; J. H. Duffy had scarcely returned to town when
he set off again for Colonia, this is the man who went broke
a little while ago; James Kearney has made another trip
to Paysandu. Dr. Oughan, Michael Bourke, Nicholas Casey
and Wm. Murphy went home. Charles Reilly and John
Lahy came up from Montevideo, and Patrick Whelehan ar-
rived from Liverpool; William Fitzgerald and Patrick

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 93

Locke came in from Mercedes. The Government appointed
Peter Sheridan inspector of the Riachuelo ; Bernard O'Neill
died in June and was hurried from Santa Lucia Church,
he was a County Meath man.

It will be seen from the foregoing, amongst other things,
that already people were beginning to find their way a
considerable distance into the camp. San Antonio was a
very old settlement and quite safe from Indians; not so,
however, Mercedes which up to this time was called the
"Guardia de Lujan," and was the outpost of western
civilization. But our people then, and for some time after-
wards, tended to the Southern camps.

By the year 1833 many of the strong merchants of the
city had gone in for investing in land, and Gowland and
Thwaite as well as Sheridan and Harrat were raising stock
on a large scale; Sheridan had also at this time a saladera.

Amongst the arrivals noted are John D. Murphy,
Thomas MacLoughlin, James and Patrick McLean.
Michael Kinnely is selling cattle in Lujan. Henry Kenedy,
Robert Morgan and Sam McLean left for the United States,
and Richard Murphy for Montevideo.

To the patriotic subscriptions raised in May for the
defraying of the expenses in connection with the celebration
of the National Feast, Wm. Brown, Wm. Morris, James
Sheridan, Edward Brown and Francis Mahon contributed.
The "Reindeer" sailed from Buenos Aires for Cork early
in the year. John H. Bayley, a well-known business man,
died in June and was buried from the Merced Church.
Armstrong and Jones are still in their trenches and no
sign of peace, for the courts have said nothing yet as to
who is right or who is wrong; the courts, even then, had
an easy-going way with them. James Kiernan, manager
and editor of the "Gaceta Mercantil," has been dealing so
strenuously with his literary opponents that the authorities
had to remind him that although there is no law regu-
lating what a newspaper may say about people, there is
one that takes into account what it may not say. He

94 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

makes no objection to being called to order, but explains
that the complainants provoked him into letting them hear
things about themselves which were not to their liking; the
paper was then the Government organ and had, of course,
to conduct itself with due decorum and gravity. Francis
Lynch, owing to bad health, had to resign his captaincy
of the port. The very well-known American estanciero,
Samuel B. Hale, in whose employ so many of the old Irish
sheep-farmers passed some of their first years, landed in
Buenos Aires in December. Hale was very friendly to the
Irish and was a generous subscriber always to Irish col-
lections and charitable funds. Admiral Brown started
another public subscription, this time to raise funds for
the repairing of and making transitable the Barracas road,
he was greatly interested in such works and improvements,
and was remarkable for keeping his own grounds with such
care and taste.

1834. Dr. Lepper is one of the commission of inspectors
of hospitals and prisons. Richard Duffy, his wife and three
children went to Entre Rios early in the year; William
Kelly, William Fleming, John Sullivan and Patrick McLean
and his wife went to Montevideo about the same time.
Messrs. Doherty, Green, Mooney, Hay den and Dowling
arrived in Buenos Aires. Admiral Brown is reported as
starting on a trip home and Dr. Oughan has returned once
more to Argentina.

The "Gaceta" gives a long account of a famous scene
in the English Commons wherein the Prime Minister, to
justify his rigorous coercive measures in Ireland, said that
the Irish members told him privately that they approved
these measures. O'Connell demanded the names of these
Irish members; the minister refused to give them; O'Con-
nell then asked if he himself, O'Connell, was one of them,
Altrop replied, "No"; Shell, with reference to himself,
repeated O'Connell's questions; the minister replied, "Yes";
Shell, in the solemnest manner replied that his, the Prime
Minister's, words were scandalously false. There was great

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 95

uproar, and to prevent a duel both members were placed
under arrest. On the session being resumed O'Connell de-
manded an inquiry into the Prime Minister's accusations
and in due time the inquirers reported that there was not
the slightest foundation for the accusations made by the
Prime Minister. Altrop publicly admitted his fault in
making the charges, Shell accepted, as what else could he
do.?' English honor and "gentlemanliness" was not alone
fully vindicated but considerably enhanced by the incident;
it was one more proof of the Englishman's "love of justice
and fair play," and, I suppose, "good sportsmanship" —
everything that happens to an Englishman proves this, to
the English.

The export of wool in 1835 is estimated roundly at
150,000 arrobas, or nearly four million pounds. It was
probably, for causes not necessary to consider here, a little
more; but this is a very respectable figure, considering that
practically the whole of this amount came from the com-
paratively small district included in three or four parishes,
south-west of Buenos Aires. The supplying of such a
volume of wool means that something about one million of
the sheep of those days must have been shorn. Which fact
will further imply the existence of some five or six hundred
flocks of the ordinary size, and so fixes the industry as
already very thoroughly established. The system of letting
out flocks and herds on part ownership to suitable men
who would undertake their care and management was in
vogue, as will be seen by an advertisement which I will re-
produce presently. Land-owners of Irish name are rarely
to be met with in these years, and when occasionally found
are mostly those of families long settled in the country.
This reluctance of foreign-born residents to invest their
capital or savings in land can, I think, be accounted for
by the impossibility of procuring anything like a safe title
to such lands. For the first thirty years, or more, of the
Republic laws were made with extraordinary recklessness in
the matter of granting lands and making and unmaking

96 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

title deeds. So much was this the case that lands sold and
guaranteed by one government were sometimes seized and
resold or regranted by a succeeding government with little
or no regard for the rights of the party who had invested,
perhaps, in good faith. These corrupt and destructive land
enactments were continued, from time to time, even to the
Rosas regime, and very few Irishmen ventured to make
purchases of land before the middle Forties, when Rosas
began to settle down to something like a reasonable and
just governor. These years, however, of the early Thirties
saw the raising of wool a very profitable industry ; one that
required little special training and in which advanced edu-
cation and scientific knowledge were by no means essentials
to success. What the good sheep-farmer needed first and
most were good health, strong hands, a courageous heart
and a patient, steady mind. No other employment which
the country afforded was so suitable to the Irish immigrant
fresh, as he was, in nine cases out of ten, from the farms
of his native land. The decay of Irish industries had com-
menced a generation previously, with the passage of the
infamous act of Union; there were no public schools in
Ireland throughout that generation, so that the Irishmen
who came to Buenos Aires in these years were generally
poorly fitted for any occupation other than sheep-farming;
but they were richly possessed of all the qualities which
success in that line of activity chiefly demanded. The in-
security of titles to which I have referred, and the very
low rents at which land could be obtained then, made it
safer and easier for men not knowing the language, laws,
or customs of the country very well to rent so much land
as they might need, by the year, or for some short term
of years, or to form a partnership with some extensive
land-owner on the principle of one-half or one-third own-
ership in a certain number of sheep or cattle, or both
combined, as the case might be, with loss or gain as the
year might result, in proportion to investment. An ad-
vertisement which Don Patricio Lynch has in the "Gaceta"

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 97

will give the reader a better idea of conditions in this phase
of the stock industry than any conclusions I can arrive at
eighty years after. The advertisement is dated, June,
1836:

The undersigned begs to make known to his friends and those
whom this notice may interest: That thirty leagues to the north of the
Capital he possesses an estate of three leagues of the best lands, well
watered, that are in the province. On which lands, before the drought,
were perfectly maintained more than twelve thousand head of cattle,
two thousand head of horses and eight thousand sheep. Which has,
moreover, a comfortable flat-roofed house, sheds, herdsmen's houses,
plantations, good pens of hard wood posts (nandubay) and a large
stock-enclosure (potrero) in which more than six thousand animals
can safely be kept, in which stock and in horses and sheep he has
invested nearly $150,000. But being short of resources to fully
stock these, his lands, with horn cattle and having other lands suf-
ficient for the stock he has, he invites such gentlemen as desire to
employ their funds in the lucrative business of pasturage, to supply
him, on the terms of half the products and increase, six thousand head
of cattle; being to the sole account of the proposer all costs, ordinary
and extraordinary, of the care and working of the establishment, and
all horses necessary therefor, as also all sheep to be killed for the use
of the employees of the estate. Whoever may wish to treat on this
matter will please write to Talcahuana St., No. 16, explaining where
such person can be dealt with.

Patricio Lynch.

Mr. Lynch was typical of the large land-owners of his
time in every way, save that his business terms were less
liberal than most of them, which possibly accounts for his
having had to advertise for investors. At this time there
was a considerable emigration of our people from here to
Uruguay. Patrick Hamilton had his stock farm in Mag-
dalena; Dr. O'Donnell was in charge of the scarlatina hos-
pital and reported four deaths out of one hundred and
forty-four cases treated. He further reports that scar-
latina is a benign desease, and he gives some very interesting
instructions for its treatment. It is not exclusively a
children's malady as was popularly believed, for he mentions

98 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a person sixty years of age who was then suffering from it.
A strange news item which I met in one of the papers at
this time, and which for its novelty may be worth mention-
ing, was the account of a renegade priest, named Crotty,
who had been saying Mass in English in the town of Birr.
Soupers, pervert-evangelizers and all kinds of anti-Catholic
freaks were greatly in demand by the Protestant Church
societies then.

In 1837 Dr. John Oughan's case was again in the courts
and was again decided against him. The English high
courts gave Oughan a decree against certain Englishmen
in Buenos Aires, but the authorities here refused to execute
the judgment of the foreign court. The Doctor appealed
to the highest authority, and it is this appeal that is de-
cided now, in a decree signed by Rosas himself, and re-
fusing Oughan's demand. James Kenny and John and
George Kearns started for Mercedes early this year; James
Dempsey arrived from Uruguay. The "Strangers Guide"
(Guia de Forasteros), a scarce but very interesting little
business directory, mentions the following amongst the
various classes of business men in the city in 1837. It will
be noticed that the Irish-Argentine families of O'Gorman
and O'Donnell are becoming as prominent in the business
life of the Capital as the Lynches were some years earlier.
One of the licensed public surveyors is Charles O'Donnell;
Sabino O'Donnell is one of the doctors of the men's hos-
pital; Charles is also Secretary of the National University,
while its second director is Don Sabino ; Don Carlos also
held the office of Secretary of the Inspection of Schools.
At the same time the assistant preceptor of Conception
College was Joseph Mary O'Donnell and Angel O'Donnell
was in charge of the Government School at Guardia del
Monte. Dr. Patricio O'Gorman is one of the practitioners
in the Academy of Jurisprudence; Don Carlos O'Gorman
is first lieutenant in the 5th Regiment of Mounted Militia.
Dr. Patrick O'Gorman is the Irish Chaplain and officiates
in the Merced Church. Adolfo O'Gorman is dealing in

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 99

wool, hides, etc. Drs. Lepper, Oughan and O'Donnell are
still practicing their professions. Francis Kearney was
standard-bearer to the First Regiment of Mounted Militia;
Charles Fitzgerald was second lieutenant in the Fourth Regi-
ment of Mounted Militia. The Bankers Society of Buenos
Aires was presided over this year by Manuel Lynch ; William
Buteler was in the exporting business as well as the carry-
ing trade; John Burke had a book-shop in Paz St., No. 8;
Martin Brien had a liquor store in Corrientes St. and a
wine store in 25 de Mayo; Daniel Blake had a saddlery in
University St. (Bolivar) ; Patrick Bookey had a morocco
factory in Cordoba St. ; James Coyle still keeps his high-
class tailoring business ; Robert Collins has his stable yard
in Cu3^o St. ; James Carr has a brewery at 11 Federation
St. ; James Dunleavy has coaches and horses for hire in
Cuyo St. ; Peter Duffy works his carpentery at Peru 49
Bart. Fleming's jewelry shop was in Representante St.
Patrick Fleming's grocery store is in Cangallo, at No. 11
James Farrell has a liquor shop at 9 Federation St.
Robert Hines keeps a grocery store in Piedad St. ; Bautista
Higgins, probably a son of Richard the brick-maker, has
an almacen in Federation St. ; John Kennedy still keeps
his saddlery going in Piedad; Francis Lynch has a grocery
at 92 Esmeralda St. ; Manuel Lynch & Co. have their stores
on the Almeda; Thomas Liddle had a boot shop and Samuel
Lyons a commission agency; Patrick Moore does all kinds
of carpentry at his shop in University St. ; William Morris
is a coachbuilder and Thomas, brothers I suppose, is a
carpenter; James O'Neill has a liquor store, John Shannon
has two cooperages, and William Corcoran is making and
repairing watches at 92 Cangallo.

There was a second Irish priest in Buenos Aires at this
time who used to officiate at San Roque Chapel; his name
was Michael M'Cartan. Father M'Cartan was a Parish
Priest in the County Armagh who had some trouble with
his Bishop on account of which he left Ireland. He seems
to have been even then of a somewhat unsettled dispositioiij

100 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

for he traveled in England, North America, the West In-
dies and Chili before coming to Argentina. He generally
differed with the church authorities everywhere he went,
finally ending up by believing that he was the prophet,
Michael, foretold by Daniel, as he used to say, for the de-
struction of all church authorities. He wrote a book to
prove that he was the aforesaid prophet, but the only thing
that the two little volumes prove is that the poor man was
as mad as a March hare. He came here in '35 and remained
for a few years, went up to Entre Rios and Brazil where
he knocked about for some years and returned to Buenos
Aires. Father Fahey, whom he always called, Mr. Fahey,
helped to support him for years before that truly good
man died. The following sketch of his life published in the
"Standard," June M, 1876, will help to explain his little
book for anyone who may have fallen in with it:

We regret to announce the demise of an eccentric old clergyman
well known to our readers during the last ten years, Rev. Michael
McCartan, who was born near Belfast in 1798, and came to South
America over forty years ago. His first charge was as cura at Guale-
guaychu, from which place he was banished for extreme political
opinions. For some years he was P. P. of Alegrete, Rio Grande do
Sul, and afterwards went to Cuba and the Southern States as tutor
in a planter's family. Later on he was assistant cura in a town in
Chili from which he crossed over to San Luis, in this Republic. About
1862 he arrived in Buenos Aires and came direct to our oflBce to warn
us that the end of the world was at hand. His numerous vicissitudes
and trials had affected his mind. This explanation is only just to the
memory of the deceased gentleman, as people unduly censured him
for some pamphlets which ought not to have been printed. During
the last year he was quite lucid, and Canon Dillon gave him hospitality
and kindly attended him in his closing days. He died calmly and
with perfect resignation, and his funeral will take place to-day from
Archdeacon Dillon's residence, 235 Corrientas, at half past twelve.

The published list of tax-payers for the year 1838 is
a very long one, and although I have gone through it very
carefully I have been able to find very few Irish names in

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 101

it. The list was made up from Quilmes, Ensenada, Moron,
Conchas, San Isidro, San Vicente, San Jose de Flores,
Capilla del Safior, San Antonio de Areco, Pilar, Lujan,
Canuelas, Baradero, San Pedro, San Nicolas, Arrecifes,
Pergamino, Salto, Rojas, Ranches, Fortin de Areco, and
Matanzas. In Chascomus Jaime Collins and Santiago Onil
are taxed. Onil is almost surely O'Neill — the public offi-
cials of those days spelt foreign names very badly. Peter
Joseph Sullivan paid taxes in Magdalena to the amount of
$27 and in Navarro George Keen paid $212. These tax
lists are not absolutely sure proofs as to the ownership or
non-ownership of lands in the districts reported from, for
it was possible to run a year or two in arrears. But very
few of our people, who, if landowners, would be somewhat
new as such, would be likely to let their new purchases run
into the dangers of arrears of taxes. It is thus quite safe to
conclude that practically all the Irish people engaged then
in sheep-farming were carrying on their industry on rented
lands. The same conditions seemingly prevailed in the city,
for although there is a comparatively large number of Irish
people to be found engaged in business, but a few Irish
names can be met with in the tax lists. It would seem that
seventy-five years ago there were far more Irishmen and
Irish-Argentines engaged in shopkeeping and as artisans
in Buenos Aires than there are at the present time. The
great boom in sheep-farming which began in the early
Thirties attracted most of the artisan and small business-
men among our people to the camp, and from about 1840
on for fifty years, few Irishmen on arriving in Argentina
thought of seeking any other means of livelihood. As in-
dicating, to some extent, the importance with which sheep-
farming was regarded then I may instance the fact that,
two books published on the continent of Europe, and treat-
ing of sheep-breeding, were translated and widely advertised
in Buenos Aires. The Government, too, purchased a large
number of bred sheep in Europe and the United States at
this time in order to improve the local breed — in all more

102 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

than 2500. Apart from Chascomus and a few parishes
thereabout, which were the first districts to which Irishmen
gathered in any considerable numbers, Uruguay and Entre
Rios seem to have been the regions that had most attraction
for our people in the years we are now come to. Thus I
find Hanlon, Morris, Madden, White and O'Neill going to
Montevideo, and Kenny, Croft, and Nugent going to Entre
Rios, and such reports occur with great frequency.

Advertisements for men and their wives who would be
willing to go out to work at estancias and dairies were very
common. Amongst others Thomas Galbraith had a dairy
with all utensils and one hundred cows which he wanted
some man and his wife to go out and run for him. John
Downey was out buying cattle for saladera use and John
Dougherty had registered as going to Salto.

The "Gaceta" keeps its Irish readers well posted on
home affairs and is particularly careful in recording O'Con-
nell's movements and pronouncements. It gives a long
report of his suspension from the English Commons in
connection with his having accused some committee of the
Lords of perjury. The matter was brought before the
Commons and a vote taken as to whether O'Connell was
justified in his accusation. O'Connell must have proved his
case overwhelmingly and the perjury must have been most
open and glaring, for there was a majority against him of
only nine. The Speaker then proceeded to inform him that
his assertions were false as the House had so decided by a
majority. Whereupon O'Connell retorted that the judges
who tried Galileo found that he was wrong in his statement
that the earth revolved on its axis, and, I suppose, on that
account it ceased to go round. But for all Dan had to
get out, and the first assembly of "gentlemen" in the world
was solemnly satisfied that its honor was utterly immaculate.

General John O'Brien was now a resident of Peru
wherein the famous Dictator, Santa Cruz, ruled. As will
be seen, this Santa Cruz was one of the most hated of the
Argentine Dictator's many and unconditionally execrated

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 103

enemies. He, however, knowing that O'Brien was about to
make a visit to his native land, and that he would have to
pass through Buenos Aires on his journey, took advantage
of the happy chance of so distinguished a personage pass-
ing from one capital to the other to have a message of
conciliation conveyed to Rosas. Most men conversant with
the ways of Don Juan Manuel Rosas would beg to be held
excused of the honor of being intermediary in any way be-
tween the two Dictators. O'Brien, however, undertook the
mission as lightly as though it were only the carrying of
a message from a lover to his sweetheart. A strange thing
in the suspicious and merciless nature of Rosas is, that
although Brown and O'Brien were trusted friends of his
worst and bitterest enemies he always respected them and
had confidence in their honor and rectitude. He, neverthe-
less, imprisoned O'Brien for daring to bring him the message
from the other Dictator. Most likely had O'Brien refused
to be the bearer of the note he would have been placed
under lock and key, if not shot, by the Peruvian gentleman.
It is said that Manuelita saved O'Brien's life, but more
about this matter in the next chapter.

Admiral Brown is farming at this time for he is re-
ported as selling fat cattle at Quilmes. Mrs. Murtagh, one
daughter and a Miss B rigid Murtagh left for Montevideo ;
William Brennan went to Rio, as did also Mary Moore,
her five children and Mary Murphy ; Edward Gahan crossed
over to Valparaiso. All that was in '39, and the next year
Patrick Garaghan was located in the parish of San Vicente
and was selling fat cattle. Martin Brien, William Brown,
Burke, Byrne, Buteler, Brown, Colman, Dowling, Downes,
Dogan, Dillon, Ford, Fleming, Kiernan, seven Lynches, two
O'Gormans and O'Neil paid property taxes this year, mostly
in the city.

Dr. John Oughan is about to return once more to Ire-
land; he is taking with him a wife this time. Oughan was
considered a very distinguished member of his profession
and as a surgeon made some discoveries that gained him

104 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

fame even on the Continent. The president of the Tribune
of Medicine of Buenos Aires had a correspondence with
him in the "Gaceta" on this subject in 1831. He mentions
the Consul General of France making inquiries as to the
Doctor's surgical operations and after making some flat-
tering allusions to his recognized talents as a surgeon asks
him to explain the operation for the benefit of the Consul,
adding, "and in this way augment your great services to
humanity." Oughan, of course, complied with the request
of the head of the Medical Faculty. The operation men-
tioned was first performed in 1820, and a Dr. Donnelly was
Oughan's assistant in the work. There was a man in Buenos
Aires at this time with the peculiar name of Remedios
(Remedies) Fitzgerald, he was probably a son of some of
Beresford's escaped soldiers and an Argentine mother.

Although at the present time we seldom or never hear
of any Irish people emigrating to Brazil there was a very
constant coming and going between this port and Rio de
Janeiro seventy-five years ago. Most of the Irish colony
established in that country about 1830 came afterwards to
Argentina, but it seems not a few of them returned again
to the then Empire. Reports of arrivals from and de-
partures for Rio of people of Irish name are constant in
the official paper in the Thirties.

A Mr. McCann, a Dublin man, who visited Buenos Aires
in the year 1842 on behalf of a commercial firm in Liver-
pool, wrote a book ("2000 Miles' Ride") after his return
home, on his travels in Argentina, in which he says, on the
authority of Father Fahey, that Irish residents "including
all ages and sexes" numbered about 3500, before the
days of the Anglo-French blockade of Buenos Aires, 1841,
and he mentions that at least three-fourths of these were
from Westmeath. It may be objected that this statement
is somewhat self-contradictory as Father Fahey had not
yet arrived in Buenos Aires at the date mentioned, but
Father O'Gorman was here and may have made a census
of his flock which Father Fahey made use of. However

O'BRIEN AND EMANCIPATION, ETC. 105

this may be, McCann sets down the statement in his book,
and the only exception I would be inclined to take to his
figures is that they were too conservative. Previous to the
fall of Rosas, in 1852, and for some time after Irish women
were very scarce in Argentina, compared with Irish men,
and as a consequence more than a few Irishmen married
into Argentine or other non-Irish families ; the children of
such marriages would have grown up as Argentines, and
speaking the National language would be so much out of
touch with the Irish Chaplain as, naturally, not to be
enumerated amongst his flock. However, we may take the
number of our people in 1840 as not less than 3500.

CHAPTER VIII

Rosas — McCann's Account — ^Newspaper Items — Public Contributors —
Famine in Great Britain and Ireland — Miscellaneous Items —
Adventures in Fancy and Fact — Father Michael Gannon — Father
Fahey's Letter on Rosas — Explanations and Comments.

THE Argentine people have many men of great fame,
and they are very fond of preserving the memory
of the great ones of their country. All who know
anything know that Solis was the first European to see
their great river, that Garay founded their now great
capital, that Liniers is the hero of the country's salvation
from the English, that San Martin is first amongst its
liberators, and is its greatest military genius, that Urquiza
and Mitre did great deeds in its struggle towards real free-
dom and power. But while all these and many other doers
of transcendental deeds are patriotically remembered, and
duly honored, a man who has not left, by any means, a good
or glorious name behind him, and who disappeared from
the grim stage of his activities a couple of generations ago
IS really more in the people's minds and on their tongues
to this day than any of the great ones named, and this man
was Don Juan Manuel Rosas — "The Dictator."

No striking public memorials, nor feelings of patriotic
love have kept alive this strange interest in Rosas. The
governments which have succeeded him have taken pains that
it should be otherwise. Not a street or alley in all the great
capital city bears his name, and streets that were named in
his honor while he was in power were at once rebaptized
when his banishment was effected. His residence, with an
intolerance as stupid and as chauvinistic as anything in his
own most lunatic decrees, was demolished some years ago

106

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 107

with all the circumstance and preparation of a grand public
celebration. As if the destruction of a modest dwelling-
house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires was an act to insure
honest and representative government for all time to the
Republic. The house wherein the great Dictator lived was
as much a historic landmark as the house wherein San
Martin was born, and it might be preserved, at least, with
as much public usefulness as are preserved the instruments
of torture which we see in the museums, and which have a
peculiar interest for most people.

Long before I took any particular interest in Argentine
history I had heard so much about Rosas from the old
Irish residents that I some way regarded him as a kind of
George Washington; if not the very "Father of his coun-
try," certainly something not very far from it. No other
Argentine — no other man, save Father Fahey, alone, was
so much in their conversations and reminiscences. But
although they seemed to regard him favorably it was easy
to understand that he was not all goodness. Such expres-
sions as, "he wasn't half as bad as they made out he was" —
"often he couldn't help doing what he did" — "Weren't they
always looking for a chance to kill him," and many similar
in tone suggested that there was another side to the story.
What few natives or criollos I knew spoke of Don Juan
Manuel with still greater admiration and much more detail.
All had anecdotes and tales to tell about him, some of these
decidedly terrifying, but I never heard any accounts of his
brutality and heartlessness from the old Irish settlers. It
is not, however, in the traditions of the common people,
that Rosas holds largest place. No man has been so much
studied and written about by Argentines. Books, essays,
poems and treatises dealing with Rosas and his times are
almost innumerable. These facts, then, and the circumstance
that he ruled the state — like the French king, was the state
— for some twenty years when Irish emigration to Argentina
was in its youthful vigor impose on me the task of telling
my readers who and what this remarkable man was, in so

108 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

far as I have been able to see and understand him. The man
that so many people talked about and are still talking of
must be of interest to a great many.

Rosas was sprung from parents of pure Spanish blood,
long settled in South America. He was the second born of
a family of twenty children, and the oldest of the three of
these who were males. When a youth, his mother, who
was an exceedingly shrewd and strong-willed woman, ordered
him one day to beg somebody's pardon for some fault he
had committed, the future dictator refused to so humble
himself, and was taken by the ear and locked in a room on
a diet of bread and water with the information that his
release would come with his due submission to authority.
Docility was evidently not one of the boy's qualities, for
that night he contrived to escape from his captivity, strip-
ping himself naked and leaving a note in pencil script to
the effect that he was taking nothing with him except what
was entirely his own. As well as the spirit of unbending
independence there is shown a touch of the humor in this
little incident which was a prominent trait of his character
to the end. He got to the house of his cousins, the
Anchorenas, procured some clothes, and employment on an
estancia in the South. He did not break off friendly rela-
tions with his mother on account of what had happened,
but always remained a most respectful and affectionate son.

The stories that are told of his prowess as a horseman
are endless and wonderful. In the camp he was a gaucho
of the gauchos, became very wealthy and a sort of casique
among the peones and half-Indians in all the parishes from
Quilmes to the Salado. He was appointed commander of
the rural militia and in 1820 lent a very useful hand in the
defense of Buenos Aires against the invading hosts of mal-
contents and marauders from Sante Fe and the trans-Plate
provinces. From this on he was gaining in the esteem of
the city politicians and leaders. If he had any set prin-
ciples in local politics at the time they were likely federative,
or more accurately, anti-Rivadavian. The revolution

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 109

against the government of Dorrego and the murderous
execution of that brave if frivolous patriot fixed for ever
more his principles. He was in the field against the revolu-
tionaries at the time. The defeat at Navarro was only
important in that Dorrego was brutally put to death by
Lavalle. Had he, Dorrego, been spared it is more than
likely there would never have been a Dictator Rosas; as
it was it worked the ruin of the Rivadavian or Unitarian
party and inflicted on the country a most horrible tyranny
for more than twenty years. Rosas reorganized the scat-
tered forces of the fallen Governor, in a short while crushed
the revolution, and with a good army at his back became
himself the strongest man in all the country. From 1829
till February 1852 he was as absolute in the government
of the Province of Buenos Aires, and for much of that time
throughout the whole nation, as he wished to be. To say
that he ruled with a rod of iron would be to use a hackneyed
phrase merely suggestive of severe firmness. In truth he
ruled by ruse and fraud, and bribe, and every cruel and
ignoble means at the disposal of a cunning, well financed
and utterly unscrupulous man.

When he came to power he came at the head of a strong
army, an army that feared and loved him. It was composed
largely of gauchos, the wild half-civilized mixed breeds from
the great estancias and small towns between Buenos Aires
city and the Indian lands. They were expert horsemen,
hardy and enduring as Cossacks, and fearless and cruel as
Rosas himself. He was wise enough to know that without
a strong and loyal army his term of power would be as
ephemeral as that of any of the many governors who had
gone before him. So his purpose was from the beginning
to see that his trusty forces and affectionate followers
should have no reason to doubt of the wisdom of the manner
in which they had cast their allegiance. No army in Argen-
tina was ever, before or since, as well cared and generously
rewarded. As one instance of the many recorded to this
effect I will give this little one; Lavalle, Rosas' chief

no THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

enemy, was shot accidentally, pretty much in the manner
that Sergeant Brett was killed in the attack on the Man-
chester police van, and for which three Irishmen were
hanged. He, Lavalle, heard a rough knocking at the door
of the house he was staying in and left his room to in-
vestigate the matter, a soldier, impatient at the delay in
responding to his call, fired a rifle through the lock mortally
wounding the Unitarian General. The soldier did not even
know it was Lavalle he had killed, but Rosas felt he had
done such a worthy thing that he decreed him at once
high rank as a soldier, a large monthly salary with extras,
and three square leagues of land! In like manner as
England formed her "faithful garrison" in Ireland did Don
Juan Manuel make it profitable to be one of his faithful.
Of course nobody would receive any government patronage
except a proved friend. But jobs and emoluments not
being in sufficient abundance, although ever on the increase,
to secure an absolutely safe number of ardent loyalists, the
goods and belongings of banished or fugitive political op-
ponents were at the disposal of the great "Restorer of the
Laws," and with a judicious use of these many more loyal
and sincere admirers were enlisted. Confiscations and nulli-
fications became the order of the day, till finally even the
Sacraments of the Church were denied to the non-federalists,
for the "Restorer" made himself head of the Church also,
in so far as his political opponents were to be dealt with.
(See Ramos Mexia's Rosas and His Times.) Hardly any-
one could be sure of life or liberty in Buenos Aires during
these years of the real reign of terror. For enemies, of
course, there was scarcely any quarter, and friends if they
once became suspect were in a worse plight still, their
names were given to the dread Mazorca, which meant not
a formal death decree, with the right to the consolations
of religion, but death sudden and unprovided. In view of
these impressive political arrangements it is not wonder-
ful that Don Juan Manuel had quite a strong following, and
a fairly law-abiding and submissive citizenship.

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. Ill

Red was the official color, light blue that of the oppo-
sition. The society "Popular Restorer" was the non-official
loyal upholder of the "Illustrious Restorer" and they had
a sort of executive section which was called the "Mazorca."
This section had many duties to perform, the most im-
portant one being to cut the throats, or otherwise knife, all
such as the authorities of the society marked out as ob-
jectionable or suspicious. Amongst the many notable men
done to death by this body was a Colonel Lynch. Some
of their lesser duties were to enter the houses of families
whose men folk were in exile or enlisted with the Unitarian
forces in rebellion, and maltreat the women and smash up
the furniture, especially if it had anything of the banned
color, blue, about it. On account of this practice on the
part of the Mazorca people began to paint their doors,
windows and household belongings, red, so that almost
everything was red in Buenos Aires. A not very dissimilar
thing took place in Philadelphia but a little while before,
in the days of the savage, anti-Catholic riots there.
Amongst the common depredations of the rioters was the
burning of houses in which Catholics lived. Oftentimes the
owners of such houses were Protestants and, of course, not
objectionable to the Knownothings, so the safeguard of
writing, in large letters, on the doors of such houses: "This
house belongs to Protestants," was promptly and very
effectively had recourse to. And it was as evil for the
house in the city of the Brotherly Love which did not show
that device as it was for the dwelling in the town of the
Good Airs that had any but the orthodox colors on its
windows or doors.

Another duty of the Mazorca was to spy out any in-
fractions of the written or unwritten law. Thus such re-
ports as the following were being constantly sent in : Such-
a-one has a pocket-handkerchief with blue spots on it — So-
and-so wears blue stockings — Another has suspenders of
the forbidden color, and so on, and every one of these
"crimes" was punished. A man who was seen speaking to

112 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Dona Marcelina Buteler, a "savage Unitarian," was duly
locked-up for his criminality.

Rosas took the Church, in so far as was possible, as
absolutely in his hands as he took the army and the police,
and used it as unscrupulously and tyrannically as he did
the civil and military forces. He forbid the administration
of the Sacraments to his political opponents; he prescribed
and modified ceremonies to suit his personal whims, or what
he thought his political needs. A couple of instances of his
almost idiotic interference in religious matters will be amus-
ing as well as corroborative of what I say. In the "Docu-
ments of Belgrano" Jose Caledonio Balbin relates this
story: At the time under reference there was a war in
Peru ; the leader on one side was General Santa Cruz ; Rosas
sympathized with the other side in the quarrel, which as
good as meant that he was an enemy to the death of Santa
Cruz, and one of the measures he adopted in this enmity
was to forbid the use of the term "Santa Cruz" (holy
cross) in the teaching of prayers or cathechism in the
churches and schools. In this way depriving the hated
Peruvian of much honor ! That Rosas issued such an order
Balbin, who was a strong supporter of the Dictator, would
not believe, he says, until one night, in the lenten time, in
San Francisco Church he heard the priest in the pulpit
use the words in the inverted form and explain the reason
why he so used them. "I left the church," Balbin adds,
"firmly convinced that the great American, Rosas, was a
confirmed lunatic." The Restorer always pretended great
respect for the Church and religion, and in 1836 restored
the Jesuits, suppressed by Rivadavia. Some years after
he took the whim, or felt it would add to his political
prestige, to have a large picture of himself placed on the
altars of all the churches. The Parish Priests, as a choice
of the lesser of evils, I suppose, submitted to the abominable
order, the Jesuits alone refusing. The Restorer and gen-
erous supporter, out of the public funds, of religion at
once pounced upon them and was as ruthless in suppress-

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 113

ing them as were Bucarelli or Rivadavia in earlier times.
The followers of Rosas were chiefly of the criollo or
old native element; they hated the gringo, foreigner, for
two reasons. His coming with his greater skill and per-
severance, they knew in time would overwhelm and replace
them as surely as they, themselves, had overwhelmed and
replaced the aborigines, and secondly, their political' op-
ponents were all for the promotion of immigration and the
introduction of foreign business methods and improved
stock breeding. Rosas was at heart not at all averse to
foreigners, but he allowed his followers the wildest liberty
in arousing passion against the stranger, even to public
incitements to murder and massacre. Here is an extract
from a typical harangue of the period, delivered by Deputy,
Dr. Manuel Irigoyen, and given in Ramos Mexia's book:
"Our duty, gentlemen, is to arouse our sons, reminding them
of the injustice that is being done us. The anxiety they
(the foreigners) have for keeping us in slavery, and when
we have their hair standing of an end, and their eyes flash-
ing, let us put arms in their hands, and let us say to them:
'at the foreigner !' " One has almost to laugh at the maniacal
excesses of those infuriated and merciless partisans. Riva-
davia, when in power, sought to improve the breed of
sheep, horses and cattle by introducing European sires and
dams. The idea was well taken up by many of the most
progressive stock-raisers in the country; Harrat and Sheri-
dan being amongst the first and most successful of these.
The new and better breeds were increasing and spreading
out to many estancias as the years went by. After Rosas
was invested with supreme power everything Unitarian was
banned and outlawed, if not by statute by feeling and sug-
gestion. And, will it be believed.? regular bands went
through the country slaughtering rams, stallions, bulls and
all animals having any signs of foreign blood in them !
The Unitarians, the party opposed to Rosas, were usually
described in decrees and official reports as traitors who had
sold themselves to the foreigner, and who were "dirty, dis-

114 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

gusting savages." In 1845 the scab pest in sheep, for the
first time, assumed very serious proportions; it was sup-
posed to have been introduced to the Plate countries in the
foreign sheep, and at once the Unitarians got the addi-
tional epithet of "scabby" applied to them. Government
decrees, political manifestoes, business and other advertise-
ments had always to recite the litany of abuse against the
Unitarians. Here is the way a religious advertisement pub-
lished in the "Gaceta," the Government organ, in September,
1839, commenced: "Hurrah for the Federation! Death to
the savage, impious Unitarians ! Death to the dirty, dis-
gusting French enemy of American Independence! Death
to the seditious, fugitive mulatto, Rivera! Death to the
savage. Unitarian assassin, Juan Lavalle!" Following all
this was a very pious invitation to come to a Te Deum
for the escape of Rosas from an attempt to assassinate
him.

The Dictator affected a profound respect for religious
rites and practices, for no one knew better than he did
the political advantage of a popular belief in his godliness,
yet he outraged every truly religious principle. Henry
VIII was mild in dealing with recalcitrant priests compared
with him. And it may safely be said that some of the
clergymen he favored and promoted to high places in the
Church in his many years of absolutism are in no small
measure responsible for the indifferentism, when not actual
anti-clericalism, of the mass of the Argentine people. Of
course it is not to be understood from the foregoing re-
marks that the clergymen were all corrupt then, far from
it ; there were numbers of good, pious, zealous priests in the
city, but they had to live their lives unrecognized and with-
out overmuch worldly reward.

Don Juan had a great facility for nicknaming people;
he was fond of playing tricks and many stories of his
practical jokes are still current. Most writers say he was
a man of splendid stature and very handsome countenance.
Mansilla, however, who was a relative of his, and knew him

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 115

intimately, says he was neither tall nor symmetrical, but
somewhat heavy built, and agrees that he had a handsome
face. The Unitarians used to call him a mulatto, although
it was well known to them that he had red hair, soft white
skin and blue eyes. Ramos Mexia considering the proposi-
tion of Dr. Ayarragaray that most of Argentina's civil-
war troubles were traceable to the negro and Indian blood
of the soldier-politician faction leaders, points out that
Rosas, Lavalle, Oribe, Ramirez and Rivera Indarte were
fair-haired, white of skin and blue-eyed. So, the poor
negro and sorely wronged Indian need not get all the blame
for South American devilment.

Having touched on so many of the bad features in the
career of the Tyrant it is but fair to mention some of the
characteristics that stand to his credit, for he was not all
bad. In his private life he was without reproach — indeed,
a model man. His early education was little more than
rudimentary but he read and studied in his spare hours
with great industry and acquired considerable literary abil-
ity. He was all his life an exceedingly hard worker; very
abstemious in his eating and drinking; scrupulously careful
of his person as to dress and cleanliness ; he married young,
his "loving Encarnacion," as he used to fondly call his
wife, and no husband and wife ever lived in truer affection
and loyalty than the iron souled Don Juan Manuel and the
no less fearless and unrelenting Dona Encarnacion. He
was as methodical as a German military chief in his business
affairs, and every transaction of his Government, especially
where public moneys were in any way concerned, was docu-
mented with the greatest care and clearness. Dr. J. M.
Ramos Mexia, immediate descendant of one of the most
uncompromising of Unitarians, has this to say of the Dic-
tator, with regard to his disposition of the public revenues :
"In handling the public funds Rosas never touched a dollar
for his own benefit; he lived a sober and modest life and
died in poverty."

In dealing with his opponents he seldom gave quarter,

116 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

nor were they a whit more generous with him. With him
they were savages and assassins, with them he was a mulatto,
a cut-throat, and he and his family would be a disgrace
even to Sodom and Gomorrah. We may wonder at the
unscrupulousness with which both sides abused each other,
and stand aghast at the savage brutality of the men in
authority, but let us not be too quick in turning up our
eyes to Heaven in holy horror for the deeds of the "assas-
sins" and "cut-throats" of seventy or eighty years ago.
This is 1917, and we know what is going on in Europe, the
very highly civilized, where there are no leaders with negro
or Indian blood in their veins. Has any falsehood or vile
epithet been thought to gross or stupid among the an-
tagonists? Have we not seen France and England put
three German women ruthlessly to death on the suspicion
that they were spies? And has not Germany with equal
savagery executed an English nurse, practically in retalia-
tion? Has Buenos Aires anything to its shame of more
shocking barbarity than the butchery of Skeffington and
his comrades in death in Dublin last year by the English?
Was the rewarding of the accidental slayer of Lavalle by
Rosas a deed of moral depravity half so revolting as the
promotion by the English Commandant-General of Colt-
hurst for the brutal killing of the boy Coad and the plain
assassination of the three unoffending and unaccused jour-
nalists? Colthurst, let it not be forgotten, was promoted
immediately after the murders referred to, and he had no
other action to his account to merit the attention of his
superiors. The court-martial "trials" and the promiscuous
shootings of "rebels" in the Irish Capital need not be gone
into in order to show that the Mazorca of Rosas was not
a whit less irresponsible and effective than the 1916
Mazorca of Prime Minister Asquith in Dublin. Someone
has said that human nature is pretty much the same all the
world over; so it is, and right in at the core, when you get
there, you will find that it is all pretty much that of the
Indian.

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 117

Rosas, probably by mere chance, adopted the worse of
the two leading political principles of his time; that was
his greatest mistake. Had he happened to come to power
as a Unitarian he would have persecuted the Federalists,
if they stood in his way, as rigorously as he did the Uni-
tarians, and most of those who were his mortal enemies
would be his warm friends. Why he triumphed over the
Unitarians was that at the beginning he had the more
popular cause, and once in power he had the shrewdness
to see what measures he should take to secure his position,
and had the daring and energy to take those measures at
any and all times as circumstances demanded. He was not
a statesman; there was nothing great in him except his
courage and cruelty. He rose to power by force, he ruled
by force, he fell by force, and like Cromwell he left nothing
to the world but a bad name. All his political and ad-
ministrative S3^stem went to pieces with his fall.

A great deal of the history of the Irish people here
belongs to the period of Rosas, and amongst the names of
those who suffered at his hands are to be met a few Irish.
He imprisoned O'Brien and, it is said, would have shot
him but for the timely representations of the English Min-
ister, but I prefer to believe that it was the tyrant's
daughter, Manuelita, as was commonly said at the time,
who saved him. I have mentioned that O'Brien's crime was
the bearing of a message from the hated Santa Cruz, whose
name, not knowing of the famous decree against its pro-
nunciation, he, possibly, mentioned quite freely. In addi-
tion to the Mazorca's victim. Colonel Lynch, there was
another Lynch and one of the Dillons amongst the ban-
ished. Domingo Cullen, Secretary of State for Santa Fe,
under Governor Lopez, is said to have known so many
dangerous state secrets that he had to be got out of the
way with the greatest caution and strategy, as otherwise
many very damaging disclosures might be made. Cullen
for some time had been showing signs of disaffection and
after the death of Lopez broke altogether with the Dictator

118 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of Buenos Aires. At once the flood-gates of abuse and
vilification were opened against him in the "Gaceta Mer-
cantil," and he was as dirty, disgusting savage and traitor-
ous as even the Unitarians. The frightful story of the
unfortunate Camila O'Gorman is one of the most shocking
things of the Rosas regime.

Camila was the sister of Canon O'Gorman, and was an
exceptionally handsome girl. The moral state of the
women of Buenos Aires at this time is said to have been
low, and one of the extraordinary measures taken by Rosas
to cope with this lamentable condition, a result, it is shown,
of his governmental system, was to collect and banish to the
Indian frontier of the south most of the unfortunate women
of the city and its surroundings. With the sterner sex he
was no less severe; any youths heard using profane or
obscene language in the streets or public houses were taken
up and forced into the army service as buglers, drummers,
etc. He knew no remedy for any evil but force — always
the strong hand, always destroy and terrify. From this
mere hint at the conditions in Buenos Aires an idea can
be formed of the prevailing social evil and the remedies
being applied thereto. Canon O'Gorman had a curate by
the name of Gutierrez, a young man who suddenly became
more interested in the fair Camila than in attending to his
priestly duties. In due time the illicit intimacy between the
young pair became notorious to all, and they fled from the
city, nobody knew to where. The Unitarians, in Monte-
video, those in Buenos Aires had to keep quiet, were de-
lighted to have a new scandal with which to further heighten
the enormities of Rosas and his Government, and they used
it unsparingly. The Tyrant, moved mostly by a feeling
of hatred of those who had given his enemies such a wel-
come and useful weapon against him, and to publicly mark
his abhorrence of so grave a scandal, ordered both delin-
quents, as soon as apprehended, to be publicly shot^ and
so on the morning of August 18, 1848, in his famous
military headquarters, the barbarous sentence was carried

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 119

out, the unhappy girl being within a month of her confine-
ment. It is the most inhuman and unpardonable of the
many atrocities of that reign of terror.

Brown, though highly regarded by Rosas for his use-
fulness as a good seaman, was not persona grata with the
Dictator. He never had any politics to play, and could
not understand why anyone should desire to be in a position
to rule unless the people wanted him there. So, it is re-
lated that when a document conferring on Rosas extraor-
dinary powers was being carried around to be signed by
prominent men, the stolid old Admiral shook his head and
would not touch it. This to Rosas must have appeared
little short of open rebellion, and it is certain no other man
in Buenos Aiies could do it and remain at liberty and safe.
He was then attending to his farming and leading a very
quiet life. Early in '41 the Restorer needed him and he
had to relinquish the care of his crops and cattle for the
sterner, but, probably, more congenial "life on the rolling
deep" once more. The "holy Federation" had to be de-
fended against the "savage Unitarians," and the "viejo
Bruno" (old Brown), as the Dictator used to call him,
was the man to do it. It was in this campaign that he
defeated Garibaldi, as already mentioned; Coe, also, he
easily overwhelmed and with this comparatively unimportant
campaign ended his glorious career of active service in the
navy. Ramos Mexia, like Lopez, bears witness as to his
utter carelessness as to what the local parties stood for or
believed in, saying : "His torpor in the learning of Spanish,
notwithstanding his long residence amongst the criollos, was
equal to his want of political interest, he never bothered to
find out who was right or who was wrong. His ingenuous
loyalty to the government manifested itself in docile respect
for who ever occupied the fortress, which was the highest
house to be seen from his historic anchoring place." The
fortress was for Brown the seat of Government, and who-
ever held it had a right to order and have his orders obeyed ;
thus it was that he filled the place of temporary Governor

no THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

for the Unitarians and soon afterwards was Admiral of the
forces fighting against them. In both positions he merely
obeyed orders to the best of his ability, and the orders came
from the fortress in each case.

When Rosas attained to power in 1829 he revived a
law made in 1821, and which in Rivadavia's time had be-
come a dead letter. This law made military service in-
cumbent on strangers in any kind of shop-keeping or public
business, artisans and proprietors of real estate were also
amenable to its provisions, and although a considerable
number of our people remained in the affected business oc-
cupations, there can be no doubt this law drove a great
many to seek a livehhood in pastoral pursuits. How those
who remained in the city managed to evade the statutory
prescriptions need not be inquired into here; they may have
been beyond the military age or otherwise exempt, or there
may have been a way then as well as now by which little
infractions of the law could be arranged through a friend;
what is certain, however, is, that a goodly number con-
tinued as before in the city and few or none served the
colors compulsorily.

To the camp our people must have gone in those first
years of the Rosas period in comparatively large numbers,
for McCann wrote in '42 or '43: "The Irish population
is very dense in this neighborhood (Chascomus), and they
greatly stand in need of the pastoral care of an intelligent and
affectionate resident clergyman." And again: "The banks
of the river (Salado) in the neighborhood of Chascomus are
very densely populated with British subjects, chiefly Irish,
employed in sheep-farming. Nearly all the Irish are from
the County Westmeath." This writer states that he stayed
in the houses of a Mr. Murray and a Mr. Handy, that
they were very prosperous, had comfortable houses with
nice plantations, that Murray's family of sons and daugh-
ters were all grown up, that at Handy's, where there was
a "fine family of children" they had a "tutor to instruct
them." From these facts recorded in '43, it is plain that

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 121

Messrs Murray, Handy and their neighbors must have been
settled in their comfortable houses, surrounded by planta-
tions, for at least ten or twelve years. This Michael Handy
was a South of Ireland man, probably one of the "Yankee
Irish" of whom Love speaks as coming here in 1825 ; the
Mr. Murray in the case was the father of the famous "Big
Micky," so well known to all the old Irish settlers. Mr.
Murray was but a few months in the country when McCann
met him, he had come to reside with his family who were
then long settled in the camp and well-to-do. But Irish
colonization had extended far beyond the Salado in McCann's
time, for he mentions that in the Partido of Dolores there
were many "British subjects," and in the town of that
name no less than three Irish doctors. In these days of
the passing of the sheep from the inner camps of the
province, and of almost European prices for stock, this
little note as to prices and profits common, if not ruling in
the sheep industry then, will be to the point here. It is
from the author last quoted, and is to the effect that the
aforesaid Mr. Handy, some years previous to '43, bought
8000 sheep in the Tandil district at the price of eight pence
per dozen, and that of this large number he lost, in killed
for meat and otherwise missing, but one hundred in the
journey of two hundred miles to his estancia. And that
when this flock fattened on his land he disposed of the
fleeces of some one thousand of them at the rate of five
shillings and three pence per dozen. No wonder that Mr.
Handy and others of his time and nationality, along the
Salado, rapidly became rich. Those were, indeed, "the good
old times."

McCann's book has much useful and interesting informa-
tion regarding stock-raising in the Forties. No other
writer, up to his time, that I have met with, has so much
interested himself in our countrymen, his countrymen, also;
and though not of the faith of the majority of his com-
patriots, religiously or politically, he is generally friendly
and well disposed towards them. Within the twenty years

122 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

previous to his stay in Argentina, which sojourn lasted six
of seven years, the very beginnings of Irish sheep-farming
were made. What a pity that it did not strike him to
find out and record just by whom, and where, and exactly
when this already extensive and profitable business, which
occupied so many of his countrymen, had been commenced.
The Dolores district, where he found a prosperous and
numerous Irish colony was dominated by the marauding
Indian tribes less than twenty years before he came upon
the scene. So that no European colony south of the
Salado could have been more than fifteen or twenty years
old at the time he visited the district.

With the Rosas regime commenced Irish sheep-farming
on an extensive scale and notwithstanding the political dis-
orders of the period our people seem to have been strangely
immune from injury and disturbance. It is difficult to
understand the wild threats of those times against the
foreigner and the official shibboleth of "death to the
stranger," and at the same time to see by the newspapers
which published these blood-curdling menaces that every
ship which came into the port brought numerous strangers,
few of whom, while minding their own business, were
molested or inconvenienced. It is also puzzling to find, after
all the denunciations of and violence to the foreign-bred live
stock, that in 1845 one-third of the six million sheep in
Buenos Aires were of the detested foreign strain. One
can only account for these singular contradictions between
what^ one might expect to be the conditions and what was
in reality the fact, by concluding that Rosas used these
party cries and shibboleths merely for political effect — to
arouse a sort of false patriotic spirit among the more ig-
norant and unreflecting of his followers. And that while
outwardly encouraging what I may call criolloism, he took
ample care to instruct his police and military authorities
that law-abiding foreigners were to have every protection
and encouragement. Except in this way I can not explain
the extravagant anti-foreigner outbursts of the ofiScial party

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 123

while hundreds of foreigners were being put ashore weekly
in Buenos Aires. The immigrants of that time were chiefly
Spanish-Basques and probably next to them in number were
the Irish. From the early Forties on to the middle Eighties
this stream was continuous and strong. McCann refers to
the disproportion in the number of Irish men and Irish
women as one of the serious drawbacks to complete happi-
ness in the sheep-farmer's life. He observes that the Irish
rarely intermarry with native families.

The following few personal items taken from newspaper
reports between '40 and '45 will not be without interest
to some of my readers. In 1841 : At the battle of Que-
brachitos Gregorio Dillon, son of the wealthy Irish merchant
John Dillon, who died in '26, fought against Rosas and
was made prisoner, his life was spared by the tyrant, why,
I know not. Dr. James Lepper resigned his directorship
of the men's hospital and received the thanks of Rosas for
his "generous service to the country and to humanity";
Lepper gave the unfavorable condition of his health and
business affairs as the motive of his retirement. John
Dalton sailed for home; Patrick Whelan of Quilmes sub-
scribed twenty dollars to a fund for the upkeep of the navy ;
John C. Dillon, brother of the prisoner, Gregorio, received
his diploma as professor of pharmacy.

Rosas, as elsewhere mentioned was the most scrupulous in
publishing financial statements and balances, and the follow-
ing are the contributors, with Irish names, of Direct Tax in
the year 1842 : Thomas Armstrong, Elias Buteler, Francis
Corcoran, James Coyle, John Dalton, Joseph Dowling, Pat-
rick Fleming, David Flynn, Patrick Garaghan, John
Kenny, six Lynches, Edward Morgan, John Murtagh, Pat-
rick Murphy, John O'Brien, John Rurke, Peter Sheridan,
John Tyrrell and Patrick Whelan. I may have left out a
few Irish names, but the omission, if there be such, is due
to the extraordinary spelling of the officials.

In this year the poor of Great Britain and Ireland were
reduced to such an alarming condition of poverty and want

124 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

that collections had to be started all over the world to save
the masses from starvation. England was then, as now,
the wealthiest of all nations. Her Government was spend-
ing millions annually in wars against native tribes in Asia
and Africa whose only offense against "civilization" was
that they had goods which England coveted. Her own poor,
the masses of her people, were in the most wretched and
shocking misery and degradation, and she leaves them to live
on the charity of the world, or die of hunger. These have
been the conditions in England since that country became
the "great hive of Industry"; great wealth amongst the
classes, great wretchedness amongst the masses. I often
wonder is it ignorance of the real social and political sys-
tem in England or some influence less excusable that is
answerable for such men as Lopez, Mitre, Nunez, Alberti
and others like them holding England and her Government
up to the world as models to be studied and imitated; when
in truth and justice, for the brutal selfishness of that nation,
for the immeasurable cruelties and wrongs she has inflicted
on other peoples, and the state of misery and debasement
she has kept and keeps her own poor in, she ought to be
held up to the execration and abhorrence of every nation.
In the presence of the appalling want in the United King-
dom the English Queen, then quite young and less hardened
and selfish than what it is well-known she afterwards be-
came, appealed, not to her Government but to the charity
of the world, for the means whereby her subjects might
be saved from starvation. Here in Buenos Aires, in Sep-
tember, the movement to procure funds to that end was
taken up and amongst the subscribers I find a great many
Irish names, the collection being, as stated in the appeal,
"for the relief of the suffering poor of Great Britain and
Ireland." Here are some of the Irish names : James Brown,
James P. Sheridan, Joseph Dowling, James Downey, Pat-
rick Hamilton, Patrick Whealen, Patrick Sherry, David
McGuire, David Fleming, Patrick Pue, John Gahan, W.
Dunn, P. Moore, William Butler, John Joyce, William

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 125

Brown, Thomas Daily, Thomas Sherlock, James Shannon,
Terence Moore. This distress of '42 was the beginning of
the Irish famine of '47. Charity from abroad and the
rousing of the Government to useful if somewhat tardy
action, saved the people of England and Scotland from the
calamity that was criminally allowed, some believe delib-
erately planned, to fall with such horror on Ireland. One
thing, however, is perfectly certain: the Government had
ample warning of what was coming. In '42 destitution
was already alarming and the "bad times" continued till
the awful climax of '47, when hunger, fever and the coffin
ships had carried away something about two millions, a little
less than one-fourth, of the population of Ireland.

From news items in the papers this year I find that
Richard Duffy, his wife, three children and two servants
went to Gualeguay ; David Flynn sold a few cattle in Lobos
— David, if not the very first Irishman who settled in that
district, must have been amongst the earliest. Peter Nagle,
for many years a resident of Buenos Aires, and Mary Ann
Dunleavy, 24 years of age, were buried in the Recoleta.

The next five years have little of general interest that
need be recorded here. The coming of Father Fahey will
be dealt with in another chapter. The first St. Patrick's
Day celebration that I find any record of took place in
'43, but the report of the event, published in the "British
Packet" suggested that the function of this year was not
by any means the first of its kind in Buenos Aires. It took
the form of a dance, at Walsh's Tea Garden, which lasted
all night and was attended by some one hundred merry-
makers. The report says the celebration was "as hereto-
fore." In the following year Peter Sheridan, the well-
known merchant and stockman, died at his estancia. He
was a Cavanman and 52 years of age at the time of his
death. He was the first Irishman in the country to make
a name for himself in the wool-raising business, but sheep-
breeding was not his first or only line. With his brother
he conducted a strong import and export trade, the house

126 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of Sheridan Brothers being one of the best known in Buenos
Aires in the first Twenties. They also had a saladera, and,
in partnership with Harrat, established a felt factory.
It is told that Harrat was making arrangements to
found a woolen factory and that Sheridan dissuaded him
from his purpose because of the difficulty of getting suit-
able hands and of keeping those which they might be able
to train or bring out.

In years agone when sheep occupied the lands from
Rosario to Tandil, and when Venado Tuerto was "away
outside," the old sheep-farmers used to tell some wondrous
tales of chance, mischance, adventure, romance and tragedy ;
of fortunes easily made and easily lost; of happy times
of great good luck, and of hardships and disasters which
seemed to make man's life in Argentina the mere playtoy
of fairies as impish in their gaiety as were those at home
in Moyvore who put the two humps upon poor Jack
Madden. Those harmless and oftentimes very interesting
tales were not always inventions of the narrator nor of
the neighbor he heard them from, and many of them had
but too real and solid foundation in fact. How floods, or
droughts, or civil wars, or cholera, or some overwhelming
cyclone destroyed the fruits of a life's toil, was often heard
in those days. I remember, amongst others, how a certain
well-to-do man came down in the world, according to his
own account, and who could know his affairs better than
he himself? Here is how he said it happened: The drought
for several months had stripped his pastures bare of herb-
age, and he, as well as all his neighbors, had to seek
whereon to maintain his flock. The fact of his camp being
better than that of any of his neighbors now turned out
to be a real misfortune to him — his utter undoing. For
while they had to go forth in search of the desired land
weeks and weeks earlier they found nearer home the needed
pastures. But he, poor man, when he had to treck could
find no resting place south of the Arroyo del Medio. Ar-
rived at that river's bank one evening as a great storm

ROSAS-McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 127

was forming, or as he expressed it in his Englishized
Spanish, "formaring," to burst from the heavens, he hur-
ried his flock across the little streamlet that eddied drowsily
along the bottom of the broad and deep-cut course of the
River of the Half. He had the last sheep across and
gathered in the charge of two native peones when the cool-
ing breath of the advancing clouds struck him; there was
no time to be lost; he hurried back across the stream to
the south bank to fetch his pack horses across, but ere he
could get his scanty baggage train in motion the storm
of black dust was upon him and there was no possibility
of making a single step in safety. The rain had been fall-
ing back towards the source of the river for some time, it
was now pouring on himself as if coming out of a sieve.
When it lightened a little he could see the river, a wild
torrent, ever rising, ever widening, but no trace of his
flock. Next day by riding many leagues towards the source
of the stream he found a place shallow enough to cross,
with comparative safety, and when he got to where he had
left his sheep — not a living thing. Two or three dead sheep
in a rut a league or so away was all he ever saw again
of his flock. It had been carried down in the flood to the
Parana. Someone asked: "And the peones.?" "Also went
down to the Parana." That the foregoing really happened
is unlikely, and it is given merely as a specimen of tales
we used to hear, but the following little tale of a tragedy
is as true as it is sad: James Quinn, from Tyrone, came to
Buenos Aires in 1826. He worked at anything and every-
thing, and made money. Eighteen years of effort and
economy in living left him a considerable little fortune, so
he would buy a farm. There were many for sale up North,
in Capilla, Baradero and Areco, and James with a friend
left Buenos Aires to buy one, and be an estanciero himself,
with troops of horses, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep!
The dream of all his toilsome years coming true! The
first obstacle of the pleasant gallop of the two horsemen
was the river Conchas. The pass where they were to ford

128 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

it was at best a difficult one; the river was now flooded.
It was not lucky to turn back; the friends ventured in,
Quinn first, who shouted to his friend to stay back and
see how he would get on; he got to the middle of the cur-
rent; his horse was carried off his feet; for a moment or
two man and horse struggled with the muddy surgings,
now under, now partly so, but only a few moments and
Quinn's dreams were closed forever. His body was found
a week later down towards the Parana and was buried in
the English cemetery. So were the tales that men used
to tell, but the story of Quinn is true. The spot where
fate awaited him is known, though not on his account, to
many thousands of Argentine conscripts, for it is a little
below the bridge of the Campo de Mayo where they often
have had a dip.

Deaths, marriages and births are by this time become
so common amongst our colony that, except in some special
circumstance, I shall not delay to notice them. Rev. Michael
Gannon, who seems to be almost forgotten by the Irish
people, was then in Buenos Aires and performed the cere-
mony in the marriage of a Dane, Mr. Hansen, to a Portena,
Emily Mahan in March, 1845. The well-known financial
expert of Argentina, and former Secretary of the Treasury,
Don Emilio Hansen, is an issue of this marriage. There
were then three, perhaps four, Irish priests in Buenos Aires,
Fathers Patrick J. O'Gorman, Anthony D. Fahey, Michael
Gannon, and I do not know if Michael MacCarten had yet
gone to Entre Rios. The two latter were not deputed here
as Irish Chaplains but they attended the Irish people when-
ever called upon. Canon O'Gorman, brother of the iU-
fated Camila, was of the second generation of the Hiberno-
French family of that name who settled here in Colonial
times, and of course, was an Argentine priest. Father
Gannon was an intimate friend of the O'Gorman family
and knew of the intimacy between Camila and Gutierrez.
In 1847 he was appointed to the parish of Goya in Cor-
rientsj and it w^s at the end of that year that Gutierrez

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 129

and Miss O'Gorman fled from Buenos Aires, and for what-
ever reason, perhaps expecting friendship from Fr. Gan-
non, made Goya their destination; Father Gannon had
them arrested and handed over to the Federal authorities,
they were brought back to Buenos Aires and the tragedy
of Santos Lugares (what's in a name?) took place on the
18th of August, 1848. Father Gannon's part in the hor-
rible drama is not quite clear, but anti-Rosas' writers on
the subject make him play a very odious part.

Before closing this chapter in which the mighty and
terrible Rosas has figured so largely, and not too favorably,
I feel that it is but fair, and I am sure that it will be of
deep interest to my readers, to include a letter of Father
Fahey's in refutation of certain allegations against the Dic-
tator and of acknowledgment of his just and beneficent
rule. Sometimes it is hard to judge fairly of men and their
methods when we are far removed from their time and
sphere of action, and the very opposite of this proposition
is not infrequently the case under other circumstances ; any-
how Father Fahey's letter is very worthy of a place here,
because of the man and the circumstances; he was no party
politician, and he knew what he was writing about. Here
is his letter:

FATHER FAHEY'S LETTER

Buenos Aires, Nov. 7, 1849.
With no little surprise and regret I have read in the Dublin Review
a libellous article, in which the policy and acts of H. E. the Governor
and Captain General of the Province of Buenos Aires, Encharged with
the Foreign Relations of the Argentine Confederation, Brigadier
Don Juan Manuel de Rosas, are made the subject of false and calum-
inious aspersions of every description. This upright Magistrate,
who extends so much and so enlightened protection to all the in-
habitants of this country — who has restored the reign of order, and the
splendour of the Catholic Religion— is traduced in that production
with the greatest injustice by distorting the events which have occurred
in this Republic.

ISO THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Though you have performed the honorable task of refuting, by
a veridical statement of facts, that revolting libel, I conceive I fulfil
a duty of conscience, and one of gratitude towards this country and
its Government, by delivering my opinion and offering my testimony
of corroboration of your views. My special character of delegate
of the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, for the guidance
of the Irish Catholics of this country, does not allow me to let that
diatribe pass in silence, the more so as I have had on a former occasion
the satisfaction of writing with good effect to Mr. O'Connell, M. P.,
calling his attention to the prosperous condition of the Irish here under
the just and enlightened administration of H. E. General Don Juan
Manuel de Rosas.

For the sake of distant readers who cannot calculate to what an
extent the spirit of malevolence is carried, abusing the press and
misleading respectable persons, I avail myself of this opportunity to
declare, that the aforesaid production, published in the Dublin Review,
so far as regards facts and the manner of qualifying H. E. the Governor
of Buenos Aires, Encharged with the Foreign Affairs of the Argentine
Confederation, is incorrect and deceitful. It does not behove me to
decide upon the political principles touched upon by its authors;
but if they are to have the same effect as those applied at Rome,
being of the same revolutionary character, there can be no doubt
that all intelligent, good and religious men will turn away their eyes
from such aberrations.

I see radicated in this country a most profound and universal
sympathy for H. E. Don Juan Manuel de Rosas — a sympathy shared
by all foreign residents here by reason of an upright and beneficent
administration protecting the rights and properties of all. That
protection has been and is uniformly extended in the most ample
manner to the Irish Catholics, to the other British subjects, and to
all foreigners, as well as to the natives of the country who in the late
struggle were adversaries of the Government and nation in conjunc-
tion with foreign enterprises. One of the qualities which shine most
conspicuously in the conduct of H. E. the Governor, Brigadier Don
Juan Manuel de Rosas, and in his system of Government, is clemency
towards the vanquished, and the most generous liberality with respect
to foreigners and their commerce.

The moral power which H. E. possesses is shown, amongst other
prominent facts, by the circumstance of his governing in accordance
with the laws and by free election, while all citizens both in the city

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 131

and in the country are armed and keep their arms in their own private
dwellings, the emigrants who have returned to the country included.

There have been no disorders of any kind, no imprisonments,
executions, or banishments for political offenses, for more than six
years. Ordinary crimes are few in number and those which do occur
are punished. Commerce and population have increased and continue
to advance greatly; the influx of foreigners, who meet in this thriving
and peaceful country with the greatest security and every facility in
the pursuit of industry in their callings or commercial enterprise being
very considerable. The Catholic Religion is venerated and pro-
tected by H. E. General Rosas, who enjoys the glory of having restored
it to its former splendour.

Under his honourable and wise administration the public credit in
this country has risen to a pitch which it never had attained since
her glorious emancipation, and which few countries could reach in
times of disquiet and foreign war.

All that is stated in the libel inserted in the Dublin Review in
regard to supposed crimes and assassinations of a Mazhorca Society
in the service of the police, which are fancied in that production is
proved at former periods — all that is said of the profanation of churches
and sanctuaries, and the other suppositions of this stamp, which
you have contradicted with conclusive testimony, are but a tissue of
contemptible falsehoods. The high character, the deeds and admin-
istrative acts of H. E. General Don Juan Manuel de Rosas of which I
have been a witness, always restraining disorders and crimes, and the
opinions and convictions of the inhabitants of the country, which I
have had so many opportunities to ascertain, give the flattest contra-
diction to those fables, the absurdity of which was made still more
apparent by the oflScial refutation of them in 1845 by the Foreign
Diplomatic Body resident in this city.

From the reliance I place in the principles which guide the Catholic
Bishops of Great Britain, and their personal qualities, I am convinced
that the Right Rev. Vicar Apostolic of the London district, under whose
auspices the Dublin Review is published, will, in homage to justice,
to truth and to his high character, proceed in an earnest and enlight-
ened manner to rectify the circumstances of the appearance of the
libel in question in so serious a periodical as the Dublin Review.
I am Messrs Editors,

Your obedient servant,

Anthony D. Fahey.

132 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

I shall now try to make clear a few points which clear-
ing will, I believe, help the reader to understand many
things which might otherwise seem confused or without
meaning.

The Constitution adopted by the Convention of Tucu-
man in 1816 had not worked very satisfactorily, and Riva-
davia, who was a statesman of very advanced ideas, believed
that a radical change in its provisions would hasten and
assure great progress in the national affairs. He had filled
his head with a lot of French political and social notions
which the Spanish statesmen a generation earlier had in-
troduced into Spain and these he would impose on the new
Republic. In the early Twenties, as already noticed, he set
to regulating the Church, and suppressed the religious
orders of men and most of the orders of women. His
intentions were, no doubt, good, but like many another good
and well-intentioned man, when he got started he did not
know where to stop. He introduced new systems of edu-
cation and teaching which the people did not want and
were not yet quite prepared for. These changes made him
many enemies among the Church people and more conserva-
tive elements in general. His mania for reform lured him
next to the correction, or better abolition, of the Consti-
tution; he sought to establish one in its stead somewhat on
the lines of that of the United States. In other words, he
wanted everything in the enormously far extended terri-
tories of the Republic, with their few scattered communi-
ties of half-wild people, to fall into the most complete
order and observe ordinances and mandates as thought they
were the citizens of a Pennsylvania township or a Swiss
canton. To use a homely but expressive similitude, he
wanted to make his country walk before it knew how to
to creep. The result was an ugly fall for the baby republic,
and for poor Rivadavia one from which he never rose again,
politically. He assumed the Presidency, himself, of the
new arrangement, and failure, hasty and complete, followed.
From one extreme to another! After a short term of

ROSAS— McCANN'S ACCOUNT, ETC. 133

semi-anarchj Dorrego was chosen on the old lines; the new
dominant party started in to be as thorough in their own
way as were the Rivadaviaists. Another revolution and the
barbarous murder of Governor Dorrego followed in quick
succession. This revolution was put down after a few
months, chiefly by Rosas, a return was made to the old
order of things in the matter of national government, with
a principle somewhat like: Every province for itself and
Rosas for them all. For this he was called "Restorer of
the Laws." In 1840 he issued an order which had the
effect of suppressing the Mazorca. Father Fahey is right,
I believe, in saying that for six years previously there
were no imprisonments or exilings for political opinions.
It was probably a case like that of the Spanish ruler who
dying had no enemies to forgive, and explained this happy
condition of affairs by saying that he had already killed
them all. At the time that Don Juan Manuel began to get
lenient there were some twenty thousand Argentine exiles
and fugitives in Montevideo alone, so that it could not be
very easy to get jailable or banishable people just then in
Buenos Aires.

It is most likely, however, in view of what had happened
in the years immediately before his ascendancy to power,
and the circumstances in which he came to that power, that
methods more or less such as his were the only hope for
the country. That his reign had the effect of steadying
the Argentine character considerably is certain; that he
served the cause of religion there is no proof, but very
much to the contrary. There is never much use in specu-
lating as to what might have been, but to me, for one, it
seems amply plain that a worse political system than that
of Rosas, in a self-governing country, could not have been;
and that nobody came nearer to telling the truth about
the "Restorer" than his friend Balbin when he said he was
a confirmed lunatic.

Three things in connection with the Irish people here
in those days stand out with interesting prominence: They

134 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

took, practically, no part in the political troubles or activi-
ties of the opposing parties, not even subscribing, save very
seldom, to the political collections. Comparatively very
few of them owned taxable property, especially in the rural
districts, as may be seen from the lists of taxed proprietors.
And although many of them were extensive sheep-farmers,
often owning from ten to fifty thousand sheep, scarcely any
of them invested in horn cattle. I have carefully examined
the reports of cattle brought into Buenos Aires for twenty-
five years previous to 1850 and, I believe, I can quite safely
say that not one thousand out of the millions slaughtered
in that period were bought from men of Irish names. It
was the rule in those years to publish the names of the
seller, the buyer and the trooper, as well as the purpose
for which the animals were brought in; whether for con-
sumption, for salting, or for rendering into grease. For
the latter purpose mares and sheep were also commonly
used.

All through the Rosas reign there was a steady stream
of Irish immigration to the country, but the largest inflow,
so far, was in '47, and the years following saw each an
increase till about 1865. A little while before the end of
the Dictatorship large numbers of immigrants from the
south of Europe began to arrive who could work much
cheaper in the saladeros and factories of the city, as well
as in the various trades and arts than could the Irish
laborers and artisans, which was another cause why so many
of the immigrants from Ireland took up sheep-farming.

CHAPTER IX

Father Fahey, His Congregation, Labors and Difficulties — First List
OP Charitable and Patriotic Irishmen — Brown Goes Home — Mis-
cellaneous Items and Comments.

IT will be now my task to trace the outlines and fill in
the features, so to speak, of the great figure that
rises so largely and lovingly above all others in Irish-
Argentine memories and traditions. Chaplains our com-
munity in Argentina have had, before and since his time,
of great merit — self-sacrificing, sympathetic, and unfailing in
their loyalty to the best interests of their people, spiritually
and temporally — ^but in all, not one that stands out as the
great leader, the recognized philanthropist, the man of the
people, the patriarch of his race in this land, save Father
Fahey alone.

That Father Fahey may be called a great man is proved
in the works he effected for his people, in the benefits he
conferred upon them, in the willingness with which they ac-
cepted his control and guidance, and in the affection and
veneration in which his memory is still held. In his priestly
piety, his personal dignity, untiring industry, pure re-
ligious zeal, yet with all practical common sense and good
business instinct, he reminds one more of the Irish saints
of the first generations of the Faith in the old motherland
than of a nineteenth century missionary in a foreign coun-
try. Of those old saints who explained the mysteries of
religion to their people while they taught them how to till
their fields to best advantage, plant fruit-trees, use the idle
stream to grind their wheat, or turning from these plainer
labors led their students through the depths and intricacies
of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin philosophies and gram-

135

136 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

matical subtilities, and who passed their leisure hours in
writing and illuminating books that are still the wonder and
admiration of the learned of all lands. In the life of St.
Columcille it is stated that that glorious Saint and great
apostle was a good builder, millwright and farmer. The
Bishop, Etchen, who ordained him at Clonfad in West-
meath, left his plow in the furrow to administer the
Sacrament of Holy Orders to this the greatest Irish priest
of them all — than that of Columcille there is no Irish name
higher. Father Fahey had all of the faith, sincerity, wis-
dom and simplicity of those great men of Ireland's Golden
Age. Some people have an idea that the times and circum-
stances favored Father Fahey in some peculiar way. They
did not, however. If he were to be thrown amongst his
people in Argentina to-day, his methods might be somewhat
different, but his mission and its effects would be the same
as those we know of. The great qualities with which Father
Fahey was endowed, and the genius to always apply them
well, will never fail of their merit where it is people of
the Irish race who have to make the award. There were
some five or six Irish Chaplains before Father Fahey's time
and some dozens during and since his time, and while all
of them have done good work, the measure of which cannot
be made in this world, no one of them has towered up like
him; he stands to them all as does the dark robed and
majestic eucalyptus on the distant plain to its surrounding
paradise trees and acacias. Had he been the first Irish
Chaplain it might be said that his circumstances were unique
as he would thus have the field all to himself to cultivate and
fashion as he pleased, but no, he was only the successor to
other good men who filled the same post. Nor had any
special powers or privileges been conferred on him by his
superiors which would give him advantages that no one
before him enjoyed. He was just a plain Dominican priest
sent by Archbishop Murray of Dublin to the Irish of Buenos
Aires to be their Chaplain. All his special privileges and ad-
vantages were his own personal qualities, his zeal for the

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 137

glory of God and the good of his own people, and an ex-
perience of his countrymen abroad which he acquired in a
sojourn of some ten years in the Middle West of the United
States. It was said that he was so highly thought of in
his Order that his mission to the United States was mainly
to examine and report on the condition of branch houses
in that country.

He was thirty-nine years of age when he arrived in
Buenos Aires, in 1843. Like that other great Irish
Dominican, Father Tom Burke, he was sprung from an old
Galway family; Loughrea having the honor of being his
birthplace. His studies were conmienced, I believe, in
Kilkenny and were completed in Rome, from where soon
after he was sent to North America. Ten years later he
returned to Ireland, and his experience of the wild life of
the then backwoods' states of Kentucky and Ohio were
probably taken into account by Archbishop Murray when
that saintly prelate had for the third time to choose a
shepherd for the scattered and increasing flock beside the
distant Plate. However, his selection on this occasion would
seem to go far towards proving the truth of the old be-
lief that there is some kind of charm in third-time attempts.
The two first chosen for this mission were not successful
in the undertaking; Father Moran dying in little more than
a year after his arrival in Buenos Aires, and Father O'Gor-
man having to relinquish his labors through failing health.

There are a great many erroneous and fantastic notions
current amongst the Irish-Argentine people as to the con-
dition in which Father Fahey found their progenitors and
compatriots when he arrived in their midst. It is quite a
common belief that he started the Irish people in the sheep-
farming business; but the facts I have heretofore adduced
as to the commencement of Irish sheep-farming will be suffi-
cient to correct this mistake. In Mulhall's book, "The
Engish in South America," a strange enough title under
which to place an account of Father Fahey one might say,
if one knew not the kind of writers the Mulhalls were, our

138 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

patriarch is introduced and dealt with somewhat exten-
sively. Speaking of his arrival here the writer says, "at
the time the prospects of the country and of the Irish
residents were far from promising." Why Mulhall wrote
such a statement as that I am not able to explain, except
it was because of his peculiar weakness for making his
countrymen appear always as poorly off and dependent on
somebody else to help them along. Be this as it may the
statement is without the least foundation in fact. Father
Fahey's letter given in the last chapter where he speaks
of having written to O'Connell "calling attention to the
prosperous condition here" does not suggest anything like
MulhalPs unpromising prospects, and McCann writing
exactly of this time says: "There is no country where the
laboring classes are so well rewarded . . . and the Irish
for many reasons are particularly acceptable." These
quotations, apart from showing how unreliable is the in-
formation given in the Mulhall book, will serve to establish
the true condition of the Irish settled in Argentina when
Father Anthony D. Fahey came amongst them. Another
very popularly accepted belief is that the good missionary
was a great matchmaker; and stories innumerable are told
of the many marriages he arranged, and the droll manner
in which he brought numerous swains and maids together
and united them in life-long happiness and good luck.
These stories, commonly, where not wholesale inventions are
very generous embellishments and exaggerations of a few
fundamental facts. I have heard from some of the priests
who knew Father Fahey, and from others, that his prac-
tice was to avoid participation in the negotiating of such
contracts, and that matrimonial alliances proposed or
planned by him were very, very few. As a clergyman with
the spiritual good of his people sincerely at heart, and as
a wise man of the world, of course, he urged and advised
men with any fair prospect, which meant every honest, in-
dustrious young man in the country, to marry and settle
down. And when a young girl in Buenos Aires, where al-

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 13d

most all the Irish girls in the country then were, received
a proposal of marriage from an almost unknown man from
the camp, nothing could be more natural than for her to
seek advice in so serious a step from the trustworthy friend
who knew every Irishman in the country. But beyond this
kind of intervention in marriages he rarely went. So that
the stories one hears told with such picturesque detail, and
oftentimes rich humor, of the sheepfarmer's arrival at the
Once or at the Plaza Constitucion markets, after long and
very perilous journeys over roadless plains and swollen
rivers, their waiting for the slower-moving bullock carts,
the sale of the wool, the lively few days following, and then
the serious, businesslike call on Father Fahey to get an
order, as it were, from him for a wife, the selection, mar-
riage and the tedious journey in the inevitable bullock-c^rt
back to some mud cabin on the distant plain, are not to
be taken too unconditionally. The plains of Buenos Aires
in the days when the sheep-farmer had little more to do
than let his flock fatten and increase, and to sell wool and
hides and grease, were a great place for minor Homers
and Oisins, and if their flights of fancy sprung not into
the realms of the gods, nor sank with their heroes to the
regions of the unblest, they saw some mighty strange vi-
sions on the dull and somewhat commonplace pampas that
stretched so endlessly around them. A collection of the
romances, adventures and tragedies so invented, and em-
bellished according to the taste and talent of each succeed-
ing narrator, would make an interesting volume of modern
folklore. An extract from an article by the late William
Bulfin in a Buenos Aires publication of the last century's
end will reveal Father Fahey and his flock very much in
the light of popular tradition and will also give a fairly
correct picture of a phase of our people's life in the old
days:

God be with the old times when the boys, having established them-
selves fairly well in the camp, came into Buenos Aires to look for wives.
Here again the good Father Fahey was their friend in need. He knew

140 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

all the marriageable girls in the city, knew where they came from at
home, knew the particular kind of a boy for whom each would make the
best possible wife. And so the matches were made in Heaven as well
as on earth.

God be with the rough old honeymoon tour which began the morn-
ing after the marriage when the happy pair started for their distant
home in the camp. Their chariot was a big covered-in bullock-cart.
The axles were of wood and whistled wedding marches. The motive
power was furnished by six oxen. A swarthy Basque armed with a
twelve-foot driving spike ^ took charge of the show, and that solemn
procession tore through the country at the rate of ten or twelve miles
per day, when the weather was fine. In the bullock-cart, besides the
bridal pair, were stowed away some necessary articles of furniture for
the new housekeeper, also a plentiful supply of shears, top-boots, clay
pipes, cake tobacco, some bottles of strong water and many other
sundries too numerous to mention. The expedition reached its
destination in two or three or five weeks, according to the weather,
and the hero and heroine lived happy for ever after. You can make the
same journey to-day by train, rural tramway, or steamboat in six or
seven hours, or less.

God be with the old fashioned wool season, before public roads or
railways were dreamed of, when the entire clip was brought to Buenos
Aires markets by bullock-carts. If the weather were bad, the wool
was often weeks and weeks on the road, but the farmers who had
arrived in town on horseback meanwhile killed the time after the man-
ner of their kind. They painted all the boarding-houses red, and there
were dances and high teas and games of " forty-five " on greasy cards,
and at length when the wool arrived and was sold, the bills paid and
the balance safely deposited with Father Fahey, there was a grand
stampede.

There was saddling and mounting in haste,
There was spurring o'er moor and lea.

Those were the days when there were no wire fences, when you could
gallop to the setting sun over open camp, when in the thistle season you
seldom saw your sheep at all, and when you made money nearly in spite
of yourself — days of toil and loneliness and sunshine and storm and
gay-hearted devilment and fun. God then be with them!

^ A cane wattle which served as reins and whip to guide and drive.

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 141

Such the legends one hears. True tales in individual
cases, but never necessarily the order of the day. The
historic bullock-cart was never, for long journeys, a pas-
senger conveyance. Post "galeras" in the Thirties were
running at regular intervals with passengers and mails to
all the frontier towns from Pergamino by Mercedes to
Chascomus, as may be seen by reference to the newspapers
of the time. No doubt some people chose, on occasion, to
make trips by the bullock-cart, but rather to take care of
goods in transport than through sheer necessity. I may
remark, by the way, that Bulfin, as well as the Mulhalls
and other writers, spells Father Fahey's name incorrectly.
He, Father Fahey, always wrote his name with an "e" be-
tween the "h" and "y."

When he commenced his mission in Buenos Aires his
parish had an extent not very much less than the total
area of Ireland. Two-thirds, at least, of his flock of about
four thousand lived very distant from the Capital and were
scattered from Dolores in the South to Baradero in the
North, and could be included within a boundary line that
might be drawn from one of these outposts to the other,
passing, more or less, through Monte, Mercedes and San
Antonio de Areco. Of the three thousand, or thereabout,
outside the city, fully three-fourths lived in the districts of
Ranchos, Chascomus and Dolores. Most of the remaining
fourth were in Canuelas, Moron, Merlo, Lujan and Pilar,
with a few scattered out in Capilla del Sefior and Zarate.
Mercedes, Giles and Areco were then, for our people, "out-
side camps," and none of them, as sheepfarmers, had
crossed the Arroyo del Medio or reached the district of
Chivilcoy for more than twenty years after this time.

Having quickly made himself acquainted with his people
in the city, he lost no time in visiting those who had ven-
tured to more perilous if profitable scenes and occupations.
In Quilmes there was then a goodly number of Irish. Mr.
Edward Clark, who kept a dairy, poultry farm and sala-
dera, employed almost exclusively Irish, and we may

142 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

imagine this place as Father Fahey's first stop on his
journey to the Salado district. McCann mentions having
met him soon after his arrival in the country in the house
of Mr. Handy on the banks of the river just named. The
Irish, as we have already seen, were then numerous in that
district and further south. From there to Ranchos,
Monte, Canuelas and Lujan was his itinerary, with in-
numerable deviations to estancias and puestos wherever
Irlandeses were to be found in the lonely wilderness. What
tremendous physical effort such an undertaking as that
journey entailed for a man getting on in years and unac-
customed to horse-riding! In the country then there were
no tilburies, surkies, nor "americanos," not even the old
brake which thirty years ago was no small style, but which
to-day is only used for carting purposes, everything in the
way of light camp journeying was done on horseback. On
horseback he had to make all his long and laborious rounds,
and amongst people who though kindly and hospitable as
any people could be had generally few of the household
comforts, even of those days, to welcome the priest to. I
cannot resist here quoting again from the article of William
Bulfin already drawn on, for an extract now to the point:

God be with the times when Father Fahey started from Buenos
Aires on horseback to visit his scattered flock. From forty to sixty
miles a day, he often galloped over the camp, changing horses here
and there as opportunity offered. Many a night he slept on his
recao rolled in his poncho, with the thatched roof of a hut over his head
and at times nothing but the starry sky of the Pampa. Many a meal
he ate where every guest was supposed to hold the meat in his fingers
and use his own long camp knife to the best advantage. Here is a
conversation which some of the old hands will still repeat to you. It
took place in a hut over forty j^ears ago between Father Fahey and a
certain Irishman whom we shall only call by his Christian name which
was Mike.

** It's sorry I am, yer reverence, that I haven't a sate to offer you;
if I knew you wor comin' I'd have "

" Never mind, amock, I'll sit on this cow's head. Go on with your
cooking."

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 143

** Sure its hardly worth while to call it cookin', yer reverence; its
only a bit of a roast I'm makin'. But if you wor only to come yister-
day mornin', I had the eligantest brile that ever was seen, so I had."

" I'd sooner have the roast, Mike, and that one you are making
now smells good."

" Yis, but the salt is all out, yer reverence. There isn't a grain
in the house since yisterday week."

" Well, Mike, we must only do without it. I'm too hungry myself
to care about the seasoning — why it's splendid! "

For Mike had served the meal by driving the point of the spit,
upon which hung the roast, into the floor of the hut, within convenient
reach of his guest. The roast, or asado, which was the entire side of a
sheep, filled the air with a savory fragrance, and Mike smiled in modest
self approval, for his fame as a " warrant " to cook a roast was well
established.

" There isn't a fork in the place. Father Fahey," he said, apologet-
ically, "but maybe you wouldn't mind using this awl; " and he took
that useful instrument from the place where it was buried halfway
to the hilt in the wall of the hut. '* Here y'ar, yer reverence," and
he proceeded to clean it energetically on the tail of his coat.

*' Tut, tut: Mike, don't trouble about a fork, and keep your awl
to sew your gear." So saying the worthy sog garth produced a service-
able looking " Rogers " from his boot-top, and the banquet began.

Later on there was a friendly struggle about the bed, and it was only
by strenuous persistence on Mike's part that the priest could be in-
duced to sleep on the stretcher.

That the reader who has never known the shepherd's
life in Argentina may the better understand the foregoing
paragraphs and my own remarks as to the lack of house-
hold comforts in the majority of shepherd's huts in the
early days of sheep-farming I will lay the article just
quoted from under tribute once more. For no writer that
I have any acquaintance with has so genuinely entered into
the spirit of camp-life, and so accurately and sympathetic-
ally described it as Bulfin. After describing the home of
a sheep-farmer grown wealthy he pictures this same man's
first dwelling:

There was only a mud-wall cabin then instead of the spacious
dwelling house of the present. It was designed by the occupant and

144 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

built largely by the labor of his hands. Let me present this rancho
to your imagination if I can.

The roof is of rushes or of long sedge, which does not allow a single
drop of water to enter as long as the weather is fine. The door is made
of stout boards and can be strongly barred. A hole in the roof serves
as a chimney, and holes here and there in the walls serve as windows.
In one gable of this monumental structure there is an iron spike which
is about six feet from the ground and which protrudes about two feet
from the wall. It is for hanging up the carcass of mutton for the
maintenance of the family which consists of the squatter, his men and
dogs. Leaning against the other gable is an enfeebled ladder from
the perilous summit of which can be obtained a limited view of the
surrounding camp. The flock, the saddle horses, the cows, and other
objects of interest can at times be located, and in fact it is the general
political, meteorological, astronomical and military observatory of
the colony. Besides the ladder there is no other exterior adornment.
Let us therefore glance inside.

The same sobriety of tone — the same austerity of line — the same
simplicity of arrangement prevails in the architectural design of the
interior. The floor is of virgin earth, with the grass trampled down,
with here and there a flea, and here and there a frog, to give it a homely
air. Now and then a snake drops in, but not relishing this bloated
civilization he departs — goes back to the rustling thistle clump out-
side and tells the other snakes that housekeeping is a sanguinary fail-
ure. The space between the walls, like the ocean or the France of
Robespierre, is one and indivisible. There is no attempt to raise
partitions, and the banqueting hall, the reception room, the library,
the sleeping apartments, are all worked into one apartment which can-
not be much less than twelve feet by eight. The height is in exquisite
relation to the stature of the occupant and architect. He can stand
up comfortably without dashing his head through the roof, no matter
what may be his hurry. If the floor aspires to approach the roof, or
if the roof endeavored to reach down to the floor, the resourceful
architect procures his spade and normalizes the situation. He scrapes
away some of the earth and heaves it out of the door.

The bed, which occupies one corner, is an ordinary stretcher with
a tough horsehide instead of canvas. A few woolly skins serve as a
mattress and a weatherbeaten and superannuated poncho takes the
place of sheets and counterpane. The nightly illumination is sup-
plied by a home-made tallow candle, stuck some degrees out of the per-
pendicular into the short neck of a square-shouldered bottle that began

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 145

life in the gin trade. There are hanging on the well a kettle, a pot,
a frying pan, a drinking cup, a candle mould and a few spare objects
of riding gear. A bag of camp biscuit dangles from the roof. An
empty packing-case turned bottom upwards, serves as a table. Under
it are stored tea, sugar, rice and other provisions. When the black
ants come along the box is surrounded by a fosse of four inches deep,
which is filled with water. This places an impassable barrier before
the devastating march of the enemy, and the box with its coveted
treasure remains secure and undisturbed in stately and splendid iso-
lation. An aged trunk in another corner holds all the squatter's ward-
robe and valuables. Chairs or stools there were none. The only
seats were two or three skeleton skulls of cows picked up on the open
camp. A cow-head stool is not altogether unknown now, but it was
a very common piece of furniture in those days. The skull was
thrown on the ground with the lower jaw underneath; the forehead
furnished the seat, and the horns did duty for superfluous ornamenta-
tion. Such as it was, the cow's-head stool was the only seat to be had.
If you visited the squatter, you might sit on the bed if he himself was
not already in occupation thereof. If the bed was occupied you
could sit on the lid of the trunk, unless it had already been smashed
in by a former guest. If neither the trunk nor the bed was available,
then you had the alternative of sitting on the cow's head or taking
chances on the floor.

Such, more or less, was the type of the building inhabited by the
pioneer sheep-farmer. Near it stood a similar although still less
pretentious structure. It was the abode of the herds and workmen.
It accommodated in a general way as many as could get in. The
surplus population remained outside. Although it was the sleeping
quarters of the station hands still there were no beds. In fact the only
bed for twenty miles all around you was the horse-skin couch which
we saw in the corner of the master's hut. In those days nearly every
man's bed was his riding gear, as it is in many cases yet.

Bulfin's description is in his well-known humorous vein,
with plentiful ornamentation and sometimes, perhaps, what
would seem too generous coloring, but there is no invention,
no over-drawing, in the picture. And these were the homes,
in the majority of cases, to which Father Fahey's visits
were made, and where he oftentimes had to hold stations
in his first years of missionary labor in the camps. Of

146 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

course in the older settled districts things were better, but
new settlements — moving further out — were the order of
the day then. Quickly, however, with a few prosperous
years, the planting of trees and the building of comfortable
houses followed on the pioneer settlements described above.
And it was the experience of the rapidity with which im-
provement and comparative comfort came to these first rude
and uninviting habitations that impelled Father Fahey to
always urge the young and healthy Irishmen whom he knew
around town to go to the camp, to become sheep-farmers
and land owners. The number of wealthy Irish-Argentines
to be met with to-day who owe, in the first instance, their
truly enviable positions to those urgings and counsellings
of that saintly and wise priest may not be known, but they
surely run into many hundreds.

With a flock as large and scattered over such an area
as was that of Father Fahey, one would suppose, having
in view how zealously he attended to its spiritual wants,
that he could have few spare moments to devote to other
labors and interests. Christenings, marriages and burials
were increasing among his faithful; many new arrivals from
the old land had to be helped with counsel, recommenda-
tions to employers and sometimes more material things had
to be done for them. But with all these cares, troublesome
and wearying enough in their way, a heavier and more heart-
aching anxiety came to him with every fresh tidings from
the homeland. Famine and sickness and death were spread-
ing over all the beloved old motherland. Multitudes of the
people for whose sake he would gladly give his life were
falling down by the wayside in the awful agony of hunger.
Oh, who will ever adequately picture what were the sor-
rows of Forty-Seven.? Fully four million people in that
fair island condemned wilfully and systematically to the
tortures of hunger till half that number had been destroyed,
the remainder barely surviving, and existing in a condition
the most miserable that human beings have ever had to
endure. How the Irish priests suffered and toiled in that

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 147

awful time but One knows. Father Fahey bore his part
in that toil. Early in '47 he appealed to his people in
Buenos Aires to lend a hand in the relief of the famine
sufferers. He called them together at his house, he went
amongst them at their work, he searched them out in town
and camp and had them give of their savings all they could
possibly afford in the helpful effort. Every cent subscribed
and the name of every subscriber he had published in the
paper that circulated most amongst them. I so much con-
sider the names of those who then subscribed as the first
honor roll of our people in Argentina that I give the list
in full. Some of the subscribers were at the time but a
few months in the country, and their figuring in this list
speaks well for their patriotism and for their ability to
get on in business. The whole list, as may be seen, is of
great credit to the organizers of the subscription and to
the subscribers. There are some non-Irish names in it, to
the owners of which I hope, and believe, the Irish of those
days duly manifested their gratitude. This was the good
priest's first appeal of its kind to his people and how well
they responded to it the number of names that follow will
sufficiently explain. There are thousands of Argentine citi-
zens to-day who can trace themselves to these subscribers,
and I hope they will feel pride in doing so.

LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS TO THE IRISH RELIEF FUND OF 1847
PUBLISHED MAY 22, 1847, IN THE " BRITISH PACKET "

John Gait Smith & Co £50

Thomas Armstrong 30

Edward Lumb & Co 20

Patrick Bookey 20

B. Kiernan and fumily .... 10

A Friend of the Irish Poor. $600c/l

John Murphy 500 **

Edward Cranwell 500 "

James C. Thompson 500"

John''Best & Bros 500 * '

Thomas Hughes & Co 1 oz. gold

Patrick McLean 1 * '

Daniel Gowland 1 **

Nash, Wilson & Co 1 "

Joseph Dowling $350 c/1

Alexander Brown 300 * '

Samuel Hale & Co 300 "

Anthony D. Fahey 200"

George Dowdal 200 "

Andrew Mahon 50 "

148

THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Patrick Mahon 50 c/1

John Glennon 50 "

John Dunegan 50 "

Peter Nally 50"

John Casey 50"

John McLaughlin 50 * *

Brian Liff 50"

James McGuire 50 * '

Larry McGuire 50 "

Patrick McGuire 50 "

John Shaughnessy 50 "

Owen Lynch 50"

John Casey 50 "

Michael Dillon 50"

Thomas Murray 50 "

Thomas Kurnan 50 "

Andrew Murtagh 50 "

Brian Rourk 50 "

Patrick Kilmont 50 "

Thomas Mahon 30"

James Connor 30 "

James Norton 20 "

Charles Jordan 20 "

Edward Gahan 200 "

JohnMooney 200"

Patrick Fleming 200 "

Charles H. Twyford 200 "

William Stuart 200"

Daniel Gifford 200"

Dickson & Co 200"

John Hughes 200 "

O.J. Hayes & Co 200"

James Tweedie 200 "

Anderson, Weller & Co. . . . 200 "

William R. Walls 200 "

Robert Hudson 200 "

Peter Chalmers 200 "

James Cook 200"

Michael Heavy 200 "

James Kenny 200 ' '

Edmund Mackinlay 100 "

Samuel Bishop 100"

Bart. Foley 100"

Frederick Hardgrave 100 "

William Lennon 100 * *

John Geoghegan 100

Thomas Mahon 100

Patrick Stafford 100

James Willis 100

Peter McGrath 100

John Finch 100

Nicholas Finch 100

Nicholas Kent 100

Nicholas Clancy 100

Thomas Melady 100

David Suffern 100

Michael Murray 100

Robert Kelly 100

James Furlong 100

Robert Wilson 100

Richard Wilson 100

Nicholas Murray 100

John Brown 100

Thomas Gainor 100

Terence Moore 100

Patrick Scully 100

Timothy Kelly 100

Michael Murphy 100

Patrick Garrahan 100

Patrick Fennon 100

Nicholas Leary 100

A.R.Smith 100

Edward Wheeler 100

James Hennessy 100

James Donohue 100

Hugh McKay 100

Edward Lovely 100

John Nannery 100

Mariano Baudriz 100

William Kelly 150

Patrick Moore 150

Miss Baudriz 50

James Martin 50

M.Scully 50

P. Hogan 50

James Wallace 50

W. Dalton 50

P. Dalton 50

John Allen 50

Laurence Banin 50

c/1

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 149

James Hogan 50 c/1

A. McGuire 50"

John Kerns 50 "

James Tuit 30 "

Owen Kelly 20"

M. Quinn 20"

M. Nannery 20"

M. Raftery 20"

M. Lawless 20 "

M. Donohue 20"

T. McGuire 50"

James Murray 20 "

P.Kelly 20"

J.Fallon 20"

P.Maxwell 20"

J.Kenny 20"

J.Wheeler 20"

M. Lennon 20"

T. Hevey 20"

E. Quirk 20"

T.Kelly 20"

M.Murray 20"

T. McGuire 20"

James Ferguson 20 "

W. Dalton 20"

J. Nally 20"

James Murray 20 "

James Fagan 20 "

Patrick Fagan 20 "

M.Nash 10"

Charles Jackson 100 "

H.W.Gilbert 200"

Stephen Hallet 200 "

Dr. Mackenna 200 "

James Steadman 100 "

Santiago Bletcher 100 "

John Spraggon 100 ' *

Peter Rosenblad 150 "

Robert Leys 100 "

Gilbert Ramsey 100 * '

W.Bancroft 100"

J. Palmer 50 "

Thomas Moore & Bros 150 "

Andred Nevil 100 * '

Daniel Scully 100"

Hiram Hunt 100 c/1

John Langdon 100 * '

Richard Hardgraves 100 "

William Davies 40 "

Alexander Mackinlay 200 * *

Anonymous 200 * '

Thomas Gowland 100 "

William T. Livingston 100 "

B.Williams 100"

James White, Calle Recon-

quista 100 ' '

Arthur Hardgraves 50 "

Joseph Dale 50"

Alfred Horton 1 guinea

Henry Hayes 1 oz. gold

Henry Murray $100c/l

Mathew Griffin 100"

Michael Crilly 100"

Francis Mahan 1 oz. gold

William Graham $100c/l

Bernard Burns 100 ' *

John Garrahan 100 * *

Cornelius Garahan 100 * '

Thomas Kenny 100 "

James Dowling 100 "

WiUiamWhitty 100"

James McDonnell 100 "

A North American 100 ' *

A Citizen of the U. States . 100 "

J. P., Jr 100"

Mrs. Dunleavy 70 "

Peter McLaughlin 60 "

John McKernan 60 "

John Murphy, Jr 50"

Michael Lennon 50 "

James Cummin 50 "

Patrick Hanton 50 "

John White Murphy - 50"

Edward Mooney 50 "

William Moran 50 "

Charles McDonnell 50 "

Michael Gardiner 50 "

Patrick Culligan 50 "

John Shannon 50 "

Mrs. Slevin 50"

150

THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Michael Clavin 50 c/1

Richard Fitzpatrick 50 "

Patrick Ahern 50'*

Michael Garahan 50 "

Thomas Collins 50"

Patrick Kenny 50"

Frederick McDonald 50 "

John Cowan 50 "

James Shannon 50 "

Patrick Keating 50"

FarrelReddy 50"

Richard Geoghegan 50 "

Michael Geraghty 50 "

Peter Martin 50"

Richard Wheeler 50 "

Patrick Kilmurry 50 "

Edmund Quirk 50"

John Moran 50 "

Thomas Keating 50 "

JohnHogan 50"

James Synnot 50 "

Nicholas Hier 50 "

Mr. Jacobs 50 "

Michael Shaughness 50 "

James Pendan 50 "

Peter Ham 50 "

Michael Geoghegan 50 "

John Duffy 50"

Thomas Scott 50"

William Kelly 50"

John Nolan 50 "

John Malcolm 50 "

Michael Healean 50 "

William McKenna 50 "

Thomas Noghten 50 "

Peter Banin 50 "

JohnBanin 50"

Edward Banin 50 "

James McCann 50 "

Mrs. Bookey 50 "

Hector McKern 50"

Bridget Mulcahy 50"

Mathew Kernan 50 "

Captain Craig 50 "

Mrs. James Scully 50 "

Walter Hickey 50 c/1

Thomas Fitzpatrick 50 "

Michael Kelly 60"

John Berry 50 "

Peter Murray 50 "

John Kelly 50"

Thomas Wire 50"

J. B 50"

Jacinto Tellaferro 50 "

Chiney Hickman 50 "

Daniel Mackinlay 50 "

William Roach 50"

Mrs. Robert Kelly 50"

W.J 50"

Patrick Lynagh 50 "

Bernard Wheeler 30 "

Michael Tyrrell 30"

Terence McGovern 30 "

James Reilly 25 "

Robert Brewer 20 "

Thomas Sherlock 20 "

John Smith 20"

William Horton 20"

Edward Moore 20 "

Alexander McNamara 20 "

Edward Kelly 20"

Thomas Cormack 20 "

Timothy Cormack 20 "

Francis Carey 20 "

Patrick Harford 20"

John Gardiner 20 "

John Ford 20"

Brian Rourk 20"

Sylvester Waters 20 "

James Elia 20 "

Joseph Benetan 20 "

Edward Dillon 20"

James Kilmurry 20 "

Mary Nolan 20 "

Catherine Bookey 20 "

Margaret Bookey 20 "

Mary Bookey 20 "

Patrick Bookey, Jr 20 "

William Bookey 20"

Thomas Bookey 20"

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 151

James Murray 20 c/]

A Benevolent Individual . . 20 * '

Richard Sutton 20 "

Edward Frahill, Son 50**

Patrick McGin 40 "

Robert Paterson 25 "

William Pickle 25"

William Hardy 10 *•

Wilfred Latham 200"

Jacob Chapman 200 * *

Thomas Bell 100"

John Scott 100"

James Scott 100"

Thomas Murphy 100"

Peter Sherry 100"

John Clark 100"

Bernard Wallace

David Fleming

Christopher Kennedy . .
Bernard McConnel ....

Mrs. C. Hartley

Michael Henly

Robert Nugent

Michael Nugent

Patrick Moran

James Lowery

Wm. Ramidge

Michael Grinnon

Patrick Headuan

Michael Nally

Patrick Glynn

100 c/1
oz. gold

50"

50"

50"
100"

50"

50"

50"

50"

50"

30"

30"

30"

20"

The total amounted to £441-1-10 and was forwarded to the Central
Committee, Dublin.

"El Viejo Bruno" — Old Brown — as Rosas used to
familiarly call the Admiral, had now been some time retired
from active service, and as the Republic was at peace with
its neighbors he was granted a leave of absence for several
months. He was then seventy years of age and had been
nearly all his life away from Ireland; his brother, Michael
I presume, was then living in the old land and thither the
Admiral turned to spend his vacation. He left Buenos
Aires in July, 1847, and probably got to Ireland in the
following September. We can imagine what a sad home-
coming it must have been for the pensive and kindly-hearted
old man, and what a contrast he pictured between the proud
and hopeful land he had just left and the despair and
humiliation that was everywhere in the ravaged country
he had come to. Yet it was the maligned "Latin" that held
sway in the one and the glorified Anglo-Saxon that lorded
it in the other! I am not aware that Brown gave expres-
sion in any form to the impressions which that visit to his
native land made on him, but in view of the appalling con-
ditions which prevailed in the Autumn of that direful year

152 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

he must surely have blest the star that took him from
under English rule in Ireland.

In the Forties the arrival of many Irish immigrants is
recorded in the press, and deaths and marriages are of
numerous mention. Among the deaths is that of Father
Patrick J. O'Gorman. He was 46 years of age, and was
buried in the vault of the clergy in the Recoleta. He had
been sixteen years in Buenos Aires but seems to have been
superseded in the Irish Chaplaincy by Father Fahey some
years before his demise, he had been ailing for some time.

In the middle Forties David Suffern of Belfast came to
Buenos Aires, with his family, and established a saddlery
and harness importing business. His son David took a
leading part in all Irish-Argentine affairs in the latter
quarter of the last century. In January, '47, the following
Irish arrived in Buenos Aires by the Sardinia: Francis
Carey, Timothy Cormack, John Nally, Patrick Hafford,
Nicholas Kenny, Laurance McGuire, Nicholas Leary. It
is well to keep a record of the early comers, as someone
may yet arise with race-patriotism enough in him for the
making of the task of collecting and publishing all such
old records and memories of those of our race who came
here first, a labor of love and pride, and every item pre-
served will help him. ^

Political life in Buenos Aires during the Rosas regime
was anything but attractive, except for two distinct classes
— those who set no great value on their lives, and those
of very docile conscience. Although our people remained
well on the outside of both these classes, their aloofness
was not absolute, and the long prominent political and
commercial family of Lynch figures occasionally in the
meager political news of the days of the Tyranny. Some
of them, as related, had their throats cut, more of them
were in exile and their properties were commonly confis-
cated. Don Estanislao writing from his exile in Chili to
his brother Don Patricio in exile in Montevideo caUs Rosas
a "maldito gaucho" ("a damned half-savage" mildly trans-

FATHER FAHEY— HIS CONGREGATION, ETC. 153

lates the term), and is not so sanguine of his immediate
fall as are some of his friends. The letter comes into the
Dictator's hands and he has it published, adding that the
Lynches are traitors, filthy, disgusting savages and in-
grates. The ingratitude arises from the fact that on Mrs.
Lynch's appeal some of her confiscated property was re-
stored to her. General O'Brien having extricated himself,
by whatever means, from the Dictator's clutches had
something to say in a Liverpool paper about Don Juan
Manuel's manner of administering justice, and the Re-
storer's papers at once got after the General and belabored
him with the utmost liberality of epithets — a Unitarian
could scarcely be more abominable in their sight. How
tame and dull political life has become since then! The
press. President, ministers or leaders seldom call anybody
a traitor, asqueroso is no longer a political adjective, and
even the naked ones of the Chaco are scarcely called
savages. Intervention has been established in the Queen
Province and Ugarte walked out without even throwing up
a barricade or mounting a cantonment! What changes in
a life-time ! Such that one can fancy Rosas, Lavalle or
Urquiza, if all or any of them could now express an
opinion, repeating the reflection of a late friend of mine
on the present-day hurlers and foot-ballers in Ireland. My
friend was an old sheep-farmer, and a few years ago,
when a young priest was here from Ireland, on collecting
bent, he, my friend, made anxious and detailed inquiries
from the clergyman as to how the old games and pastimes
were being kept up at home. The priest was enthusiastic
in relating how all the good old ways were being revived
and improved upon, and boasted of the safe and scientific
way in which the games were being played as compared
with long ago — "no back strokes, no tripping, no butting,
no kicking, no danger at all," flourished forth the clergy-
man, triumphantly. My old friend gave a bit of a cough
that was half a grunt, and with a contemptuous look to
one side muttered: "The people are becoming degenerate."

CHAPTER X

The Irish Hospital, Reports of its Committee and Doctor — Subscribers
TO the Infirmary Fund — Armstrong, Kiernan, McCann — Rosas and
the English Government — Father Fahey Thanked by Congress —
City's Limits in 1850 — Governments of the First Forty Years op
THE Republic.

WIDE as was scattered Father Fahey's flock and con-
stant and urgent as were its need of his ministra-
tions, still he continued to find time for labors
in its behalf other than those we may call strictly spiritual.
He was but a very short while in Buenos Aires when he
was convinced of the great need there was for various in-
stitutions for the moral and material protection and com-
fort of his people. More chaplains were needed, more
schools, more teachers, more means of helpfulness for a
community so exposed to physical and moral dangers. The
needed priests in time would come, so would the teachers,
in the persons of the good Sisters of Mercy, the schools
he dreamed of would arise in time, but all could wait a
little — all but the succor for the sick poor. With him no
call however urgent was so urgent as this one; no need
was so great as the need of the sick, and so the founding
of an Irish Infirmary was the first great work of benevo-
lence to which the good father bent his efforts. With the
continuance of the famine years of the terrible Forties
emigration to Buenos Aires as to the United States and
Canada increased rapidly and in a form to cause alarm,
for the condition of the immigrants on their arrival in the

154

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 155

new country was frequently very miserable. Many were
extremely poor and no small proportion of them still in
the clutches of famine-engendered disease. Of all the many
needs of the community, then, a refuge and relief for the
sick and wounded was the most pressing, a means to meet
the first and most appeahng want of the poor, a hospital
had to be provided. The Irish people, always generous
when appealed to frankly and in a worthy cause, seconded
Father Fahey's efforts spiritedly and the Irish Infirmary
was soon a reality. How much of good that institution
did for the Irish immigrants of the middle of the last
century, in Buenos Aires, is not to be told in this world;
but it is no wild conjecture to say that the founders of
many proud and worthy families in the Argentina of our
day would have gone to early graves in the pauper's pit
only for it.

In view of the great usefulness of this our first Irish
institution in Argentina, and because of its historic im-
portance, it is a great pleasure to me to be able to give
in full the first report and balance sheet of the Infirmary
Society. It is a publication of great importance to the
Irish community in view of some strange arguments we
heard in recent years as to whether an Irish Hospital ever
existed or not in Buenos Aires. The statement of the
Infirmary Committee, the Doctor's Report and the list of
subscribers for the year 1848-9 will settle this point and
fully explain the scope and usefulness of the institution,
as well as the nature and amount of public support it
received. I shall, therefore, set them down here, and I
have no doubt they will deeply interest many of my readers
for I know that but very little is now remembered of that
once beneficient establishment. It is strange what forget-
fulness, what little of tradition there is amongst us as re-
gards the early Irish settlers. The newness of the country,
its rapid growth, the heretofore nomadic kind of life of the
sheep-farmer, which was the life of most of our people up
to a score of years ago, and most of all the struggle to

156 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

get on in the world may account for this peculiar char-
acteristic, but can scarcely excuse it. I have frequently
met Irishmen and Irish-Argentines who regarded Father
Fahey as the first Irish Chaplain, if not the first Irishman
who came to the country. I have only met a few who knew
that there was such an institution as an Irish Hospital
here before the coming of the Sisters of Mercy, although,
as will be seen, nearly all the Irish of seventy years ago
contributed to its support and upkeep.

Statement of Accounts, Doctoe's Report and List of

Subscribers, Buenos Aires Irish Infirmary,

Oct., 1849.

The Committee of the Irish Immigrant Infirmary beg
leave to lay the following statement before the Subscribers,
and they trust that the relief afforded to so many persons
will be an inducement to those who have not hitherto con-
tributed to support so valuable an institution.

The Infirmary was established for the purpose of re-
ceiving sick immigrants, whether men, women or children,
or any poor family from the country, who might be unable
to procure medical assistance.

The Committee have had built three additional rooms
for the accommodation of female patients ; these buildings to-
gether with the expenses incurred for beds and furniture
of all kinds suitable to such an institution, have naturally
absorbed a good deal of money. But the strictest economy
has been adopted as far as circumstances would permit.

In consequence of the large number of immigrants that
landed here in the month of July the Committee were
obliged to ask donations from the English and American
residents of this city, and the handsome and generous
manner in which they met that call deserves the warmest
gratitude of the Committee.

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 157

The total of subscriptions was $24,490 . 00

Do. from sick patients 7,410 . 00

Interest 1,443.00

Donations from English and North American Gentle-
men 15,250.00

$48,593.00
The current expenses of the year including the

Matron's salary and assistants were $13,887.07

Groceries 2,550.00

Fuel 1,450.00

To paid for building 3 rooms and watercloset 10,050 . 00

To paid for bedsteads, matresses, blankets, sheets,

tables, presses and chairs 4,500 . 00

To paid Mr. Cranwell for medicines 2,258 . 00

To paid for general repairs of the Infirmary 2,200.00

To paid Dr. Donovan for the year 4,800 . 00

$42,157.70
Balance in Treasurer's hands 6,447 . 10

$48,593.00 $48,593.00

A. D. Fahet, Chairman of the Committee.
Babt. Foley, Secretary.
Patrick Booket, Treasurer.

Buenos Aires, Sept. 30, 1849.

Doctor's Report.

The medical report of the Irish Infirmary for the last
year, ending the 30th of September, and which I now have
the honor to lay before the Subscribers is as follows:

The total number of patients admitted was 158; of
these 116 were men, 26 women and 16 children. The
diseases under which they labored were as follows: Fevers
46, rheumatism 6, wounds 7, diseases of the lungs 8, liver
2, heart 2, lumbago 5, scrofula 2, fever and ague 1, in-
flammation of the bowels and stomach 23, burns 3, dysen-
tery 7, epilepsy 1, chlorisis 1, cerebral affections 9, hypo-
chondriasis 2j erysipelas 1, postula maligna 1, dyspepsia

158 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

6, colic 1, contusions 2; 138 were discharged cured, 15
died, and 5 remain in the Infirmary. Out-door relief
was also afforded to 17 persons at different periods having
had no accommodation in the Infirmary. Of the surgical
cases there were a few of importance, two of the fractures
were of a serious nature — one a compound fracture of the
lower jaw, another of both bones of the fore-arm with
laceration of the soft parts and division of the principal
blood vessels from a gun shot wound; both terminated
favorably. A third who had a chronic disease of the leg
and ankle joint of many years' standing, submitted to
amputation of the limb and is now in the enjoyment of
good health.

The establishment has conferred incalculable benefit on
the new immigrants who have arrived during the past year,
as also on several of our countrymen who came in sick from
the country.

I beg to return my warmest thanks to Dr. Browne for
his invaluable services and punctual attendance at all times
when invited, as also to Doctors Dick, Lepper and Al-
meyra, who have on several occasions rendered important
services.

Cornelius Donovan, M. D.

Buenos Aires, Sept. 30, 1849.

List of Subscribers to the Irish Infirmary Fund.

$500 each from the following: Thomas Armstrong,
Bernard Kiernan, Patrick Bookey, Patrick Browne, George
Dowdal, Rev. A. D. Fahey, Wilfrid Latham.

$300, Patrick Fleming.

$200 each: An Argentine, Laurence Brown, Edmund
Cranwell, Peter Chalmer, Joseph Dowling, Bartholomew
Foley, P. D. Gordon, John Mooney, James McDonnell,
John McKiernan, Terence Moore, Austin R. Smith, James
Sheridan, Michael Heavy.

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 159

$150, James Hennessy.

$100 each: Thomas Barry, Nicholas Clancy, James
Carthy, Laurance Carey, Captain Craig, Dr. Donovan,
Thomas Doyle, John Duffy, David Flynn, John Griffin,
William Graham, Henry Hayes, James Kenny, John Kerns,
Robert Kelly, Mathew Kiernan, William Kelly, WiUiam
Kelly, Joseph Kilmurry, Patrick Lynch, William Lennon,
Peter Murray, Henry Murray, William Moore, John Mur-
ray, M. Mullery, Thomas Muleady, Peter Martin, John
Murtagh, Thomas Monteleer, Patrick Moore, John Nolan,
James Neeson, Joseph Ronan, E. Synnot, Patrick Stafford,
Peter Sherry, David Suffern, John Shannon, Thomas Simp-
son, Edward Wheeler, Robert Wilson, Bryan Wallace.

$90, Michael Kenny.

$75, Anonymous.

$60 each: Terence Daly, Thomas McGouran.

$50 each: John Allen, John Browne, Robert Brewer,
William Burns, John Burns, John Brenan, Laurence Banin,
John Bryan, John Browne, Andrew Burke, Michael Brenan,
Michael Burns, John Berry, Casinio Balumbro, Francis
Brady, Conor Brenan, James Donohue, Francis Dillon,
John Dinegan, Bryan Dinegan, Henry Dillon, Patrick
Doherty, Patrick Dalton, John Doherty, James Dalton,
John Dillon, Michael Dillon, Patrick Daly, Michael Duffy,
Daniel Donovan, James Dunn, William Dalton, James Duffy,
Patrick Evers, Henry Eliff, Bryan Eliff, Patrick Farrell,
James Furlong, Thomas Fitzgerald, Michael Farrell, A
friend, per B. Kelly, Peter Fitzharris, Christopher Finlay,
Thomas Finan, Thomas Fallon, Daniel Cormack, Timothy
Cormack, John Connor, Francis Carey, Samuel S. Collins,
John Carey, Thomas Carey, John Carey, Joseph Cunning-
ham, John CuUen, Patrick Colmuck, Thomas Carroll, John
Cormack, George Cummins, John Crowley, Robert Collins,
James Carey, Denis Connor, Michael Conry, Laurence
Casey, John Cunningham, Thomas Cormack, John Downey,
Peter Dillon, Patrick Duffy, James Downes, Michael Dono-
hue, Patrick Donohue, John Dunleavy, Richard Farrell,

160 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

James Ferguson, Patrick Fegan, Patrick Feenon, John
Fox, Mathew Farrell, John Fitzstephen, Patrick Glynn,
John Geoghegan, Michael Geraghty, John Gardiner,
Michael Grennon, Edward Gormly, Michael Gardiner,
Michael Geoghegan, Patrick Gardener, Connor Graham,
Malachy Gilligan, John Harrington, Jr., Timothy Har-
rington, John Hogan, Michael Heavy, Jr., Michael Healin,
Michael Hussey, Thomas Heavy, John Heavy, Michael
Henly, John Hyland, William Hardy, Francis Hoare,
James Hussey, Edward Hanly, Nicholas Hier, David Hood,
Thomas Joyce, Bernard Joyce, Charles Jordan, John Jack-
son, Thomas Keating, Timothy Kelly, William Killeen,
Owen Kelly, Michael Kelly, Sen., Patrick Kelly, Michael
Kelly, John Kelly, Peter Kenny, Patrick Kilimuth, James
Kelly, James Kilmurry, John Keen, Christopher Kennedy,
James Kilmurray, Patrick Keating, Patrick Kilmurray,
Edward Kearney, Patrick Kenny, Edward Kelly, Michael
Kenny, Patrick Kilmurray, Nicholas Kent, Francis Kelly,
Thomas Kiernan, Patrick Kenny, Michael Lawless, Owen
Lynch, James Lewis, John Lawler, Thomas Ledwick, Wil-
liam Lynch, James Larkin, James Lennon, Martin Loughey,
Thomas Lanargen, Nicholas Leary, Martin Loughlan, John
Lyn, John Linan, Thomas McKeogh, Patrick Murtagh,
John McDonald, Laurence McGuire, Patrick McGuire,
Andrew Mahon, James McGuire, Thomas Miller, Michael
McDonnell, Patrick Moran, Thomas Murphy, Christopher
McGuire, John McGuire, Patrick Mahon, Michael Murray,
Peter McGrath, Edward Moran, Thomas McGuire, Michael
Murray, Patrick McDonnell, John McKeon, James Mur-
ray, Hugh McCrawley, Hugh Mullen, Peter McLoughlin,
William Loughlan, John McGuire, Patrick Muleady,
Michael McCann, Thomas McGeavy, Patrick McLoughlan,
John Murphy, John McLoughlan, Edward McGaw, John
Moran, Peter McGuire, Peter Mather, Thomas Murphy,
Thomas Scully-Murray, John Mulvany, Michael McDon-
nell, Patrick McBritony, John Murphy, Peter Millor, Pat-
rick Murphy, Thomas Murray, James Murray, James

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 161

Murphy, Peter Martin, Peter Neary, Thomas Nally,
Thomas Norton, John Nally, John Naughton, Michael
Nally, Henry O'Neill, James O'Neill, James Hallard,
Michael Phillips, James Pender, Patrick Pugh, James
Quinn, John Ronan, Michael Rooney, Patrick Rooney,
David Robert, William Roach, Michael Rafferty, Farril
Reddy, Edward Rickard, John Scally, James Synnot, James
Scott, Edward Slammon, James Street, Michael Scully,
James Shaughness, John Shaughness, Loughlan Scott, John
Shaughness, Thomas Scott, James Scully, James Shaugh-
ness, Michael Tyrrell, Patrick Tyrrell, James Tuite, Ber-
nard Wheeler, Richard Wheeler, John Wynn, John Wheeler,
James Wallace, Richard Wilson, Michael Walsh, Edward
Slevin, Edmund Ward, James Young.

$40 each : Laurence Dullon, John Lynch, Barney Man-
ning, Anonymous.

$20 each: Thomas Clark, John Cowan, John Dowlan,
Michael Gill, George Harris, Patrick Martin, Michael Man-
ning, Patrick Phillips, Edward Quirk, Patrick Quirk,
George Stephens, Christopher Scully.

$15, John Lumb.

$10 each: Michael Cormack, James Finlay, Thomas
Mulligan, John Risk, Patrick Ward, James Ward, Martin
Fleming.

$200, Herrera & Baudriz.

Total, $24,540.

Emergency Collection.

The Committee of the Irish Infirmary beg leave to ex-
press their best thanks to the following gentlemen for their
liberal donations which enabled the institution to relieve a
large number of the sick immigrants who landed here in
July:

$500 each: Henry Sothern, Esq., H. B. M. Plenipoten-
tiary, Martin J. Hood, Esq., H. B. M. Consul; Messrs.
Thomas Armstrong, Hughes Bros., John Gait, Smith &

162 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Co., Edward Lumb & Co., Barber & Co., J. C. Thompson
& Co., Delisle Bros. & Co., Thomas Duguid & Co., Nicholas
Green & Co., R. & J. Carlisle & Co., Philip Tompkinson &
Co., Edmond Mackinlay & Co., Alexander Rodgers & Co.,
Zimmerman, Fraizer & Co., Daniel Gowland, Brownell,
Stegman & Co., Oliver J. Hayes & Co., Bookey & Bletcher.

$300 each: Dickson & Co., Briscoe & Co., Dr. Alexander
Brown, Bradshaw, Wankin & Co., Plowes, Atkinson & Co.,
Admiral Brown.

$200 each: Samuel Hesse, James White & Co., Getting,
Miller & Co., Robert Hudson, Wilson Jacobs, Henry Mul-
lens, James Carthy, George S. Macome, George Ashworth,
Renne Macfarlane & Co., Nutual & Co., Patrick McLean &
Co., Turner & Co., W. R. Walls & Co., William Anderson.

$100 each: A friend, Bagley Bros., Charles R. Home,
Capt. Graham.

$50, Isidro Vidal.

1 ton of coal, Thomas Bell, John Langton.

A. D. Fahey, Chairman of the Committee.
Bart. Foley, Secretary.
Patrick Bookey, Treasurer.

Buenos Aires, Sept. 30, 1849.

The first important event in the affairs of the Irish of
Argentina in the year 1850 was the total destruction, by
fire, in the month of January, of Thomas Armstrong's
saladera. Armstrong although said to be of the same
family as was the infamous betrayer of the brothers Shears
was very popular amongst the Irish and justly so. No
man was ever more ready to assist his poorer countrymen
than he, and, though not himself a Catholic, Father Fahey
had no more generous and steadfast friend and helper in
everything he sought to do for the spiritual and temporal
advancement of his flock. He was a man of the very best
business capabilities ; one of the largest foreign-born land-
owners, a prominent merchant, owned mills and meat curing

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 163

factories and was for long a director of the Government
Bank. In the employment of help in the many lines of
business he was engaged in he always gave preference to
his own countrymen, and many of them owed their rise in
the world, at first, to his help and advice.

James Kiernan of the "Gaceta Mercantil," official organ
of Rosas, died this year at the age of 44 years, twenty-
six of which he had passed in Buenos Aires. Bernard
Kiernan, his father, came to Argentina from North
America, in 1824. This was the time when the movement
of "Irish Yankees" from the States to the Plate commenced.
Kiernan was highly praised at the time of his death for
his consistency and other good qualities. The British
Packet said of him amongst other things: "But to his
credit be it recorded, no one ever dared to impune the sin-
cerity of his motives and professions, the consistency of
his public conduct, or the unsullied purity of his private
character." He learned the printing business in the Gaceta
printing office and remained all the rest of his life con-
nected with the paper, becoming in time editor and part
proprietor thereof. He must have been a very bright
young man for he became editor of the paper within five
years of his arrival in the country, and when he was but
twenty-four years of age, acquiring an exceptionally ready
command of the Spanish language.

McCann started an agency in Buenos Aires, in 1848,
for the bringing out, on easy terms, of Irishmen and
Irish families. The terms on which he did business were
somewhat peculiar, and I think are worth recording as a
curiosity, if for nothing else. The emigrant would be taken
to Buenos Aires for ten pounds, cash, if paid in Ireland;
for fifteen pounds, cash, if paid in Buenos Aires, with, in
both cases, good security for the further payment of seven
pounds when the emigrant had earned that much money,
but all such emigrants should first present a certificate of
good character from the Clergyman and Magistrate of their
parish. The enterprise McCann was connected with enabled

164. THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a great many Irishmen and Irishwomen to come to the
Plate, and Father Fahey's reply to the writer on Rosas
in the Dublin Review must have resulted in a kind of boom
of Buenos Aires among the people at home. The reply
drew a letter from Archbishop Murray explaining Father
Fahey's standing and responsibilities, which was published
with a letter from the Bishop of Buenos Aires and a state-
ment of the British business men of Argentina in favor of
Rosas and his Government. The State Department took
the matter up with the English Government, seeking to have
the writer of the libellous article in the "Review" brought
to justice, but Lord Palmerstown put in the plea for his
Government's non-interference, that there was full liberty
of the press in the United Kingdom. This is a good speci-
men of the English statesman's regard for truth — "full
liberty of the press" one year, or so, after the suppression
of Mitchel's paper, the Nation and many other nationalist
organs. And the probabilities are that most of those, outside
the Irish, who read the reply of this Noble Lord believed
it to be true, and the matter dropped for the moment.
Later on the whole correspondence was placed before the
National Congress and Father Fahey received its thanks
for his letter. The question must have placed Rosas and
his Government, and his country in a very favorable light
before the people of Ireland, and no doubt raised Father
Fahey greatly in the esteem and friendship of Don Juan
Manuel and his party. It was commonly believed by the
Irish of his time that Father Fahey could obtain any
favor he desired and which might be in the giving of Rosas.
Father Fahey, however, was not a courtier or politician,
he had no time for things wholly outside his duties as Irish
Chaplain, and any influence he possessed with the Dictator
was used for the encouraging and safeguarding of his people
in their lawful and honorable pursuits.

Struggling through the busy streets of Buenos Aires in
these days of rapid automobiles and motorcycles, with their
nerve-racking screams and tootings one could almost wish

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 165

for a revival of the strict laws and their sharp enforcement
of the Rosas times. In the police-court reports of 70
years ago it is not a rare thing to meet with records of
fines inflicted on men for galloping their horses in the city
streets, and amongst the mulcted one runs across such
names as Sheridan, Quinn, and others like, but in truth
Irish names are extremely rare in such documents. What-
ever may be said about the Dictator as a politician or
statesman he enforced the law, such as it was, and had it
duly respected. In that way the Buenos Aires of our time
could take a leaf out of his book, with reference to municipal
order, that would prove to its advantage. The manner in
which trams and other vehicles are allowed to interrupt
pedestrian traffic at the street crossings, and the perfect
security with which idle groups of men may occupy the nar-
row sidewalks, to the inconvenience and annoyance of people
passing to and fro about their business, is a serious reflec-
tion on those charged with the order and traffic of the
streets. I understand there is a law dealing intelligently
with these matters but the police have been allowed to let
it become a dead letter.

According to old maps of the city published in the
Federal Almanac for the early Fifties the present splendid
thoroughfare, Callao, was then on the Western limit of the
Capital, and the Irish Convent soon after established was
as much on the outside of the city as the present Irish
Orphanage, in Avenida Gaona, was when it was first
opened.

In closing this chapter and passing from the reign of
Rosas to the new order of things it will be instructive, his-
torically, and useful for reference purposes, to include,
chronologically, a list of the governors and systems under
which Buenos Aires and the territory which acknowledged
its hegemony lived, from the deposition of the Spanish
Viceroy, in May, 1810, to the fall of Rosas in February,
1852.

The Cabildo was a sort of aldermanic body or council

166 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of selectmen very closely representative of the populace,
and politically all-powerful in times of crisis. When the
people demanded "Cabildo abierto" (open council meeting)
they should have it, and there they made their will known
to the City Fathers, and that body generally executed it.
The body which in time replaced the old Cabildo is now
called the Consejo Diliberante (deliberative council), but
has no such power as the old institution.

May 25, 1810, Independence Day, Colonel Cornelius
Saavedra, President of the Governing Junta which replaced
the Spanish Viceroy, Cisneros.

August 26, 1811, Domingo Mateu replaced Saavedra.

December 23, 1811, Government of Triunvirate was
established; Feliciano A. Chiclana, Juan Jose Pazos and
Manuel Sarratea formed this body.

October 8, 1812, the foregoing were superseded, Juan
Jose Pazos, President, Francisco Belgrano, and Antonio
Alverez de Fonte.

February 20, 1813, a new body called the Sovereign
Assembly, named as the supreme executive authority Messrs.
Pefia, Alvarez, Fonte and Julian Perez.

January 31, 1814, the Assembly dissolved the supreme
executive power and created the Supreme Director of State
and elected to this office Gervasio Posadas.

January 1, 1815, General Carlos Alvear had himself
named Dictator.

April 21, 1815, Alvear was deposed and General Ron-
deau set up in his stead.

April 16, 1816, the Junta of Observation named Antonio
Gonzalez Balcarce Supreme Director.

July 11, 1816, Balcarce deposed by the same Junta.

July 29, 1816, Juan Martin de Pueyrredon selected for
Supreme Director by the National Congress of Tucuman.
Pueyrredon was the first really constitutional and national
Governor. He was, as we have seen, of French-Irish
descent, his mother's name being Rita Dogan. He served

THE IRISH HOSPITAL, ETC. 167

a term of very nearly three years, thus making, for those
times, a remarkable record.

July 9, 1819, Rondeau chosen provisional Supreme
Director.

January 21, 1820, Rondeau substituted by Juan P.
Aguirre.

February 5, 1820, Rondeau resumed power as Supreme
Director.

February 11, 1820, the Cabildo assumed power and dis-
solved the Congress.

February 12, 1820, the Cabildo named Miguel Irigoyen,
Provincial Governor.

February 16, 1820, the Cabildo named Miguel Sarratea,
Governor in Perpetuity.

March 6, 1820, Juan Ramon Balcarce had himself
named Governor.

May 2, 1820, Ildefonso Ramos Mexia was chosen
Governor.

June 13, 1820, the Cabildo had to resume control, owing
to Mexia resigning.

June 23, 1820, Miguel E. Soler became Governor.

June 30, 1820, Soler resigned and the Cabildo governed
again.

July 3, 1820, Colonel Manuel Dorrego chosen, provi-
sionally, to govern.

September 28, 1820, General Martin Rodriguez elected.
Another record. Rodriguez held office more than three
years, and governed very well.

April 2, 1824, General Juan Gregorio Las Heras
elected. Another very good governor; held office nearly
two years.

February 8, 1826, Bernardino Rivadavia elected by
Congress, President of the Republic.

July 7, 1827, Vicente Lopez replaces Rivadavia, provi-
sionally.

August 12, 1827, Colonel Dorrego elected Governor by
the Representative Junta.

168 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

December 1, 1828, Juan Lavalle has himself declared
Governor, but finding that he is anything but popular and
having to prosecute his rebellion against Dorrego in the
interior of the Province, he has Admiral Brown set up as
his substitute.

August 26, 1829, J. J. Viamonte becomes provisional
Governor.

December 8, 1829, General Juan Manuel Rosas is chosen
Governor.

December 17, 1832, Balcarce is elected Governor.

November 5, 1833, J. J. Viamonte takes the Governor-
ship again.

October 1, 1834, Maza head of the Congress becomes
Governor.

April 13, 1835, Rosas is given full power, by the Con-
gress, and he makes various records,

February 3, 1852, Battle of Caseros, end of Rosas
reign. Vicente Lopez is chosen, provisionally, to govern.
Another few years of experiences closely akin to those of
1820 follow, and then the light — the light of political re-
demption and progress.

CHAPTER XI

The Sisters of Mercy Established — ^Troubles and Progress — Brown
Dies — Would be Head Man on His Ship — Receives Last Sacraments
FROM Father Fahey — Mitre's Funeral Oration — Cullen, O'Donnell,
CouGHLAN, Turner, Gaona, Malouney.

WITH the fall of Rosas, although the reign of ab-
solutism was over and the establishment of con-
stitutionalism was being earnestly attempted, for
seven or eight years there was far more disturbance and
insecurity of life and property than throughout the reign
of the Dictator. Provisional governments, usurpations,
revolutions and resignations were the ruling characteristics
for a few years, at least. In view of the suppressions and
persecutions of the previous twenty years, that the libera-
tion should have let loose many wild and wicked elements
in a population so mixed, and, in many ways, so primitive
was not at all wonderful. We see just the same thing hap-
pening to-day in Russia, having got rid of their despot,
to use a common expression, the people don't know what
to do with themselves. But everything considered the
Argentine nation pulled itself together rapidly and settled
down to business admirably. The country had a few great
men then. Lopez has this wise reflection on the consequences
of the Rosas regime: "Tyranny's worst evil is not in the
generous and noble blood which it spills, nor in the other
direct evils which it works, but in the endemic decadence
which it leaves in the public spirit, the vices, the vileness
and the moral disorder with which it leaves poisoned the
traditions and the life of the peoples on whose heart its
hatred has fed." That the worst evil alluded to has so con-
siderably and hastily passed away is due to the large influx

170 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of foreigners and the sudden upspring of a new generation
unaffected by the Rosas tradition, but the criollo element,
to which Lopez, of course, referred is not even yet, two
generations after, wholly purified of the traces of the "worst
evil." Unless we try to bear in mind the sudden and
sweeping political transitions of that time we will not be
able to justly understand the course of certain happenings
with which this chapter will have to do.

One of the first experiences Father Fahey got from his
efforts to establish and maintain an Irish Hospital was,
that matrons and nurses duly qualified for hospital work
were difficult to procure, costly to keep and not at all satis-
factory in other connections. Apart from the difficulty of
providing fancy salaries for attendants, the need of re-
ligious instruction and a truly Catholic atmosphere in such
institutions as a hospital appealed to him very strongly.
Then many Irish families, especially in the camp districts,
were being established. There were fairly good schools,
public and private, for boys whose parents could afford to
pay a reasonable school-fee, but such accommodation for
girls was wholly lacking, or far from satisfactory, accord-
ing to the ideas of the Irish settlers of that time, and Fr.
Fahey's own notions on that point seem to have been fully
in agreement with theirs. His remedy for the difficulty,
therefore, was to get a community of nuns from Ireland,
who would attend the sick, teach the young, help the needy
and comfort the sorrowing. Thus would the financial and
all the other diflSculties hinted at be overcome. But before
a company of nuns could be brought out from Ireland it
would be necessary to provide a home and means of suste-
nance for them. He secured both in due time, and then
proceeded to select an order of nuns whose conventual rules
most closely harmonized with the wants of his flock, who,
in other words, would be most useful to the Irish immigrants
and their families. There were many communities in Ire-
land to chose from, but the one destined by Providence to

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THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 171

embark on this, for long, laborious and discouraging mis-
sion was that of the Sisters of Mercy.

There seems to be some uncertainty as to the true facts
of this foundation, and how it came about. The tradition is
that Father Fahey selected the Sisters of Mercy and ap-
plied to Archbishop Cullen to have a company of that Order
chosen for the mission, if they could see their way to under-
taking it. But the authoress of the "Leaves from the
Annals of the Sisters of Mercy" plainly states that the
State and Church authorities of Argentina besought Cardi-
nal Cullen to send the community thither. No doubt there
are documents enough extant in the Diocesan Archives of
Dublin and Buenos Aires to set all doubt on the matter at
rest, but the difficulty of consulting them at the present
time is out of all proportion with the importance of the
point involved. I give here following a few extracts from
the "Leaves" just mentioned which will demonstrate the
uncertainty to which I have referred, as well as serve in
fixing the date and giving other interesting details of the
establishment of the "Irish Convent":

In 1856 the Sisters of Mercy trod for the first time the straight
streets and flowery plazas of Buenos Aires A large tide of emigra-
tion had been turning towards the Argentine Republic, and these
Religious had come at the urgent call of the authorities to minister to
the pressing wants of the people, and establish schools and hospitals
throughout the territory. The application had been made to the
Parent House, and Archbishop Cullen, Mother M. Vincent Whitty,
and Mother M. Xavier Maguire took the deepest interest in the first
South American foundation, and selected those who were best suited,
from the volunteers The priest who managed the business for the
Buenos Aires authorities was Canon Anthony Fahey, who had been
superior of the Irish Dominicans in Rome, and was well known to
the Dublin Metropolitan. It took many months to arrange matters
to the satisfaction of all, though the conditions, like to many others of a
similar kind, ultimately proved to be worth no more than the paper on
which they were written. The Archbishop gave a special blessing
to the courageous volunteers, bade them apply to him as to a father in
any contingency that might arise in their new field of labors and rely

172 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

on his aid in every emergency. The Mothers gave them many a warm
maternal benediction, made every possible arrangement for their
spiritual and temporal weal, and followed them with love and prayers
over the vast watery expanse which they themselves crossed more
than once a little later. It was, therefore, with deep spiritual joy
and high hopes, that the little band of seven Sisters turned their faces
southward, on the feast of the Kings, January 6, 1856, and set out
on their toilsome journey from the Liffey to the Rio de la Plata.
Cheerfully did they bear the heat of the torrid zone, the monotonous
days, the trying tediousness of that lengthy voyage. While most of
the passengers, enervated by the fierce tropical sun, lay stretched out
as if dead, they were up and doing. The cooler waters of the South
Temperate Zone and its beautiful, starry skies were a relief and a joy
to them. After a prosperous but uneventful voyage, their vessel
cast anchor in Rio, where they were detained a fortnight for the repair
of the coasting steamer in which they were to continue their voyage
to La Plata. This time they spent with the Sisters of Charity in one
of the palaces allotted them by the Emperor Don Pedro. On Feb-
ruary 24th, their steamer was in the immense river along whose banks
stretches Buenos Aires. A tugboat brought them near land, and in a
few moments they clambered down its sides to the boat that was to
land them opposite their provisional Convent. The Superior was
Mother Evangelista Fitzpatrick, the assistant was Mother M. Baptist
O'Donnel; Sister M. Catherine Flannigan and Sister M. Joseph
Griffin were the only professed besides the mothers; Sister Rose Foley,
lay novice, and two postulants completed the muster-roll. Two of
these ladies are still living (1895).

Good Father Fahey awaited them on the quay, and gave them a
most hearty welcome. He declared that the day of their arrival
was the happiest he had seen in the fourteen years of his pilgrimage
in Buenos Aires. He had a good house in the center of the town pre-
pared for them, and to it they were conducted by this kind father and
other friends. The street on which they then lived was called Calle
Merced.

The Calle Merced of that day is now Cangallo, and the
house which served as the first Irish Convent was between
Esmeralda and Suipacha. When the Sisters went to live
in the new Convent and Hospital in Calle Riobamba they
sold the old place to Dr. Velez Sarsfield. It is likely it was

THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 173

in this old house that the hospital of 1848 was established;
for Father Fahey would hardly set to establishing a hos-
pital in a rented building, and he had this property before
he applied for the nuns in 1855. By the way, it was in
this same year, '55, he bought the first of the property
on which the old Riobama institutions were erected, half
a square, for $5000 (gold) ; next year he bought the whole
square where is now San Salvador, for $10,000 (gold).

The authoress tells of the kindness of the "holy old
prelate," Archbishop Escalda; what Buenos Aires looked
like at that time, and why it was called that name, accept-
ing, like many other writers, the erroneous legend about
the "good airs" of the place, and goes on to state: "But
neither Cardinal Cullen nor the Dublin Mother Superior,
understood the circumstances of the country which had so
earnestly begged through its one Archbishop and its chief
magistrate, for a branch of the Mercy Institute." It is
interesting to read what this nun thought of Rosas, sup-
posed by many to have been a ruler highly serviceable to
the cause of religion and good morals: "The despotism of
the blood-and-iron man, Don Juan Manuel Rosas, had but
recently ceased when the Sisters of Mercy were invited to
the country, and his usurpation had not tended to civilize
the people or improve their moral or Christian sentiments."

About the time the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Buenos
Aires yellow fever broke out in a very violent form and
their first labors were in the care of its unfortunate victims.
Having been trained in such work in Dublin they were spe-
cially successful in helping the stricken and the authorities
appointed them to the charge of the Lazaretto, or hospital
of isolation. So conspicuous had they become as public
benefactors that the Government, in a sense, held them above
the law. A little question, soon after this time arose, some
say as to the reception of an Argentine lady into the Order,
others again as to the legality of the Order holding property
in its own name, perhaps the two incidents arose about the
same time. The suppression of the Orders in Rivadavia'a

174 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

time had not been repealed and the party who adhered to
his pohtical faith was now in the ascendant. During the
reign of Rosas these laws lay in abeyance, and it is very
likely before the Dictator's fall that Father Fahey con-
ceived the idea and commenced the labor of preparing for
the founding of the Irish Convent, knowing full well that
there would not be any obstacles put in his way by the
authorities. Anyhow, when the questions above-mentioned
arose other times and other men had come, and it was pointed
out that the introduction of a religious order was illegal
and that the Sisters and the people responsible for their
coming were guilty of quite a serious infraction of the law.
Father Fahey, the friend and defender of Rosas who had
been for twenty years the merciless enemy and persecutor
of the men now in power, could not expect to have much
influence with these men, or be very favorably regarded by
them. Still he was highly respected for his great and un-
restricted benevolence, and his self-sacrifice and usefulness
were readily recognized. The services and untiring zeal of
the Sisters in the recent epidemic were also remembered,
and although they were outside the law they were not to be
interfered with. This was a decidedly unsatisfactory state
of affairs under a government which suffered such frequent
upheavals and reconstructions, and Father Fahey put the
alternatives boldly and fairly to the authorities, full legal
recognition of the Sisters and security for their property,
or they would retire to some country where these rights
would not be denied them. This brought the question to
a head, and the authorities always willing and anxious to
be kindly towards desirable strangers, and particularly
well-disposed towards the "irlandeses" arrived at an ar-
rangement which satisfied all concerned and enabled the
Sisters to pursue their good work in safety. I think, in
view of Father Fahey's public support and approval, as it
were, of Rosas, this arrangement by the party then in
power speaks very well of the liberality and sincere patriot-
ism of the men who opposed and fought the Tyrant so

THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 175

boldly. In 1858 the new institution in Calle Riobamba,
which the authoress of the "Leaves" calls a "spacious hos-
pital" was ready for occupation and from then commences
the history of the old house in Riobamba, called by the
very old-timers the "Irish Hospital," later the "Irish Con-
vent," and lastly the "Irish Orphanage." Owing to the in-
creased demand on the labors of the community three more
Sisters — M. Liguori Griffin, M. Gertrude O'Rorke and M.
Berchmans Fitzpatrick came in the year the new house was
opened, and the following year four others came from
Dublin, but three of these found the climate too trying for
their health and returned to Ireland, only Sister M. Agnes
Whitty, of the four, remaining in Buenos Aires. The
Sisters seem to have been wholly occupied with hospital
work at this time, for they had charge of the women's de-
partment of the City Hospital. With the opening of the
new institution and the re-enforcements from Dublin, how-
ever, they started schools, public and private, the public
school being free and attended almost exclusively by chil-
dren of non-Irish descent. The pay-school was composed
almost wholly of the daughters of Irish stock-raisers. Por-
tion of the new edifice was used also as a home for Irish
immigrant girls out of employment, and about the year
'60 some few orphan girls were taken care of. The institu-
tion has so changed since, and not for the better by any
means, I believe, that the hospital, boarding and public
schools, and home for girls have all passed from under its
roof and the whole excellent foundation has been devoted
to the order of benevolence least thought of in its original
designing, that of an orphanage for Irish and Irish-Argen-
tine girls. The Sisters of Mercy, after much toil and
struggle, and entirely on their own account conduct a board-
ing and public schools institution; they have also estab-
lished an Irish Girl's Home, where they do excellent work
and great charity, but the Irish Hospital, Father Fahey's
first and fondest project has disappeared utterly for more
than forty years.

176 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Hutchinson, a Wexford man, who was British Consul
at Rosario, wrote of the establishment a few years after its
foundation: "No institution exists in the city more praise-
worthy than the Irish Convent School and House of Refuge,
of which Mrs. Fitzgerald is the present Superioress. This
convent has from sixty to seventy juvenile boarders, chiefly
the daughters of Irish sheepfarmers in the camp. The
edifice is spacious, airy and well ventilated, being near the
outskirts of the town. It was founded by the indefatigable
Father Fahey, the Irishman's friend, counseller and banker,
as well as spiritual adviser. Besides a school for the poor,
which has upward of 200 day pupils, and a hospital, these
good Sisters undertake the care and education of six
orphans. The House of Refuge attached to the school is
designed as a temporary home for Irish servants out of
place."

Before turning from this subject I feel bound to state,
that although the "Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters
of Mercy" is a very interesting work and one to which I
am indebted for most of the foregoing information regard-
ing the foundation of the Irish Convent here, the authoress
seems to have let her zeal for the fame of her spiritual sisters
carry her to the length of not being quite so regardful
of Father Fahey's part in the founding and maintenance of
the Mercy Institute in Buenos Aires as she ought to have
been. And further, I think, that she is not at all just
to the Argentine public and authorities. That she, and
probably most of the Sisters who founded the Order in
Buenos Aires, did not understand the language, the laws,
the customs and ways of the country was not the Argentine
people's fault. In Rome we are expected to do like the
Romans. One thing, which is much, the foundress and the
chronicler both take pains to mention carefully that the
Community was always well and generously supported
pecuniarily in Buenos Aires.

If the sixth decade of the nineteenth century saw the
raising of a new and proud landmark in the history of the

THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 177

progress of our people in Argentina, it also saw the sever-
ing of the strongest link in the chain that bound the now
flourishing colony with its weak and obscure beginnings in
the Invasion and Revolutionary days. In '56 came the Irish
nuns; in '58 the Irish Hospital, Irish Schools and Irish
Girls' Home were opened in the Irish Convent Building; but
in '57, March 2, breathed his last, after a career of such
noble services to Argentina as even few of her own patriotic
sons have had the fortune of being able to render her,
the beloved old Irish Admiral. Brown had attained the age
of eighty years, forty-six of which he had past as a resident
of Buenos Aires. He was always very popular, he loved
the warm-hearted, impulsive people amongst whom he lived
for so long, and they, in turn, more than reciprocated the
generous feeling. He had little, however, in common with
the Portefio disposition of gaiety, excitability, and exacting
formality. But unlike as were his moods to theirs he never
looked on them with that superior, patronizing, when not
contemptuous, air that so many strangers used to put on
with reference to all things "South American." Brown
sympathized sincerely with the Argentines, he liked their
courteous, easy manners, had a great respect for the courage
and intelligence of the people, and the utmost confidence
in the great future that was before the young nation.
Unofficial Brown was scarcely more than a stranger, attend-
ing to his private concerns, unobtrusive and practically
unknown in society or politics. On board his ship, how-
ever, he was a different man. Going on shore he seemed
to become o'ershadowed in some mysterious way with all
the simple influences that surrounded his Mayo boyhood,
but once he turned to sea he was a being of another world.
He was, as it were, face to face with the enemy, a state
of war existed, martial law was the code under which all
and sundry lived, and he was the dictator. There is a little
story which well exemplifies this trait in the Admiral's char-
acter and as it does not seem to be too well known I will
introduce it here. In the height of Rosas's power and ab-

178 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

solutism it occurred to him to visit his fleet, bringing with
him his family and a retinue of staff officials commensurate
with the dignity and state of the mighty Restorer of the
Laws. The tour of inspection was made with all the pomp
and ceremony dear to the taste of Don Juan Manuel, for
in things of that order he was himself the law and the
prophets, not even his pliant ministers were consulted about
such things. The formalities being gone through, din-
ner on the flag-ship followed in due course. The order of
precedence was all arranged and the solemn master of
ceremonies stood watchful to see it fulfilled. Brown pro-
ceeded sternly to the place of honor and silently took his
seat. The master of ceremonies and all present, save Don
Juan Manuel and the Admiral, experienced something like
a severe electric shock. The official in charge quickly, and
with the grace of such functionaries, sought to correct
Brown, tactfully reminding him that the head of the feast
was the place for the great Supremo, and got the cool and
slowly worded reply, in what Lopez called the Admiral's
monosyllabic Spanish, that whatever Don Juan Manuel
might be on land that on his ships, he. Brown, was head
man and would be in the head place.

The least the company expected for the old sailor was,
of course, banishment, and some of them called to mind that
many a man got his throat cut for less. Rosas took the
thing very philosophically, and probably keenly enjoyed the
humor of the whole situation, for he was richly endowed
with the "saving grace." Moreover, Brown was a privi-
leged personage with the terrible Restorer, and, anyhow,
he was but a stupid old gringo and so long as he was not
a savage Unitarian his notions of etiquette were of little
consequence. The foregoing incident gave many people
then, and even since, a kind of feeling that Brown was not
altogether of sound mind, but it must have been their
knowledge of the Dictator rather than what they knew of
the Admiral that inspired the strange notion.

He was buried in a very prominent place in the Recoleta

THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 179

Cemetery, and a monument which in its time must have been
considered quite a remarkable one was erected to his memory
by his wife. It has since fallen somewhat into disrepair and
is far from being a worthy memorial of one who figured so
largely, so nobly and so long in the heroic life of the Re-
public. His children do not seem to have been endowed with
any special qualities and there is hardly anything to record
of them in a work like this.

He was ailing, sinking, for a considerable time before
the final call came, and was visited in those days by many
of his old friends and many of the prominent public men
of the country. On January 29, "El Nacional" had this
notice of his condition: "General Brown continues gravely
ill. The day before yesterday he received the sacred
viaticum in his villa, for which the illustrious sailor had
duly prepared himself. During this solemn moment he
manifested the Christian sentiments of which he was pos-
sessed responding in the proper terms to the priest and
giving thanks to God for this high proof of mercy to a
warrior whom He had saved so often from death, that he
might die peacefully with all the helps of religion. The
priest who administered the sacraments to the illustrious
patient was the Rev. Mr. Fahey, Chaplain of the Irish."
Brown was always a man of strong religious feeling and it
is recorded of him that when on board his ship he passed
most of the Sunday, when not in actual warfare, in his
cabin reading some religious work. His funeral, as might
be expected, was very large and attended by special repre-
sentatives of the Government. Colonel Mitre, already a
man of considerable note, and a great friend of the late
Admiral, delivered the funeral oration, a magnificent piece
of oratory, which recounted most of the great deeds of the
dead hero and closed in these paragraphs:

In descending to the sepulchre Admiral Brown bears with him the
admiration of all patriots and the love of all good men, and tlie Argen-
tine navy remains orphaned of the old father who watched over its

180 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

birth on the stormy bosom of the Plate. The Pacific, the Atlantic,
the Uruguay, the Parand, the Rio de la Plata will be forever the
immortal pages on which will be read his great deeds, and while there
floats on these waters one shallop, or flies over them one Argentine
pennant the name of Brown will be invoked by every sailor as the
guardian genius of our seas.

If some day new -dangers threaten the Argentine fatherland, if
some day we should find ourselves obliged to confide to our floating
timbers the banner of May, the conquering breath of the old Admiral
will swell our sails, his ghost will grasp our helm in the midst of the
tempests and his warlike figure will be seen to stand on the top-deck
of our ships in the thick of the cannon smoke and the din of the
grappling shouts.

Adieu, noble and good Admiral of the fatherland of the Argentines!
— Adieu! — The spirits of Rosales, of Espora, of Drummond and of
Buchardo arise to receive thee into the mysterious mansions of the
tomb, and while they salute thee with palms in their hands, the people
of Buenos Aires weep the loss of their illustrious Admiral !

Mitre was a close and valued friend of Brown's and
after the young Argentine had visited him in the Autumn
of 1856, the old seaman sent him his memoirs with a letter
in which he said: "I wish to finish this work before I
begin the great voyage towards the shadowy seas of death."
A grandson of his rose to some rank in the Argentine navy
more than a generation ago, but I have not heard any-
thing as to what became of him in after years.

Here are some of the Irish names figuring prominently
in public affairs between 1850 and 1860, but I shall no
more than touch on them, and this mostly with the hope
of arousing the curiosity of someone who may have time
and opportunities to make closer inquiries as to who they
were, and what they did, and as to whether or not their
memories are worth preserving. There are many young
Irish-Argentines of considerable literary ability, and no
want of opportunity to whom such a task should be very
grateful and in more ways than one highly profitable. It
is a pity there is no Irish-Argentine society to undertake
and encourage such research and publish from time to time

THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 181

journals of its transactions — some such body, for instance,
as the Irish-American Historical Society. It is quite un-
known and, indeed, undreamed of, what an amount of mate-
rial such a society would find to occupy its attention all
over this country and the neighboring Republic of Uru-
guay, not to mention the Republics across the Andes.

Joseph Mary Cullen, one of the Santa Fe family, was
deputed by the Argentine Confederation, in '54, to arrange
terms of peace with the independent Republic of Buenos
Aires. He was later in the same year elected Governor of
his province. The peace arrangements which he, and
Gowland on behalf of Buenos Aires, made were considered
at the time a great achievement; the newspapers of the day
spoke of him in terms of high praise.

At the same time a member of another noted family of
Irish origin had prominent place in the ministry of Presi-
dent Urquiza, Captain Santiago O'Donnell. I believe that
O'Donnell belonged to the Province of Entre Rios, but there
were O'Donnells in Cordoba before the Independence, and
many of the name figure officially in Buenos Aires in the
early years of the Republic.

While the Government, in '59', had Engineer Couglilan,
who put up the first water supply plant for the city, making
plans for a new port and docks. Engineer Turner was con-
structing in a Dublin foundry the great iron roof of the
Colon Theater. This theater replaced the old Cabildo and
stood where is now the Banco de la Nacion. The roof
weighed 150 tons and was considered a work of exceptional
merit.

But the most interesting character of this time, from
an Irish or Irish-Argentine point of view, is the cavalry
commander Gaona. This extraordinary man, a Raperee of the
Raperees, for his daring, prowess and incredible escapes from
enemies surpasses anything in the stories of Redmond O'Han-
lon, Michael Dwyer or Brennan on the Moor. His parents
were Irish-born and removed from Buenos Aires to Paysandu
in Uruguay about the year 1827. His father's name was

18^ THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Gowan or McGowan, and as neither one is easily pronounced
in South American Spanish, the younger people, among
their comrades, went by the name of Gaona. This is about
as near as any Argentine could get to pronouncing Gowan,
as we pronounce it, the subject of this brief sketch accepted
the modification and with it ran his "wild career." His
people were well-to-do when one of the civil-war factions
of the country seized a considerable portion of his father's
property and sold it for their own use and benefit. This
outrage to his family, although he was still but young, did
not tend to deepen his respect for the authorities, but he
had other and more unforgettable cause for setting himself
heart and hand against what was regarded as the authority
— law there was none. In some sort of a quarrel two
Brazilians killed one of his brothers, he was then merely
a boy, but he swore to avenge his brother's murder, and
he kept his oath. He had scarcely reached manhood's
years when he slew the two Brazilians. His life from that
on for many years was the life of an outlaw. He seems
to have taken a special vow against the authorities and
in his numerous deadly combats with them would almost
appear to be possessed of something of the enchanted life
of the classic heroes or the warrior knights of romance.
Sarmiento says he was of giant stature and extremely well
formed, with nothing in his appearance to indicate the
career of violence and hardship which was his from youth.
He came across the Parana with Urquiza in 1859 to reduce
the Portenos to the state of subjects of the Provincianos,
but believing more in the cause of the former, or not relish-
ing the ideas of those he found himself in alliance with,
he went over to the ranks of Buenos Aires and fell a
prisoner to his former comrades at the battle of Cepeda.
By a ruse he escaped from his captors and rendered good
service the following year under Mitre at the Pavon. It
is told that Mitre, on the eve of the famous battle, wanted
a prisoner from the enemy ranks; the two armies were
ranged out in battle order and within cannon shot of each

THE SISTERS OF MERCY ESTABLISHED, ETC. 183

other; Gaona was given the mission of providing the needed
prisoner; it was hinted that an ordinary rank-and-file man
was not the kind desired. The redoubtable captain under-
stood, went forth, and came back with a color-sergeant.
The story is that he dashed into a squad of the enemy,
seized his man by the throat, plucked him off his saddle,
turned and sped back with his man thrown across his
horse's withers. This is but one of the numerous daring
feats of this interesting and picturesque Irish-Gaucho. At
Pavon his many previous wounds were added to, but, this
notwithstanding, he was amongst the most relentless of the
pursuers of the routed Provincianos, and like Owney
O'Connor at the battle of Tyrrell's Pass, his sword arm
was sore and swollen with overwork before he had finished
with the fleeing foe. Sarmiento mentions that at the age
of 32 he had then been eight years without sleeping under
a roof.

For the sake of the better understanding of some refer-
ences in the foregoing sketch of Captain Gaona, and the
keeping of the reader to some extent in touch with Argen-
tine history a word or two on the political conditions of
the country at the close of the first half of the last century.
When in '52 the Dictatorship of Rosas was overthrown the
hero of the event was General Justo Jose Urquiza, pre-
viously the chief commander and right-hand man of the
Dictator in the northern and nearer provinces. Urquiza
was beginning to feel his importance; he was a man of
much more liberal ideas than his chief, and rather sym-
pathized with the Uruguayans whom Rosas hated and made
war on relentlessly. He also began to feel, and not without
reason, that the great man in Buenos Aires had a tendency
to be suspicious of his principal leaders, and when this
suspicion ripened, a thing it usually did rapidly, he had a
very effective way of relieving himself of the annoyance
they occasioned him. Quiroga and Cullen were regarded
as examples. It was easy, therefore, for Don Justo Jose
to satisfy his conscience that it was his patriotic duty to

184 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

overthrow Don Juan Manuel as soon and as thoroughly as
he possibly could. But the people of Buenos Aires while
very glad to be rid of one dictator had no intention to
sit down under another one, and he a mere "provinciano."
The new President proposed making a little town in his own
province, Parana, the national capital. Buenos Aires, with
wealth, intelligence and population equal, if not superior,
to those of all the rest of the country would have none of
this, and after some revolutioning and upsetting of things
in a small way, set up for itself as an independent republic,
or else that Buenos Aires City should be the capital of the
whole Argentine nation. The battle of Pavon made good
this pretension; negotiations were duly entered into and the
Confederation and the Republic came to peace. Buenos
Aires became once more the capital of the nation and as
such it has ever since remained.

From Uruguay where Goana commenced making a name
for himself to Jujuy in the extreme northwest of the Re-
public is a long cry, but while on this subject of men of
Irish name at this period I cannot overlook one who had
risen high in the public affairs of his province and who
bore such a decidedly Gaelic patronymic as Molouney.
Whether he was a descendant of one of the prisoners of
the MacNamara expedition or whether he came into Jujuy
from Peru or Bolivia I know not, but Peter Paul Molouney
was well established in Jujuy in the Fifties and rose to
the position of first official in the Government of his state.
He did something in the real estate business too, but no
official document appeared in the first Sixties without his
name. There are not many Irish in Jujuy, I know, but
if any of the few who are there happen to come across
these pages I hope they will look up the antecedents and the
succedents of Molouney and give the family its proper place
in the records of our race in this land.

CHAPTER XII

Beginning of Sheepfarming — An Old Argentine's Story about Irish
Herds — A Strange Petition — Bulfin on the Sheepfarmer's Life —
Coming of the Sheep-scab, Foot-rot, Etc.

WHEN we turn to track the progress of the early
Irish settlers as they extended their activities
beyond the still narrow limits of the Capital and
its environs, we have to move at once quite a distance into
the country. There is no gradual spreading from the
suburbs outward, as might be expected in a land so sparsely
peopled and so comparatively new as was the vicinity of
Buenos Aires in the beginning of the last century. The
origin of this peculiarity, however, is not far to seek.
When great stock ranches were first being formed a very
wise law was enacted which forbid their establishment nearer
to the city than a limit of nine leagues. This arrangement,
to a great extent, reserved an area, in handy reach of the
city, sufficient for its provisioning with vegetables and other
agricultural products. And remembering, from present-day
experiences, what the roads of a hundred years ago must
have been, and that there were then no trains or tram-
ways, we can at once see what a sensible thing it was, on
the part of the legislators, to keep the producer and the
consumer of the principal necessary food items as close as
possible to each other. By this I do not mean to say
that there were no live-stock farms within the limit afore-
said, for there were, as mentioned in earlier chapters, but
they were on a limited scale. Halsey, Dwerhagen, Clark,
Miller and many others were within the prescribed area,
but their farms were small and mostly used for breeding,
dairying and fattening purposes.

185

186 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Thus, when our people took to the sheep industry they
had to go far afield and into very wild and lonely regions.
The Partidos of Canuelas, San Vicente, Ranchos, but most
of all Chascomus, were the principal sheep districts for the
first fifteen or twenty years after wool raising became a
popular and profitable business. It must not be under-
stood that the Irish immigrants were its chief promoters
and beneficiaries at first. Peter Sheridan is the first of
our countrymen well known to have invested largely in
merino sheep, but in all probability there were many of his
countrymen working as herds and corral-makers before he
branched out from his commercial pursuits to become
famous and wealthy, with his partner Harrat, as the most
important sheep-breeder of his time in Argentina. Several
native gentlemen, as already indicated, were engaged in im-
proving and extending the industry about 1825, and earlier,
and the Government of the day, inspired by the super-pro-
gressive Rivadavia, made every effort to stimulate the in-
dustry, importing from Europe several of the most approved
strains then procurable. It seems to have been a belief
amongst those who were then seeking to promote wool-
raising that the native of the plains was not the man to
make the most out of a flock of sheep. Even to this day
he is not generally considered by flock-owners as safe and
profitable a herd as would be an Irishman or a Basque.
In those days the native had less of the knowledge that
goes to make a successful sheep-farmer, for he was less prac-
ticed in that line of labor, had all the employment, and of
a kind that suited his taste, that he needed, and so was
little inclined to the patient drudgery and occasional hard-
ships which were the lot of the shepherd. Spanish immi-
gration was practically forbidden during the time of the
struggle for independence and for some years after, so
there were then few or no Basques, and thus the Irish were
the only suitable men available for sheep-herding. The
native stock-owners were surprised at the self-sacrificing
care and labor with which these lighthearted, soft-skinned

BEGINNING OF SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 187

strangers tended the flocks committed to their care. A very
wealthy old native gentleman, now many years gone to his
reward, used to tell an experience he had when a very young
man, which is worth retelling as illustrating what I say
about the care of the Irish shepherd for his flock. The story,
stripped of the picturesque amplifications with which the
admiring old criollo used to adorn it, was to this effect:
One summer evening when he was a boy, returning from a
neighboring estancia, he was overtaken by a sudden rain-
storm. His father's estancia was still some leagues away,
so he headed for the nearest puesto, or herd's house, on his
father's lands. Night and storm and rain were all on him
when he reached what he hoped would be a friendly and
safe shelter. He was disappointed, however, in finding the
shepherd and a youth lately out from Ireland with their
dogs, there were then no sheep-corrals as Ave know them
now, it would seem, busy in the pelting rain rounding
the sheep up against the sheltering walls of the little dwell-
ing. The only door of the house happened to be on the
side against which the sheep were gathered, and the shep-
herd would not allow even his master's son to pass through
the flock to shelter, for fear of disturbing it, until the storm
would have passed. The men were wet to the skin and
wading in deep mud on their watchful round to prevent any
stampede. In time the storm had passed and he sought
to enter the house, as the darkness was now too dense to
venture on the remainder of the journey, but a greater sur-
prise was in store for him; he found all the young and
more delicate lambs of the flock with a dozen or two ewes,
just yeaned, in possession of the couple of apartments into
which the puesto was divided, and he was very authori-
tatively told that they must not be disturbed before morn-
ing. He made the best of his way among his noisy and
inconsolate fellow-occupants to a catre in a corner, not,
however, to sleep, as anyone acquainted with or capable of
imagining the din and clamor some score of young lambs
inside a house appealing to their no less clamorous dams

188 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

outside, can make, may readily suppose. When the wrath
of the storm had spent itself, and there was no longer any
great danger of its carrying the flock in its current to
destruction, the shepherd turned his thoughts to the com-
forting of his guest, and brought him the first of a kettle
of hot coffee. The old estanciero, at this point in his
story, never forgot to add, with comic seriousness; "But
look, my friend, I assure you if those ewes and lambs ex-
pressed the least desire to have coffee, every one of them
would be attended to before I or that shepherd would get
a taste of it." As soon as he got within reach of the
parental ear he complained bitterly of the "animal of a
gringo" he had spent the night with, who thought more
about a point of stupid ewes and crazy lambs than about
the comfort of Christians, and recommended that people so
"bruto" should be got rid of at once. The wise pareilt
heard the complaint with silent attention, merely replying
that he would attend to the matter. This he did by in-
creasing the shepherd's interest in the flock so well cared,
and by giving the young "gringo" a flock on shares at the
first opportunity.

Whether the story was true as told or merely an or-
dinary incident generously exaggerated is a question of no
consequence here; I record it as expressive of the feeling
the old native gentlemen entertained towards the Irish as
shepherds. But that stronger and better evidence of this
feeling may not be lacking I will quote a paragraph
from a lengthy petition presented to the House of Repre-
sentatives in 1852, by Argentines, or as the petition states,
"natives of the parishes of Matanzas, Canuelas, Lobos and
Guardia del Monte." The petition asking that these
"natives" get fair play and protection in the matter of
employment and safety for their families, went on to say:
"To-day the owners of flocks turn us away; they look for
Europeans for their herds and they generally take these in
partnership, solely because they find in them independent
employees whom the authorities will not maltreat, with whom

BEGINNING OF SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 189

nobody will interfere or dare to molest in their business
nor in the sacredness of their domestic hearths. This
guarantee is not to be ours. For this reason we are
despised, for this the stranger is preferred before us, with
all his rawness (bozaha), with all his industrial inferiority.
Here is the cause that makes plain this shameful contrast
of so many sons of the soil, yesterday rich, to-day prole-
tariats, beside so many irlandeses but yesterday in rags
and tatters (andrajosos), to-day property owners."

It was a hard condition of affairs for the poor native,
but I'm afraid few sheep-farmers of that time or any time
since would be willing to bear him out in his assertion as
to the "industrial inferiority" of the foreigner, in the sheep
business, at least.

What the life of the beginner in the wool industry was
in the early days may to some extent be gathered in an
indirect way from incidental remarks in previous chapters.
The pioneer's house is accurately and inimitably painted
for the reader by the delightful pen of the late William
Bulfin in some extracts I have already made from an article
of his. His description of a day in a shepherd's life is so
comprehensive, graphic, detailed and faithful that I make
no apology for reproducing it here, as by far the best
treatment of the subject I have anywhere seen. It is writ-
ten, however, of a much later period than the Twenties or
even the Thirties. His is what I may call the Pine and
Wire Period, when once the shepherd had his sheep in the
corral he could look out for himself; but in the earlier days
when the corral was secured only by a trench dug all
around, the storm easily forced the sheep over the banks
and dykes, filling up the latter with the first outflow of the
drifting flock till a level way was made. It was thus much
easier to herd the sheep together and prevent a destructive
drift, out on the open plain, and this was the method usually
pursued by the first shepherds, but with the advent of the
American pine boards and later the wire fences, the secure
corrales or pens came to his relief and lessened his hard-

190 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

ships considerably. But apart from these little items the
record of his day's work and general situation as pictured
in the following extract has been true of the pioneer all
through the history of sheep-farming from the time Lanuze
invented the bottomless bucket for raising water for the
flock. By the way, although the invention of Lanuze was
called the bottomless bucket, "balde sin fundo," it was not
a bucket at all, but the skin of a horse's body partially
closed at one end and fixed to remain open at the other.
The contrivance was operated on the same system as the
present day bottomless bucket, the latter being only an
innovation made by the father of the late Dr. Pelligrini,
who acknowledged that he got the idea from Lanuze's con-
trivance. The canvas sleeve was an attempt at improving
Lanuze's horse-skin, but was not a success. Lanuze in his
invention did more for the promotion of sheepfarming in
Argentina than Halsey, the Government, Sheridan or any
of the great sheep-breeders; for without an easy method
of raising water the keeping of flocks anywhere away from
the great permanent rivers was an impossibility. The
semisurgiente windmills, and lately the electric well-borer of
Murphy & Co. of Santa Fe, are not half as great boons
in their time as was the invention of Lanuze in its era. Says
Bulfin:

Here is the hut. You know more or less all it contains, or is likely
to contain, for in a former chapter I have described a mud-ranch and its
fittings. Here are your dogs. Your horses are out yonder, feediug.
There are your sheep in the corral. Let us count them — 2063, reckon-
ing the lambs, and you have four skins drying on the corral wiring.
Those animals m the tail of the flock with the tar mark across the loins
are for slaughter; so whenever you want meat you are to kill one of them.
They are all toothless, superannuated ewes, but we must be economical
— none of your larking with fat lambs or plump and solid wethers
unless you want to get sent to the right about. And now, good luck
to you! Keep your eye open and your spirits as far out of your
boots as you can. You will need all the buoyancy that is in your
nature to sustain you in your solitude and drudgery. You will need

BEGINNING OF SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 191

all your manhood to keep you froua falling down in agony and despair
as you travel.

The bitter road the Younger son must tread.
Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own.

There has been no rain for months, nor is there a rain cloud or
any other kind of a cloud to be seen in the sky. There is a gray haze
along the horizon, and through it the sun is coming up red and angry.
There is not a blade of grass on the Pampa, every bit of vegetation has
disappeared under the blaze of the pitiless sun. As far as you can see,
north, south, east and west, there is nothing but the brown and
yellow soil, naked and parched. You are not a visitor to the sheep runs,
any longer, my friend. You are one of ourselves — a shepherd. You
have been about six months in charge. This run of yours lies on the
outskirts of the Mulreaney Camp, and seldom visited. It is about
five weeks since you saw the face of a fellowman or heard the tone of
any human voice but your own. You have been thrown on your own
resources with a vengeance. You have had to cook for yourself, wash
for yourself, do your own housekeeping and manufacture your own
amusement. You have for the last three weeks looked with some-
thing like horror at the barren landscape at sunrise, and it has met
your tired and drooping gaze at sunset without a change. Your
flock of sheep, so strong and healthy when you were left in charge,
has shrunk into a pack of woolly skeletons that die off at the rate of
twenty per day.

When you open your corral gate in the morning your starving sheep
crowd and stagger through it and limp away into the surrounding deso-
lation to look for something to eat. They prowl over the barren
stretches of clay and sickly bleats and coughs give forth their only
manifestations of disappointment at finding such scorching famine
where once the luxuriant grasses grew and tangled and clustered in
wild abundance. Those sheep are glad to find stray seeds, scraps of
decayed thistle stalks, or any other rubbish. They will even eat the
wool from off the carcasses of those that drop down to die, for the sake
of the seeds and other odds and ends of vegetable matter which it
contains. After a little while they will return again to the hut.

They come back for water and you must give them to drink. They
are thirsty in proportion to the hunger which is destroying them, and
as the sun mounts higher in the brazen sky they bleat and scurry round
the corner of the corral on their way to the drinking troughs. The only

192 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

water to be had for miles ar'ound lies at the bottom of that well yonder
which is about six feet in diameter and about sixty feet deep, and
which contains scarcely a fathom of the precious liquid. There is a
desperately thin horse, the only one left to you now; there is a rickety
wooden tank and a few drinking troughs; there is a rude trestle
over the well, holding an iron pulley from which depends a bottom-
less canvas bag; there are two hempen ropes, which are lying across
the aforementioned tank; and nothing else in particular save a few
crazy slabs of timber nailed up as a kind of stockade around the
mouth of the well to keep the sheep from falling in. With these works
and pumps you are obliged to supply 1500 thirsty skeletons with
water. Let me see if I can give you some idea of how it is done.

You first saddle the horse. As the girths are tightened home,
the patient quadruped heaves a sigh and you heave another. Like
everything else around the establishment, both of you are down on
your luck. It is easy to perceive that both have seen better days.
It is also easy to perceive that neither of you has much hope for the
future. You have been keeping that horse alive for the last five
weeks on maiz and dry alfalfa, a supply of which was sent you from the
estancia on the approach of hard times. As you mount, your con-
science smites you sorely, for you know in your heart that the animal
is nearly worked to death and scarcely able to move his tired limbs.
You have a raw hide whip and you have got to use it; for the sheep
have to be considered. The horse knows his business, and, as you
swing your leg across him, he turns resignedly towards the well. You
pick up the ropes from the tank and fasten them to the girth-ring.
The mouth of the bag is held open by a strong iron ring, across which
runs a bar that is made fast to one of the ropes. The other rope is
tied to the other extremity of the bag. The " head rope " passes
over the pulley, which depends from the trestle, the " tail rope "
passes over a wooden roller or cylinder, which is fastened to the tank
at the edge of the well. You shake the bag from off the tank and the
heavy metal rim causes it to fall into the well, mouth foremost, drag-
ging the slack of the rope after it. The hollow bump tells you when
it reaches the water. Then you turn your horse round and whip him
away from the well, when the gentle sport begins. The canvas bag
is about six feet long, and as it rises in a curved position, it brings up
about ten gallons of water. The poor horse has to stretch and strain
under the pull, and you feel heartily ashamed of yourself for being
obliged to add so considerably to his burden. When the sack of water
reaches the mouth of the well the " head rope " pulls the iron ring

BEGINNING OF SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 193

upwards towards the trestle, while the " tail rope " passing over the
cyHnder pulls in an opposite direction. The bag is thus straightened
out and the water splashes through the narrow end into the tank. At
the sound of the water tumbling into the tank, and on feeling the strain
lightened, the well-trained horse turns and goes back to the well.
The bag drops again, is filled, and the solemn march is resumed. You
must whip that unfortunate horse for the first hour or so in order to
supply the first cravings of the flock. If you take the thing easy and
spare the horse, the sheep will walk over each other, walk into the
troughs, try to scramble into the tank, and, very likely, one of them
or more will manage to tumble into the well. When you have to
dismount and unhitch your ropes in order to lasso a drowning sheep
at the bottom of a fifty-foot well you may swear that you have an
excellent opportunity of proving to 1500 other sheep that you have
full control over your temper.

The sun is burning and blazing. The sheep in tramping round the
troughs raise clouds of dust which the hot wind lifts into whirling
tortures for man and beast. Your feet are blistered inside your heavy
top-boots. The patient horse plods to and fro, snorting occasion-
ally to drive the invading dust from his nostrils. Your temples ache
and the blood drums madly over them. The air is full of those vibra-
tory fizzling ripples which tell of a temperature that may be anything
between 95 and 105 degrees. Hour after hour you ride up and down
that well beaten path, in the eddying dust, past the panting sheep,
whipping that exhausted horse and trying to get ahead of your work.
Hour after hour the dust gets into your head, your lungs, mingles with
the perspiration on your face and neck, and covers you from head to
foot. Hour after hour those wretched sheep drink and drink and bleat
and cough and call for more. I can tell you it is far from romantic.
It is the sort of outdoor amusement that will bring the crows' feet under
your eyes, and the wee white hairs over your ears and the disappear-
ance of your fresh complexion, and the stiffening of your knee joints,
and the dumb aching misery into your heart. There is a dead, petri-
fied monotony about it which is worse than the heat and the dust
and the blisters and the weary solitude.

Toward sundown you get a rest. Having swilled water for about
seven hours, the sheep make another raid on the barren camp in
quest of more seeds and thistle-stalks, and even clay. A few of them
fall down and die; a few more have died during the day These you
must skin. While you are skinning, your horse is regaling himself
on his dry hay. Your dogs, that have lain all day panting on the shady

194 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

side of the hut, are now your companions. They follow your skinning
with a keen and selfish interest and chew each other a little before they
can come to any workable agreement in regard to the division of the
spoils. At sundown you drag or carry home the skins of the dead
sheep and hang them on the wiring or rails of your corral to dry. Now
for the banquet! — Your shepherd's dinner. Behold! you have high
festival — black tea, camp biscuit as hard as a stone, some meat cooked
on the embers, and a smoke of some brand of Virginian tobacco nearly
as potent as dynamite. In due time you go forth once more, and by the
united efforts of your dogs and yourself you manage to get the sheep,
tired, hungry and sickly into the corral.

There! your day's work is done. Shake up the hay under your
horse's head, give him a drink and go home to your hut; load that pipe
of yours, sit down on the doorstep with your shoulder against the wall,
and send up your curling wreaths of smoke and incense to the stars.
If memory comes back upon you now, may it be pleasant! May it
tell you of distant scenes where the cool breezes are whispering to the
leaves of mighty elm or ash; where the woodbine peeps through the
ivy around the gnarled hawthorn trunks; where the wild rose bedecks
the hedges; where the larch spreads out its feathery branches, like a
festoon of giant fern across the burnished glory of the sunset; where
the moss-grown old abbey ruin looks so solemn in the waning twilight;
where the glad voices answer each other as the young folks scamper
over the meadows; where the brook murmurs its eternal story to the
overhanging willows and hedges, and where the gleam that steals
through the hazels on the hillside and blinks at you across the valley
comes from the fire, around which are seated those whose loving
thoughts are going out to you in your exile.

" Baa! " It is only the bleat of the hungriest sheep in the corral,
but it brings you back to your surroundings. It reminds you among
other things that you are dead tired and that you are very sleepy.
There is not a sound to break the silence but the play of your horse's
teeth over his dry alfalfa, or an occasional bleat from the flock. Not a
camp cricket is left alive to chirp, not an owl to hoot, not a plover
to wail over its loneliness. Heigho! it is terrible. But go to bed you
sun-tanned exile; go to bed you unfortunate shepherd! You are too
sleepy already to pull off your boots and grease your blistered feet.
So here ! shake yourself up and turn in. Your tired limbs stretch out
into night; your dirty face pillows itself on the door-sill; your dogs
lie down beside you, and do their dreaming in your company. Your
disreputable old hat has tumbled off, and the night wind moves the

BEGINNING OF SHEEPFARMING, ETC. 195

tousled hair that hangs over your forehead; and you are not going to
waken until the chills drive you within doors, after you have learned
from the stars that you have been asleep for hours. Pull that old
poncho over you now, and get all the rest you can before daybreak,
for the morrow must find you again at your post — must find you ready
for another day of dust and sweat and heat and pulling water and skin-
ning dead sheep. How do you feel?

The long extract I have quoted is, of course, but one
side of the story but it is a side, and enough to make plain
that the shepherd's life was not always one of ease and
contentment. There were lots of ups and downs and diffi-
culties, but patience and care were almost always attended
with success, and our people were remarkable from the be-
ginning for the steadiness and rapidity with which they
acquired wealth as sheep-farmers. In 1842 McCann was
astonished at the wealth some of his countrymen had then
acquired in the southern camps. A writer in the Revista
del Plata, in 1853, considering the natural wealth of the
soil of the Province of Buenos Aires, and the unrivalled
opportunities farming pursuits offered to the right kind
of settlers had this to say by way of confirming his argu-
ment: "If anyone wants to be sure of these facts let him
ask the numerous Irish immigrants who in ten years rose
from the state of mere laborers to that of proprietors of
valuable flocks."

Yet although sheep-farming was now known for thirty
years to be one of the most profitable lines of business so
far developed in the Plate country it had not made the
progress generally that one might expect. Some would at-
tribute this slow movement for some years prior to the fall
of Rosas to the general stagnation in business which came
with the Anglo-French blockade, and others to the virulence
which the scab epidemic assumed in the first years of its
appearance in the country. I am inclined to think that
in addition to these causes, the scarcity of suitable shep-
herds affected it greatly. Argentina did not at all depend
in those days on Europe for the disposal of its wool, and

196 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

so the blockade was in that sense of little consequence, for
as the export returns show, in the one year, 1854< alone,
the United States bought more than half the total shipped,
and nearly twice as much as England. The growth of
sheep-farming for the first two generations or so of its
history seems to keep time, so to speak, with the growth
of the Irish population here. It was the line of activity,
of all others, that appears to have suited our countrymen
best, or that they seem to have suited best. This chapter
set out to follow their course as they spread through the
southern departments and later moved west and northward,
till the tiller of the soil in due time spread after them and
generally crushed them out, at least as sheep-farmers, to
the far frontiers and new lands, but before we follow them
a paragraph or two about the coming of the scab may be
informing and interesting to many.

So intimately was the early life of the Irish colony here
associated with sheep raising that the history of the one
is largely the story of the other for the first couple of
generations in the career of the Republic. It will, there-
fore, interest the people for whom this book is being writ-
ten chiefly, to know that in the beginning, in the days when
only the old criollo and the merino breeds were known there
was no such disease in Argentina as lumbriz, footrot, or
scab. The two latter maladies came with the finer and
more delicate breeds imported in 1837-8. It is recorded
in the Revista del Plata, 1853, that at this time, 1838, a
certain importer had on show for sale a number of fine
Saxon rams. All the principal sheep-breeders of the coun-
try came to inspect the much talked of new arrivals, and
each one had his own opinion of the probable suitability or
unsuitability of the animals for the pastures and climate
of Argentina. One prominent flock-owner, a sturdy Rosas-
ite, had no good word to say of any foreign breed, but
was especially denunciatory of the latest introduction. The
rams were offered at a price per head that at the time
would go far towards purchasing a small flock of sheep

BEGINNING OF SIIEEPFARMING, ETC. 197

This fact made the old-fashioned estanciero even more re-
lentless against the pampered and belauded strangers.
People might be foolish enough to give such prices, but he,
no — never. His little criollo sheep with their mixture of
merino blood, which, at the end of all, was the same blood,
was good enough for him, and he had all the rams of his
own that he wanted without paying those foreigners a
whole fortune for a dandy that one shower of rain might
kill. No, he'd have nothing to do with them. He had
some excellent flocks, and was more than ordinarily in-
fluential amongst his class; the importer would sacrifice
a good deal to secure his friendship, or even his neutrality,
in regard to the Saxon rams. He urged him as a man with
the interests of the country, and especially those of the
great sheep-breeding industry, so much at heart to take a
couple of the best of the rams, as an experiment, for one
or two years, and if he did not like the result he could
return them, and in any case they would cost him nothing.
The estanciero yielded; the rams were sent out to his
estancia with the instruction to his mayordomo to treat
them exactly as the native sires — no special privileges for
the new-comers, let them take their chances with the rest
of the flock. The two Saxons had hidden in their thick
fleeces millions of the invisible parasites whose outward sign
of active operation in their nefarious business pursuits is
commonly known as scab. They infected all Don Fulano's
beautiful flock, and when winter began making its approach
the unfortunate animals were noticed kicking and scratch-
ing and biting their burning and irritated pelts, and all this
in such a manner, and augmented so as the months went
on that when shearing time came there was not as much
wool on the whole flock as would buy shears to dag them
with. The unhappy estanciero's regard for things foreign
got back to its old standard, only more so, and it is said he
never in all his life went to a ram show again.

There were then no sheep-dips on the market, nor any
known remedy for the disease, at least in Argentina. It was

198 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

noticed that in wintertime the pest rose to its worst, and
that the fatter the animals were the less they suffered; the
hot weather almost banished it ; and from these facts it was
believed that by sweating the animals heavily the malady
could be almost got rid of, as though it were only a cold
on the lungs or a spell of neuralgia. From this the custom
became common of running the flocks violently and with
fixed regularity so as to make them perspire much. The
remedy, of course, was soon found to be useless and many
people abandoned the sheep-raising business altogether.
Such havoc did the pest play with the wool yield that a
writer in the review last-named commends the wise practice
of the Irish sheep-farmers, "poor men who let nothing go
to waste," he calls them, in holding back their shearing to
profit by the new growth of wool.

Foot-rot when it first appeared was an even worse disease
than scab and more destructive in its effects. Often large
numbers of an affected flock were unable to walk from the
corral to the pasture area, except on their knees, and
if grass was scarce death by starvation was the common
result of the disease, for the animals could not get over
much ground in search of food. Unlike the scab it soon
abated and disappeared, returning only under special cir-
cumstances. Scab, on the contrary, spread and became
more virulent as the years went by, till in a short time
every flock in the country was infected. Previous to the
introduction of the foreign bred animals there was no sheep
disease known in the country, but once introduced, the
native breed was just as susceptible to the pest as the most
delicate of those brought in from abroad.

CHAPTER XIII

Camp Settlements — Quilmes — Matanzas — Moron — Canuelas — Ranchos
— Chascomus — Dolores — Lobos — Doctor Fitzsimons' School —
GuARDiA del Monte— Las Heras— Merlo — Moreno — Lujan — Capilla
del Senor — Zarate — Baradero.

AND now our pursuit of the pioneer will commence and
wherever he went in any great number I shall follow
' him with pleasure and try to find out how he fared
and what tracks he left after him.

In Quilmes, Matanzas and Moron some Irishmen found
employment in the ordinary agricultural pursuits almost
from the first coming of our people in quest of the means
of a livelihood. In addition to the dairying and saladera
industries, Quilmes had some small sheep and cattle farms,
Matanzas had dairying, agriculture and sheep-farming on a
somewhat more extensive scale, whilst Moron was the scene
of Halsey's first struggle and failure to establish the wool-
raising industry, it had also several successful agricultural
and stock-raising farms. Many of these were owned by
foreigners who employed Irishmen, by preference, whenever
they could be found. But these districts were never suit-
able for flock-owners who had to rent pasturage, owing to
the high value of land, and so they were never areas in
which our people could make any settlement except as hired
workmen, that is, to any considerable extent.

When Sheridan saw the possibilities of the wool trade
he made the district near Canuelas the scene of his new
enterprise, and so that parish and the northern part of
the neighboring parish of Ranchos became the first camp
locality Irishmen went into. Canuelas, however, being so
close to the Capital, land was of comparatively high value,

199

200 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

rarely changed owners and whenever a proprietor chanced
to dispose of his estate, or a portion of it, the price was
beyond the reach of all except the very wealthy, hence but
few Irish families settled there permanently. It was a lead-
ing sheep-raising district during the Rosas regime and for
some twenty years after. The land was mostly stocked by
its owners, and when the flocks were not of the finer class
and raised to be disposed of at fancy prices for breeding
from, were usually let to shepherds on interest. There were
also, of course, many sheep-farmers who rented by the year,
but these were mostly on the southern and western portions
of the district. Father Fahey attended to its Chaplaincy
necessities till Fathers Cullcn and Kirwan came to his as-
sistance in the middle Fifties. In '64 Father Dillon was
transferred there from Merlo, but did not remain long in
that position and was succeeded by Father Smith who made
Lobos his headquarters. The fact that Father Dillon was
sent there at the date mentioned would suggest that
Cafiuelas must have then been one of the principal Irish
districts. Mulhall, in his Handbook, published in 1875,
gives in his list of land-holders in the department but one
Irish name, that of Mr. Hanlon. Tillage was then making
steady advance although the district had still more than a
million sheep. It must have seemed a strange misfortune
to our countrymen, or as they would probably call it them-
selves, miragh, that the very reverse of the system which
cleared them off the soil in Ireland w^as now clearing them off
the soil in all the inner Partidos in their new country.
Sheep and cattle had suppressed the plow on all the fat
lands at home and were ruthlessly pressing it year by
year further on to the swampy and stony areas ; here the
plow was banishing the sheep and cattle to the outlands
and frontier wilds. And so by the end of the nineteenth
century Canuelas as a sheep-farming, and consequently, as
an Irish district ceased to exist. It will be remembered
that Canuelas was one of the districts from which the com-
plaint came to the Government in '52 that the natives were

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 201

being crushed out and undone by the Irish sheepmen. Little
they or the Irish thought then that another order of
"crushers out" would be on the scene before the years of
another generation had flown by.

Although portion of Ranchos was occupied by the sheep-
farmers at as early, if not earlier date, as Canuelas, the
partido was not as rapidly overrun by flocks as was the
securer district to its north. In the Twenties the southern
part of this partido reached to the Indian frontier, or near
enough to it to make it something other than a land of
heart's desire for men whose only purpose in the country
was the pursuance of a peaceful and profitable industry.
Rosas, though not yet a national figure, as comandante of
the southern partidos was practicing, to the great advan-
tage of all rightly inclined residents, be it said, those
methods which in a few years after he applied to the whole
Republic. Evil-doers, whether Indian raiders or criollo
freebooters, found Don Juan Manuel's territory anything
but a congenial sphere for their operations, and so the in-
dustrious foreigner, safe in his person and property, steadily
increased. Sheridan, as we have already seen, commenced
his sheepfarming in this neighborhood. Although it is said
his first flocks were pastured in Canuelas, his first estancia,
so far as I know, was called "Los Galpones" and was situate
in the Partido of Ranchos. To him is given the credit, and
I think justly, of proving that sheep were not such value-
less animals as before his time they were considered by
stock-owners in general. His method was not entirely the
introduction of a new breed, but rather the crossing of
merino rams and carefully selected criollo ewes. He was
thus in a few years able to get up whole flocks of fine sheep
with nearly all the good qualities of the foreign-bred animal
combined with all the hardiness and climatic suitability of
the Pampa race. His example was followed by others and
Ranchos soon became famous for its flocks of fine sheep.
Harrat, an Englishman, was in business with him, and
later, in 1827, a young Scotchman, John Hannah, joined

^m THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

him in the stock-raising business. Whoever wanted to work
sheep, to buy sheep, to breed sheep, or learn anything good
about sheep turned in those years to the "Galpones" and
"Las Palmitas," and a writer in the Revista del Plata more
than sixty years ago speaking of earlier times said that to
these estancias "gathered, even in those years, the generality
of Irish breeders of the hardier and firmer wooled-sheep"
in quest of animals with which to improve their flocks.
Sheridan and his partner tried the South Down race when
first introduced, but did not like the result of their experi-
ment and let the breed die out, so far as they were con-
cerned. These sheep were introduced by the Government
and kept for some time on the State Farm at Chacarita
and after turned over in great part to the Sheridan firm,
a breeder of the name of Capdevilla getting the remainder,
who continued to propagate the race for some time, finally
disposing of them to Mr. Bell, a well-known stockman.

What has been said of Canuelas as to the value of
land and the difficulty of purchasing, is almost equally ap-
plicable to the district of Ranchos. The plow, however,
did not come so early nor did it move so rapidly when it
did come as in the more suitable agricultural land of the
neighboring partido. With the fall of Rosas all the south-
ern districts underwent a great change, as did, indeed, all
the more recently settled partidos. Lawlessness and murder
became daily more common, and disastrous Indian raids
are recorded from every frontier. A writer in the review,
from which I have so often quoted, stated in the latter
Fifties that all the settlements south of the 25 de Mayo
and Loberias, except Bahia Blanca and Patagones, had
already been overwhelmed by the Indians. Settlers around
the Salado had for some time been turning their steps
northward to the safer and cheaper lands in Lujan, Pilar
and Capilla del Senor. Some of our people began acquiring
lands about this time and in addition to the Sheridans,
Gibbings, Glennons, Shennans and some others established
themselves permaTieritlj. Dr. Gibbings, a Corkman, seems

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. ^03

to have been the leading Irishman in the district after the
Sheridans, who both died young; Peter in '44 at the age
of 52, and Hugh, who was a medical doctor and served
under Admiral Brown, in '66 at the age of 54. The greater
part of the Irishmen in Ranchos, in the days when they
were numerous there, must have been hired men or shep-
herds having their flocks on very poor interest, for the
Partido figures badly on the various Irish subscription lists,
that I have been able to collect. The Father Fahey Testi-
monial in ^65 which was very generally subscribed to
throughout the camp had only eight contributors from this
Partido. Ranchos was within the chaplaincy district of
Chascomus, Fathers Connolly and Curley being the first dis-
trict Chaplains permanently settled there. Earlier the
resident Chaplains of Buenos Aires made periodical visits
to the district as to all the other districts where there were
Irish settlers. If our people were not blest with worldly
success in Ranchos with the same lavishness as in the newer
parishes to which they spread, they seem to have been
favored with more security for their lives and belongings.
The robberies and shocking murders so constantly reported
from other departments were almost unknown in this dis-
trict. Dr. Gibbings was a very energetic and public-spirited
man, held several posts in the administration of the law in
his locality, and this may to a considerable extent account
for the orderliness of the place. A very sad occurrence,
however, took place in the district in the April of '66; in
a great thunder-storm the wife and two children of an
Irishman, Michael Gannon, were killed by a flash of light-
ning, while he was engaged with his flock on the open plain.
Chascomus seems to have been the most favorable dis-
trict for sheepfarming when that line of industry first be-
came attractive to foreigners. Not only Irish but a large
Scotch colony, also, established itself there before 1830.
The first Scotch settlers seem to have been men of consider-
able capital for several of them bought land at a very early
date in the wool-raising industry, and although there were

204 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

many Scotch shepherds and laborers in the district, the
majority of this kind of workmen were Irish. We have
seen already that the first passports issued to Irishmen, in
the latter Twenties, were to the Chascomus district, and
some fifteen years later McCann found the Irish popula-
tion thereabout, "very dense." But as was the case in most
of the partidos this side of the Salado, the greater part
of the first settlers moved northward and bought land in
the newly opened districts from Cap ilia and Lujan out-
wards. Still in the Sixties there was a large number of
our people settled in that department and it has the honor
of being the first in all the land to build an Irish Chapel.
In 1863 a movement was set on foot to this effect, and
early in the following year the Chaplain, Father M. A.
Connolly, commenced the building, on Mrs. MuUady's es-
tancia. The names of the subscribers to the building of
the first camp chapel of our people have a special right
to be recorded, and I am sorry I have not been able to
secure more than a partial list of them. As some patriotic
Chascomusian, however, may be able to supply the missing
names, and take the trouble to do so, I will set down those
I have been able to find, thus, at worst, preserving some
of them. Here they are: Rev. M. A. Connolly, Messrs.
Joseph Graham, James Gardiner, Widow Gardiner, Robert
Wilson, James Farrell, Richard Wheeler, Edward Ward,
Martin Griffin, John Bouland, William Browne, Andrew
Mahon, John Farrell, John Lynn, William Bouland, Wil-
liam Jourdan, Edward Jourdan, Thomas Farrell, Thomas
Ward, Nicholas Jourdan, Martin Moylen, John Duffy, John
Dervin, James Furlong, Peter Keena, Patrick Cormack,
Peter Mitchel, Pancho Hernandez, J. P., Thomas Mullany,
John Jourdan, Michael Farrell, Geo. Alverez, George
Godoy, John Harper, Thomas MuUady, Francis Cardiff,
Mathew Connarton, Annie Cardiff, Mr. Leary, George
Cardiff, Thomas Kirk, Pablo Sanchez, Edward Kirk, Michael
Killion, John Killion, John Dellomore (Delemar?), Andrew
Bannon, Andrew Burke, Patrick Gardiner. The subscribers

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 205

of the largest sums were Mr. Wilson, $3000; Messrs. An-
drew Mahon, Thomas Mullady, Thomas Kirk, and Andrew
Bannon, $1000 each.

What need there was for an Irish Chapel in the district
will to some extent be seen when it is known that the very
year when the proposal to build the Chapel was taking mate-
rial shape, Father Connolly prepared and had received their
first Communion at Easter, nearly one hundred children.
Chascomus was the first place, outside the Capital, in which
the Irish Sisters of Mercy established themselves, and dread-
fully they suffered there in the awful year of the Cholera.
Probably no town in the Republic felt the dreadful scourge
so severely as did this old southern outpost. The only
physician in the town. Dr. Crosbie, with his wife was car-
ried away by the disease. The Annals of the Sisters of
Mercy mentions that the Sisters "had an excellent school"
in the town and add: '^But after some years the impossi-
bility of getting daily mass, and other difficulties, obliged
Rev. Mother to withdraw the Sisters." Saint Patrick's Day
used to be celebrated here with a banquet, and at that of
'63 it is recorded that there was an attendance of fifty
banqueteers. There was only one subscription to the Fahey
Testimonial in ^65 recorded from the district, and this is
hard to account for as there was no important camp settle-
ment of our people at the time in more convenient reach
of Buenos Aires. Probably the district collectors, if any
were appointed, neglected their duty.

Like in most camp districts there were some shocking
murders of Irishmen in the Chascomus camps. Patrick
Larkin and Patrick McCormack were both murdered in the
latter part of '68; the first was found, stabbed, in the
camp, the second stabbed in an argument with a Basque
about a race that had taken place a week before.

The year '70 was a particularly bad one in this and the
neighboring partidos and many of the renting sheep-
farmers headed the survivors of their flocks for other
pasture-lands, chiefly west and northward. From about

206 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

that time the Irish population of the district has been on
the decline. There are very few Irish-born men or women
to be found there now, but people of Irish parentage or
remoter Irish ancestry are to be met with in considerable
numbers, and mostly well-to-do in circumstances. In Sep-
tember, 1872, an Irish priest, Mgr. John Joseph Curley,
came here from Rome. He had the title of "Proto Notario
Apostolico," and so announced himself. Father John Leahy,
who had lately been appointed to the Chaplaincy made vacant
by the death of Father Fahey, felt uncertain as to his own
standing and that of Mgr. Curley, and wrote to the Arch-
bishop requesting certain information on the matter, and
that this information be supplied with permission that it
be published to the Irish community. The request was fully
granted and Mgr. Curley was shown to have just the same
faculties, no more, no less, as Father Leahy and the other
Irish Chaplains. It seems Mgr. Curley came very highly
recommended; he officiated for some time in the Merced
Church and in San Roque, and after returning from a trip
to Ireland in 1873, when the Archbishop was making and
confirming some appointments among the Irish Chaplains
he was named to the district of Chascomus, Ranchos and the
southern Parishes. In a reply to or sort of explanation
of Father Leahy's publication of the Archbishop's reply to
his request, above referred to, Mgr. Curley wrote as fol-
lows : "I have come from Rome and have been received here
to minister specially to the Irish — I have received the same
faculties as any of the Irish priests — Father Leahy's posi-
tion and mine are alike. I have nothing to say to my brother
priests, nor has he, the Curia rules us all. When it is
satisfied none of us has anything to say."

In the early Eighties, Father Purcell, a young Irishman
ordained in Buenos Aires, succeeded Mgr. Curley, who had
been appointed Irish Chaplain of Navarro. The Irish
Chapel of the district was then called "Mahon's Chapel."
Father Purcell was removed to Capilla del Senor in '88,
succeeding Father Grennon, lately deceased, and Father

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 207

Brady, formerly of the Passionist Order was appointed to
Chascomus and neighboring parishes. He was succeeded, in
1898, by Rev. Joseph Geoghegan, an Argentine ordained
in Ireland, and who although now deceased, was still Irish
Chaplain in Chascomus, with residence in the Parochial
House, when the century and my record close.

In the latter Nineties Saint Patrick's Day used to be
still celebrated with special services, sermon and large
gathering at Mahon's Chapel. The Chaplain's district then
included Paravicini, Ayacucho, Lopez, Piran, Arboleto and
Mar del Plata. There has been no regular Irish Chaplain
in the district now for years, and for the non-Spanish
speaking amongst our people the Passionist Fathers give
missions at regular intervals.

From the fact that three Irish doctors had settled, as
McCann observes, in the Dolores district within the few
years preceding '44 that region must have then had a
very considerable Irish population. It may, therefore, be
regarded as one of the first three or four the Irish sheep-
farmers occupied in large numbers. It was here the up-
rising against Rosas, in '39, took place, and as the at-
tempted revolution failed, almost all the estancieros and
others connected with it had to fly the country, or, being
less fortunate, were prisoners in the power of the Dictator.
Land for rent must then have been easily found and very
cheap in that department, and this accident of the politics
of the day very likely accounted for the sudden inrush of
Irish sheep-farmers in the years immediately following
Lavalle's attempt to overthrow the Tyrant. The new-
comers, however, only came as renters and comparatively
few of them acquired land. It was then relatively too far
from the Capital to make sheep-farming on rented land
permanently profitable. New districts to the west and north
and not half so far away from the market were then open-
ing up and the sheep-men of Dolores did as their fellows
in the older partidos, only more so — they treked north and
westward. Some remained on and their descendants are

208 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

there still, but amongst the land-owners enumerated by
Mulhall there is none of Irish name. There is no depart-
ment in the whole Republic, where there was once a large
Irish population, that has changed so much, and in which
our people have dwindled to such insignificance numerically.

With the exception of Chascomus, Lobos is the oldest
town in the South, and away from the immediate vicinity
of the premier city. It was founded well over a hundred
years ago and was for long the farthest limit of civilization
in its direction. It early became a great Irish center and
numbers of the new settlers were quick to become landed
proprietors. As early as 1853 the Irish far outnumbered
any other foreign nationality in the district, counting 173
souls, the Spanish, chiefly Basques, coming next to them,
and the English, including Scotch, numbering 41. The re-
turn of the wool produce of the district for this same year
reaches the high figure of 10,500 arrobas. So rapidly did
our people increase in numbers and wealth that one of the
first chaplaincies established in the country was that of
Lobos, in '57, I believe. Father Henry Smith, a missionary
priest, born in County Meath, was its incumbent. Whether
or not he was the very first camp chaplain to be appointed
to a set district or not, there is no doubt he was the first
camp chaplain to die in office. His death took place on the
8th of May, 1865, at the age of 60 years. He was ordained
in the Irish college of Paris, and had been on the mission
for some time in Uruguay.

In the year '61 a very highly educated and somewhat
distinguished Irishman, in the person of Dr. Fitzsimons,
came to Buenos Aires. He was a native of the County
Down, and held a professorship for some years in a London
University. Soon after his arrival in Buenos Aires, on
the advice, it was said, of Father Fahey, he established a
school for boys in Lobos. When Hutchinson wrote his
"Gleanings," he mentioned that the Irish settlers of Lobos
founded the school; Dr. Fitzsimons published an indignant
contradiction of this in a letter to the press, asserting that

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 209

he and he alone was the founder. Hutchinson being still in
the country, hastened to point out that the Doctor had
misinterpreted him, he did not deny that Fitzsimons organ-
ized the school, but what he held was that the founding
of the school was the building of the house and the paying
for it, and the people of Lobos had done that. The Pro-
fessor remained but one year in Lobos, and in '63, at the
solicitation of the Archbishop and Father Fahey, it was said,
opened St. Patrick's College in Flores, Buenos Aires. To
this college many of the sons of the well-to-do Irish sheep-
farmers and business men of the camp and city came. That
he was a capable teacher, from the business point of view,
that is, in communicating to his pupils sound business in-
struction, I have no doubt. But that he was a good, or
medium, educator in the true sense of the word, namely,
a drawer-out, developer and director of the best qualities
and dispositions in the youth entrusted to him must be
denied. And for the one simple reason that he sought to
make those youths something wholly different from what
nature intended them to be — they were Argentine citizens,
born of Irish parents, and he sought to make them into
English subjects. The report of his school for the year
1865, as published in the "Standard," is worth quoting from
here, for it to some extent explains many things which
most people have been unable to understand in what is called
the educated Irish- Argentine of the generation which is now
dying out. Said the report: "If any one history above
another claims our attention it is that of England — the
history of an Empire on which the sun never sets — whose
language is spoken all over the world; a nation that holds
in its hands the destinies of man, and whose constitution
is a model for the countries of the earth, or, as it has been
justly styled, the admiration of surrounding nations and
the glory of its own. History is fully appreciated and
well taught at St. Patrick's. We had a convincing proof
of this on Thursday last — the students enjoy in this respect
peculiar advantages under Dr. Fitzsimons, who, during his

210 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

connection with the London University, was reputed one
of the most distinguished lecturers on the constitutional
history of England. The subject matter embraced the
period from the Roman invasion down to the succession of
the Stuart dynasty. The students under examination did
not stand together, but came up separately to a little pulpit
in the center of the hall. It was a trying ordeal and well
they acquitted themselves, each returning from the tribune
with applause. Master Denis Harrington's resume of the
entire history — mapping it into periods, showing the rise
and fall of each dynasty, with dates of accession, the great
constitutional changes indicating the growth of what is
termed the British Constitution was executed in masterly
style. Hubert Rourke on the Norman dynasty was truly
good. Masters Scully, Ham and Kenny on the Plantagenet,
Lancaster and York, and Tudor dynasties proved them-
selves to be masters of the subject." And so on with many
other unfortunate Irish-Argentine boys whose time was
thus being worse than wasted. There were also recitations
and declamations all of a piece with the history teaching.
There is nothing about Argentine or Irish history. These
Argentine boys were evidently not taught to feel any pride
in their own or the land of their fathers ; and thus in ig-
noring their native country and the country from which
their race was sprung, and in setting their minds wholly
on the great people and events of a foreign nation, he made
of his boys, in as far as his history-teaching went, bad
Argentines. In shutting out from their intelligence all
memory of the race and the land of their fathers he denied
them the best store of inspiration that boys or men, in any
land or time, can feed their minds from. In teaching that
there was an English Constitution he was forcing them to
take a myth for a fact, there is not now, and there never
was, an English Constitution. This alleged constitution
that was taught to be the "admiration" and "glory" of the
nations around still maintained the cruel and degrading
Penal Laws against Catholics and such others as were not

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 211

of the State Church, "by law established"— not by the
Constitution, note; and further, compelled the monarch, be-
fore recognizing him or her, as the case might be, to swear
in the most solemn manner that all Catholics, in or out of
his or her dominions, were idolators ! What glory and ad-
miration, Mr. Fitzsimons, from the County Down! The
myth about a constitution had not yet taken shape when
the English King and his nobles had suppressed and plun-
dered the old Church, for their own aggrandizement, and
established, by law, the new one, which new one promptly
ratified the aforesaid suppression and plunder, but on the
condition, of course, that it should have a due proportion
of the plunder. These then were the glorious and admirable
conditions Dr. Fitzsimons was training his Irish-Argentine
pupils to extol and worship. The Empire "on which the
sun never sets," I need scarcely stop to mention, is the out-
ward sign and testament of centuries of daylight and dark-
night robbery, murder and oppression. What a worthy
subject with which to encumber and stultify Irish-Argentine
minds ! The youngsters who "proved themselves to be
masters" in their knowledge of the Plantagenets, Lancasters
and Tudors never heard within their school, it would seem,
the names of San Martin, Pueyrredon, Belgrano, Liniers or
Guemes, and I can well suppose that the mention of the
Inny's banks. Tubberneering or the "stony hills of Clare,"
places in which the parents of his pupils passed their youth,
would be taken as extremely vulgar if not actually treason-
able b}^ the distinguished professor. Thus the result of Dr.
Fitzsimons' "education" was the instilling of a knowledge
which in after life his students could not use amongst their
associates and friends without making themselves some-
things of a nuisance. Many of them went back to the
camp from school, and in the midst of more natural sur-
roundings forgot as much as they could of the exotic balder-
dash they wasted their schooldays in learning, whilst others
of weaker mentality and less fortunate environments grew
into pretentious snobs and are to-day to a considerable

212 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

extent, with those they influenced, the shoneen element in
the Irish- Argentine community — the people who get them-
selved called "Anglo-Argentines" in the press "society
notices." I have met a few of Dr. Fitzsimons' pupils who,
strange to say, held fast to the old Irish ideals, but most
of them turned out poor as Argentines and poorer as Irish.

I have made a long digression from my glance at the
settlement and progress of the Irish in Lobos, but before
parting with Dr. Fitzsimons let me add, that, fortunately,
his college in Flores lasted only a few years. He moved to
other locations in the city and later to Parana where he
was placed at the head of the National College of Corrientes,
and died there in 1871, his son James succeeding him. He
was a highly learned man and much respected by the Min-
istry of Education of the nation. His shoneenism, like that
of the Mulhalls, was a circumstance of his bringing-up,
perhaps an inevitable one, and also of the abnormal condi-
tions of the times and the country in which his early lot
was cast. But we who have fallen upon happier times and
know better things must not fail to spread the light when
and wherever we can. And now, back to Lobos.

When the war with Paraguay broke out many were the
manifestations of patriotism through the country, but one
which took a very practical form was the collecting of funds
to sustain the wives and families of the National Guard who
were called away from their business affairs to the defense
of the nation. The Irish of Lobos were amongst the first
to lend their aid, and the following list of subscribers to
the patriotic fund, although probably not complete, is quite
creditable to the Irish residents. The collection was handed
in in September, 1865, and here is the list of subscribers:
Michael Geoghegan, Patrick O'Neill, Alex. Harvey, Joseph
Flynn, Alex. Milne, Edward Walsh, Joseph Morris, Michael
Sires, Robert Makleman, Joseph White, Wm. Milne, Joseph
Conyngham, John Kersey, Robert Milne, Jas. Robertson,
Patrick Smith, Alexander McGuire, Francis Meadow, Mrs.
Ann Crosney, C. Thomson, Patrick Casey.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 213

In Lobos, as in nearly all the camp parishes, murders
of Irishmen in the early days of settlement were frequent
and terrible. Some of the most shocking and long-remem-
bered were those of the brothers Scally on the Acosta
estancia in '64, and that of Mrs. Buckley in '65. The two
Scallys and their brother-in-law Reilly were playing cards
one evening in Scally's house, when a neighboring native
with whom Scally had some words the day before, walked
in and without a word plunged his knife in the stomach of
one of the Scallys. In an attempt to defend themselves the
other Scally was mortally wounded and Reilly got several
stabs. The murderer then went to the local head of police
saying that there must be something wrong at Scally's as
their sheep were not corralled for the night. Mrs. Buckley
was fearfully cut and stabbed by a young native while her
husband was away a little distance in the camp bringing
in his flock. She had an infant in her arms who, although
stabbed by the murderer, recovered. When poor Buckley
went to the police to report the crime he was himself placed
under arrest and put to endless trouble. Such awful
murders and such negligence and stupidity, or worse, on the
part of the police, were maddeningly common everywhere
throughout the far partidos in those days.

Father Kirwan was appointed Irish Chaplain of Lobos
immediately after Father Smith's death and continued there
for many years, till failing health made the labors of so
extensive a chaplaincy more than he could satisfactorily
attend. He was succeeded by Father Curran who resigned
the post in 1877, with the intention of retiring to Ireland,
but later accepted the Irish Chaplaincy of Navarro. He was
succeeded by Father Davis, an Englishman, who died some
six years later in the British Hospital of Buenos Aires.

Guardia del Monte, or Monte as it is now commonly
called, was founded in colonial times as an outpost of the
Indian borderlands. It was a stronghold occupied, like
Chascomus, and Lobos at a somewhat later date, by a few

214 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

companies of Spanish soldiers who kept an eye out on
Indian movements and who prevented depredations by the
savages, when possible. Whenever a great body of the
aborigines moved forward the Guardias, or Guards, who
were usually advised of the projected movement by friendly,
half-civilized Indians, beforehand, retired northward, all the
settlers with their stock and movable properties going ahead
of the military. Sometimes reinforcements came from
Buenos Aires in time to check the advance of the invaders,
and these latter usually suffered so badly that they fell
back further into the desert than where was previously the
limit of their undisputed territory. The wild men had little
discipline and no fire-arms, their purpose was plunder or
the avenging of some wrong or insult of a local or tribal
nature. So they rarely made anything like a steady and
systematic campaign, but their forays, nevertheless, greatly
hampered the progress of the frontier districts. As early
as the year Forty, Irish sheep-farmers had spread their
flocks over the northern part of this parish, and it was
one of the places, like Dolores, which became suddenly oc-
cupied; but the occupation here was of a more permanent
nature, and Monte is still a somewhat strong Irish center.
In the Revista del Plata there is a rather interesting
article on what the writer calls "the discovery" by an Irish-
man of a new and perfectly safe method of castrating
horses. He tells that he witnessed the operation himself,
performed by the "discoverer," in Monte, in 1847. He con-
siders the "discovery" of very great importance and recom-
mends it to all owners and breeders of horses; for he says,
no matter how the weather, or what the season may be
castration by this method may be effected with perfect
safety. The method in question was rather an introduc-
tion than a discovery, for according to the description of
the performance of the operation it was nothing more nor
less than the form of castration in common practice in
Ireland in such cases. But Monte seems to have been the
first scene of its performance in this country.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 215

After the fall of Rosas Indian raids in the southern
districts became more frequent and disastrous, and in the
three years, 1854-5-6, the raiders carried away no less than
four hundred thousand head of cattle, and, in addition,
burned and destroyed property valued at a million-and-a-
half dollars. This discouraging state of affairs had its
bad effect on the Irish settlers of Monte and many of them
sought for safer lands whereon to abide. Still-and-with-all,
by the year 1860 it was a fairly strong Irish settlement,
and one meets as estancieros of the district men of such
names as, Brady, Bird, Dillon, Whitty, Kenny, Killemet,
Hogan, Cloughan, Gilligan and many others. The Irish
Chaplain of Lobos attended to Monte and the surround-
ing parishes, and in the appointment of Father Curran to
Lobos in 1874, Saladillo was added on to the chaplaincy.

Murders of Irishmen, by natives, in Monte were many
and most revolting. Not far from the town, in the year
'62, a native attacked an old Englishman, named Davy,
trying to ride him down. Davy struck the native's horse
with his stick, the rider jumped off and stabbed the old
man several times. A young Irishman named John Gilligan,
attracted by the shouts of the old man rode up to the scene
and dashed between the native and his victim; the native
at once turned on him; Gilligan rode his horse against him,
knocking him down and then jumped off to assist the old
man who was dying; while thus engaged, and entirely un-
armed, the native got to his feet, ran at Gilligan and stabbed
him in the stomach, causing almost immediate death. Mr.
Ronayne had an argument with a policeman at a shop in
the village, in '65, and while the wordy combat was in
progress a countryman of the policeman came behind
Ronayne and broke in his skull with a blow from an iron-
handled whip. On an estancia named "25 de Mayo" a man
living alone in a shepherd's hut, one Cosgrove, was stabbed
in a score of places and thrown into his own well, and then
everything in his house stolen. And so on. The recording
of some of these awful camp murders will be useful to show

^16 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

to the generation who have things so easy in their day the
perils and fears their fathers had to face in founding their
families and homes.

From the small sheep-farmers of Matanzas and the
northwestern part of Canuelas a considerable number of
renters spread into Las Heras about 1830 and the years
following, but as the land was all in the possession of
native owners who did not take kindly to the banish-
ment of horn-cattle and horses from their estates, except
at an annual rent which was then prohibitive of wool-
raising, at a profit, the industry made somewhat slow prog-
ress in this district, at the beginning. In time, however,
some Irishmen acquired estancias, and soon almost all the
landowners began to see that sheep were the stock which
paid best and in a short time the parish became one of the
chief sheep districts of the country. And so numerous and
of such importance had the Irish population become by the
year '64 that Governor Saavedra had the new church, which
the Government had erected there, dedicated to St. Patrick,
in compliment to the Irish residents of the department. As
in all the other old settlements convenient to the Capital,
the ever continuous spread of agriculture, and the resultant
increase in the value of land, made renting for sheep im-
possible, and from here as well as from all the near parishes
our people had to move further out.

Merlo and Moreno being, like Moron, on the great high-
way by Lujan to the northern and western provinces were
early settled by numerous owners of comparatively small
estates, and, except the first named, never figured to any
great extent as sheep-farming regions. Amongst the sub-
scribers, however, to the building of the new church in
Moreno in '63 I find: Robert Kelly, Michael Kenny, John
McLean, Michael Lawler, Santiago O'Mally, Patrick Hunt,
Joseph Fowler, F. Langan, and J. Kenny. As will be seen
when we come to it this parish made a very creditable show-
ing in the Fahey Testimonial also. In the subscription list
for the families of the soldiers fighting in Paraguay the

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 217

following are noted: Thomas Gahan, F. A. Pearson, Mrs.
J. DHlon, Owen Lynch, G. Dillon, T. Lynch, Ed. Dillon,
James Berne, William Timson, J. Kenny, J. Foster, J.
Laffin, A. Malbran, J. Daly, J. O'Reilly, Ed. Slevin and
Con Brennan. When Father Patrick J. Dillon, afterwards
Canon, Mgr. and Dean, first came to Argentina he was
appointed to Merlo as Irish Chaplain, and in the following
year removed to Canuelas, but owing to other duties then
imposed upon him he did not settle in Canuelas. John
Dillon was the leading man of Irish name in that district
at this time, 1864, although it is said by some that his
father came to Buenos Aires from Spain. He held many
high government positions and at this time and for many
years after was Judge of Moron. There is still a con-
siderable number of families in this district descended from
the early Irish settlers.

After Buenos Aires itself, Lujan is the oldest settlement
in the province, and was established soon after Garay's
founding of the Capital, as a stronghold against the war-
like tribes whose empire commenced just beyond musket-
shot of the fort and extended to the Andes. The fort was
called after the river on which it was established, and the
river is said to have got its name from a Spanish officer
who was drowned therein while engaged in operations against
the Indians. A village sprang up around the fort, com-
posed mostly by men engaged in supplying the wants of
the garrison — cultivators of the soil and shop-keepers, both
of the most primitive order. It is now nearly two hundred
years since its first church was built, later it became the
chief military center of the conquered territory. The
treasury of Buenos Aires, with nearly two million dollars
in it, was removed there when Beresford invaded the city;
after his capture of the Capital he placed some of the
principal men of the city under arrest as hostages till all
the money would be surrendered to him. Later, after the
Reconquest, he was himself sent to Lujan as a prisoner of
war, but the greater part of the treasure had already been

218 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

shipped to England. These great historic happenings
would tend to make Lujan appear a place of no small im-
portance at this early time in the life of this country. Yet
Robertson, who stopped here in 1811 on his way to Para-
guay, had this to say of it: "Lujan is a poor place and
almost deserted with three hundred inhabitants, more or
less. It has a Cabildo, a beautiful church and spacious
apartments, disposed in quadrangular form for the ec-
clesiastics." He mentions having got a very good dinner
from the Parish Priest. In the days of the passports I
find a number of Irish names amongst those going to or
coming from Lujan; but it was not until about 1850 that
it became a sheepfarming district. After Caseros and the
retreat of Urquiza and his legions, for good, it commenced
rapidly to be occupied by Irish flock-owners and their em-
ployees, and Mulhall, writing in 1875, was able to say:
"This department belongs almost exclusively to Irish sheep-
farmers, Brownes, Hams, Caseys, Garaghans, Kellys,
Clavins, Murphys, Maxwells, Cooks, Kennys, Burgesses and
Fitzsimmons ; there being only twelve native estancias of
any dimensions." Half the population at that time was
Irish. Father Thomas Carolan was Lujan's first resident
Irish Chaplain, and his parisliioners presented him with a
comfortable dwelling house. He was appointed to the Chap-
laincy of Lujan, Pillar and Mercedes in '61, and retired to
Ireland, owing to bad health in '68. The people, on his
leaving, presented him with a very flattering address and
one hundred and eighty pounds in cash. The address was
signed by John Browne, Michael Murray, Owen Lynch,
Peter Ham, Thomas Ledwith, Michael Fitzsimmons, John
Dillon, Robert Kelly, James J. Allen, E. Garaghan, and
Lawrence Kelly. Father Carolan was an Ulsterman; he
was succeeded in the Chaplaincy by Father Samuel O'Reilly.
In 1872 St. Brigid's Chapel at La Choza was dedicated
to the Patroness of Ireland. Mr. John BroAvne was the
chief seconder of Father O'Reilly in his efforts to found the
little edifice. The day of its inauguration was one of great

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 219

feasting in the district, with horse-racing, dances, etc., when
the religious ceremony was over. Canon Dillon of Buenos
Aires, who was a noted preacher, delivered the inaugural
sermon which was said to be a very brilliant one. Mr.
Browne was not alone forward in advancing religious and
charitable institutions, he also took a leading part in pro-
moting social pleasures and pastimes, and some of the first
annual race-meetings in the camp were held on his estancia.
The meet of January, '67, at La Choza, when nearly two
hundred "irlandeses" attended, was a day long to be re-
membered in Lujan and its neighborhood, and even still a
few of those who were present that day are left to tell the
tale, and they tell it with no small pride.

So common and daring had the robbers and murderers
become in this district, in the year '70, that the Judge sent
the police after some noted desperadoes with orders to shoot
them at sight and bring in the bodies. The authorities
succeeded in overtaking one of the marked gang and in
bringing back his remains. The body was exhibited in the
police station for such length of time as sanitary conditions
would permit. It was believed that these rather drastic
measures would be effective in ridding the district of some
well-known criminals who infested it, and many of the more
notorious of them betook themselves to departments where
the authorities were less original in their peace-preservation
methods. Yet notwithstanding all this Lujan had its quota
of dreadful murders, and even won a sort of prominence
for wholesale and bare-faced robberies of horses, riding-
gears, and household belongings. An attempted murder
which resulted fatally for the would-be assassin is so much
like an incident from a blood-curdling novel, or shilling
shocker, of frontier or pirate life, and of such dramatic
interest, as the newspaper men say, that I cannot refrain
from here recounting it in brief. On the estancia of Senor
Olivera there lived an Irishman named John White, and he
was a widower with some small children; he was well-to-do,
for he had interest in four flocks of sheep on the estancia

220 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

mentioned. One morning a native whom he knew came to
him asking him for the favor of a little mate yerha. White,
without a word, of course, gave the man a supply, as what
Irishman in the camp ever refused food or drink to any
neighbor in want? No more was thought of the affair, and
at nightfall as he was returning from the folding of his
flock, and near the door of his house, the same native
jumped out from behind the other end of the dwelling and
stabbed him slightly in the back. He had his little son by
the hand, and it was the cry of the child, who saw the native
first, that saved the father's life, for by this warning he
was enabled to get almost within the door before the stab
was inflicted on him and which also prevented the stroke
being delivered with fatal effect. White had barely time
to partially close his door and with his shoulder against
to keep his assailant at bay. He called to his little boy
to bring him some weapon, although there was no such
article at hand, and this the gaucho knew well, for he mut-
tered in the struggle: "I'll soon get it for you, myself."
He was gaining ground in the forcing of the door, the
children inside were frantic; the native worked in his hand
so far as to inflict another stab on White, this time a deep
one, on the thigh, and soon the door was forced. The Irish-
man tripped his assailant as he burst in, and both came to
the ground together but not without the native getting in
another stab. White in the struggle got hold of the knife
of his antagonist, by the blade, and proving the stronger
man in the contest he held the gaucho under him, and
slowly moving his hand along the blade back to the hilt,
till he nearly severed some of his fingers, he wrenched the
knife from the fellow's hand and stabbed him in the throat.
The gaucho cried out: "O, you have killed me." White
answered: "If I haven't I will now," and with one stroke
cut his would-be murderer's throat from side to side. The
wounded man and the body of the dead man were taken to
Lujan together. White was nursed at Father O'Reilly's
house and soon recovered. The authorities and the public

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 221

presented him their thanks, formally, for the service he had
done in ridding the district of one of its worst criminals.

There are still many Irish families in the district of
Lujan, and the Irish Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady
there, every year in which St. Patrick's Day falls on Sun-
day will forever give it special Irish associations. The
College of Lujan, for the sons of Irish Catholic sheep-
farmers, was opened by Father Emilio George in the be-
ginning of 1877, and it was for some years the principal
Irish school of the country.

Two other great days in Lujan that cannot be passed
over unnoticed was that one in 1881 when Edward Casey
was feasted and honored by all the residents, and especially
by those of his own race, for having established in the town
a branch of the Provincial Bank ; and that other one, fifteen
years later, much more peculiarly and memorably Irish,
when the five beautiful altars to Saints Patrick, Brigid,
Columcille, Malachy and Rose of Lima, gifts of Mrs. Mor-
gan of San Antonio de Areco to the great shrine of the
Virgin of Lujan, were blessed and dedicated with imposing
ceremony and in the presence of an immense gathering, the
nuns and children from the Irish Orphanage in Buenos
Aires being present as the guests of the Morgan family.

Pilar although one of the small camp partidos or dis-
tricts was at one time very largely occupied by Irish sheep-
farmers. Its proximity to the city, however, and the
numerous small estancias into which it was divided tended
so to enhance the value of land as to make its purchase for
sheep-raising undesirable. Hence comparatively few Irish
settled there permanently. Although wool-raising had been
carried on in the district for several years, it was not until
about the year 1850 that Irish flock-owners became numer-
ous, and for fifteen or twenty years after by far the greater
part of the flocks that spread over its rich pastures be-
longed to Irishmen. In '64 a writer mentions that there
were some four hundred Irish people in the parish, and
who were generally very prosperous, He names amongst

mt THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the principal of these, Messrs. Kelly, Nolan, Healy and
Young. Peter Healy was one of the pioneer Irishmen of
the place, and as early as 1850 was one of the best known
breeders of fine stock in the northern camps. One of the
local wonders of the time was his receiving at public auc-
tion, in ''^^^ for one of his rams, no less a price than sixteen
thousand dollars (old money). Auctions in the camp in
those days were something on the style of the ancient
Patron-day at home. A great feast was made and sports
and games provided for all comers. Healy's auction of
the year mentioned seems to have been one of the big events
of Pilar and surrounding parishes for that season. The
Irish Chaplain at Merlo first and at Lujan afterwards at-
tended also to Pilar.

Some seventy years ago the first Irish settled in Capilla
del Sefior. At that time only the village was known by
this name, the parish being that of Exaltacion de la Cruz,
which title is the one officially recognized, although seldom
heard in popular parlance, "Capilla" being applied to the
whole department urban and rural. With the exception of
Carmen de Areco, some dozen or fifteen years later, no
department in all the Republic became so suddenly and
thoroughly an Irish center as did Capilla del Senor. And
as a very large proportion of the lands all around is in
the ownership of the children and grandchildren of the Irish
settlers of two generations ago, it is still, and likely for
long to be, one of the leading Irish districts of the country.

The first Irish stock-men who settled on the lands
around Capilla were men who had already acquired con-
siderable wealth and as the laws dealing with the purchase
and title-deeds of land were now such as to inspire con-
fidence many of those new settlers invested their cash capital
in the purchase of estates, so that by the year '63, one-
fourth of the parish, more than seven square leagues, was
owned by Irishmen; chief amongst whom were, Culligan,
Gaynor, Patrick Scully, Fox, Lennon, James Scully,
Tormey, Pew and Harrington. It is worth while noting

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. 223

that sheep-farming was not the sole occupation of camp
Irishmen in those days. John Harrington was then trying
agriculture and Capilla, as well as Lujan, had its Irish
boot and shoe-maker at the same period. Capilla's first
great Irish day was in March, '66, when the Governor of
the Province and the Bishop of Buenos Aires, Saavedra and
Aneiros, respectively, came out from the Capital to open
the new Church. I may mention, in passing, that Capilla
del Seiior owes its fine Church almost wholly to the gen-
erosity of the Irish residents in its vicinity. Lujan was
the nearest place to Capilla where a train touched in those
days, and hither the Bishop and Governor came from
Buenos Aires. With the exact formality for which the
Spanish race is noted the authorities of Lujan received the
distinguished heads of the Church and State and accom-
panied them to the utmost limit of their official territory.
At the line of demarcation between the two departments a
new set of officials stood ready to receive the aforesaid
dignitaries and conduct them to the scene of the day's cere-
mony. It is just fifty-one years since this famous day in
Capilla, yet I have been able to meet very few who could
say they had anything more than a faint remembrance of
it. The conveyance of the distinguished officials from Lujan
to Capilla was effected in coaches belonging to Irish
estancieros of the district, that of James Scully, driven by
his son Luke, getting pride of place for bearing Governor
Saavedra and some of his suite. Father William Grennon
was the Irish Chaplain, and had done much towards bring-
ing the church to completion. The gathering at the in-
auguration of the Church was the largest congregation of
Irish yet seen in any camp town, and the procession that
conducted the Governor and Bishop to and from the func-
tion was imposing and picturesque to a degree far beyond
anything ever witnessed in the country-side before. As
soon as these good people of Capilla got their anxieties
as to the establishing of a worthy edifice wherein to wor-
ship God, reasonably allayed, they seem to have set about

224 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

organizing a reasonable and useful method of amusing
themselves. Although there may have been attempts at
high class horse-racing in the district before the year '67,
there is no question that the meet of that year may be
taken as the starting point in what was for a number of
years the most important and successful Irish race-meeting
in the country. The names of some of the race horses and
their owners are worth preserving. First in the principal
race, Mathew Dillon's "Chieftain"; Second, John Shana-
ghan's "Fenian Boy"; Third, Patrick Murray's "Sham-
rock"; Fourth, George Bird's "Clear-the-Way," and last,
Martin Fox's "Volunteer." But it was not all piety and
gaiety with them in The Chapel of the Lord in those now
far-off and nearly forgotten times. The dread cholera of
the summer of '67-8 overran the parish and turned, for a
season, its happy homes into places of fear and sorrow.
At times the death-rate of the place rose to 18 per day,
and when the awful malady wore off and passed away it
was found to have filled more than four hundred new
graves. The Irish residents, however, suffered very lightly.
The Irish Chaplain was the only priest in the parish at
the time, and he. Dr. Priestly and the apothecary, all Irish-
men, got great praise from the authorities and public for
their unsparing services to all the people indiscriminately.
Scarcely was the trouble of the epidemic over when our
countrymen found themselves face to face with another seri-
ous difficulty. It seems the authorities sought to enforce
some kind of a law or regulation by which no foreigner or
son of a foreigner could discharge the duties of capataz
or foreman on any estancia, not even in the case of a son
on that of his father. A very angry meeting of protest
was held in the town, at which it was shown that the
foreigners owned a decidedly large proportion of the
property of the district. The local authorities were often
very jealous of the progress and wealth of the strangers
and would gladly levy tribute on them in every possible
way, but the national and provincial executives were always

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. S25

extremely fair, and even friendly, to the Irish. Capilla like
other parts of the country where the bad native — the gaucho,
or half-breed of the plains — was still at large had its
crimes of murder and robbery, although in a lesser degree
than most other rural departments, but this one I am going
to mention, for wanton cruelty and savagery, is quite as
horrible as anything I have found on record anywhere. A
thirteen-year-old boy, of the name of Keegan, was sent by
his sister, a Mrs. Murray, to Capilla for some little mes-
sage, and while on his way, it was about noontide, at a
place called Canada Romero, the poor child was attacked
by a native and chopped and stabbed in the most frightful
manner. This shocking crime was committed in broad day-
light, and within very short distance of two of the principal
police authorities of the district. The boy was an orphan,
and by all accounts a most inoffensive youth. No one was
arrested, no one was punished, although it was commonly
believed the police knew perfectly well who the ferocious
criminal was.

Father John Cullen was Capilla's first Irish Chaplain,
he came to the country in 1856, with the Sisters of Mercy,
and attended the northern parishes where his flock was then
very widely scattered and not very numerous; he was ap-
pointed resident Chaplain in the town of Capilla del Senor
in 1857, and retired to Ireland ten or eleven years later.
He was succeeded by Rev. William Grennon, a Kings County
man, I believe, who in '74, after being eight and a half
years in the country, and some seven, or so, in Capilla,
went home to recover his health. Father O'Reilly of Lujan
attended the parish in his stead until Father Davis, an
Englishman, was sent out to the place. This latter priest
was not popular with the Irish, and few if any amongst
them were sorry when Father Grennon returned to his old
post. Father Davis was something of an orator and
frequently preached in San Roque Chapel in the Capital;
he had been for a while in Montevideo before coming to
Buenos Aires; he was a missionary priest, and to say that

226 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

he was a typical Englishman is to give sufficient explana-
tion as to why he did not get along well with the truly-
Irish Irish. Father Grennon returned after a season to his
old post and died in January, 1888; Father Purcell, then
in Chascomus, succeeded him and filled out the remaining
years of the century.

The Irish of Capilla del Senor seem to have been always
of an especially public-spirited disposition. Any infringe-
ment or attempted infringement of their rights or privi-
leges, or the good name of their district, was usually met at
full tilt and vanquished. In 1881 there seems to have been
a very sordid and intolerable kind of monopoly preying on
the poor of the place — the rich, of course, can always af-
ford to be fleeced. People died in Capilla as elsew^here and
when they died, it goes without saying, they had to be
buried. But in all the parish there was but one hearse, and
this one was owned by a kind of a Charon, duly modernized
to meet the times and circumstances, but with business
principles more elastically arranged. For while the old
Classic undertaker had his fixed obulo fare for one and all
the Capilla man slided his extortions in accordance with the
circumstances of the family unfortunate enough to need
his services. But as at the Styx Crossing there was a
Hercules for the case of the little camp town. Father Gren-
non and a few of his parishioners, Dillon, Gaynor and Scully
raised a fund to purchase a public hearse and the Charonian
trust or monopoly, I believe the word "trust," in this sense,
was not known then, was at an end. There are some new
towns throughout the provinces at the present day where
a Father Grennon and his friends are badly needed to bring
some of the "pompas funerales" people to a sense of decency
in what is usually a sad and always a very solemn necessity
of society. None of the settlements of our people has
longer, more honorable and continuous Irish traditions than
Capilla. It was amongst the first and it is still amongst
the foremost Irish districts of the Republic.

From Capilla del Senor the Irish spread into the parishes

CAMP SETTLEMENTS, ETC. ^27

of Zarate and Baradero, although it is probable there were
a few Irish settlers in the latter department years before
any of our countrymen found a footing in Capilla. Patrick
Lynch had a large cattle and sheep ranch in the partido
about the year 1830, and in the "Gaceta" of 1827 there
are some people of Irish name reported as seeking passports
to that district. Zarate had a famous sheep-stealing case
some sixty 3^ears ago which almost became an international
question. An Irishman named Patrick Wynne settled there
on the Castez camp; soon after a noted Basque sheep-
stealer from Pilar came and rented camp beside him and
immediately set to stealing the Irishman's sheep, on the
wholesale. Wynne complained again and again to the
authorities, but got no satisfaction; he brought the matter
before the British Consul but that functionary did not bother
much about the case, the "Standard" took it up then, but as
his flock was every day dwindling away very noticeably,
although the death rate was nothing more than normal, he
removed his remaining animals otherwhere. The Basque,
whose flock even when in Pilar was the wonder of all the
country for its large and continuous increase at all seasons
of the year and under every kind of pasture conditions,
kept on increasing even after W3mne had left. A wealthy
native neighbor who had no small influence with the
authorities found it so unaccountable that his flock should
be shrinking while his new neighbor's was holding its own,
or a little more, called in the police to help him elucidate.
The ever-increasing flock was carefully examined and in
addition to a good proportion of animals of the investi-
gating neighbor's mark, sheep of twenty-six other brands
were found in the corral. The Basque was taken prisoner
to "the Castle" of Mercedes and by the time the law and
other claimants were satisfied the miraculous increases of
the previous years were fully explained and mercilessly re-
duced. In '64 there were about two hundred Irish in Zarate,
according to a report from the place in that year. The
principal landowners amongst them were, Morris, Fox and

228 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

CuUen. Wool-raising in the district must have begun to
fail soon after, for ten years later Mulhall's Hand Book
gives the number of Irish then in the district as more than
twenty-five per cent less than this figure. At present there
are many well-to-do families of Irish parentage or ancestry
in the parish, and taking into account the number of Irish
employed in the meat industries of the district, it is prob-
able there is a larger Irish and Irish- Argentine population
in Zarate now than ever there was before.

In ^55 a number of Irish sheep-farmers settled in Bara-
dero and for ten years or so this number went on increas-
ing; nearly all of them acquiring wealth and many of them
purchasing land. So that in '63 the following are listed
among the land owners: Wallace, Rourke, Brennan,
Macome, Murtagh, Whealan and Parson. A peculiar thing
about the municipal resources of the parish in 1865, is
that the tax on billiard tables yielded a larger amount of
income than any other taxable item. Agriculture on a large
scale was introduced into Baradero in 1855 through the
establishing by the municipality of the famous Swiss colony.
The undertaking, the first of its kind in the Province, turned
out a great success, and ere long the tillers of the soil
began making the graziers move on. The district has still
a large number of Irish families, mostly all wealthy, or in
comfortable circumstances.

CHAPTER XIV

Camp Settlements Continued — San Antonio de Areco — San Andres de
Giles — Carmen de Areco — Father M. L. Leahy — Patrick Ward —
Miscellaneous Items — Salto — Rojas — Mercedes — Navarro — Chivil-
coY — Saladillo — 25 de Mayo — Bragado — Nuevo de Julio — Azul —
Las Flores — Chacabuco — Suipacha — San Pedro — Arrecifes — Per-
gamino — Ramallo — San Nicolas.

SAN ANTONIO DE ARECO is one of the very old towns
of the Province, but as an Irish center is of some-
what more recent date than Capilla. It is another
of the districts where many of our people purchased splen-
did estancias fifty or sixty years ago for a mere trifle and
which are now worth many millions of dollars. In 1863
a movement was started to provide an Irish Chaplain
exclusively for the parishes of San Antonio, Giles and
Baradero, and the following year a square of ground was
bought in the town of San Antonio on which was built a
residence for the Chaplain, and which has been continuously
occupied ever since by an Irish priest, Father Richard
Gearty being the present incumbent. Father Thomas Cur-
ran, who came out from Ireland in '62, was San Antonio's
first resident Irish Chaplain. He v/as transferred to Lobos
after Father Kirwan's retirement from there, and Father
Thomas Mullady was appointed to the Areco district, in
the year 1867. One of San Antonio's first wealthy Irish-
men was Thomas Donohue, who died in '66 ; he had estancias
in this and Arrecifes partidos and owned some twelve thou-
sand sheep. The lands of this district are still largely in
the hands of Irish families, and there is no department
in the whole Republic, thanks in no small way to the Irish
Convent there, where a more thoroughly Irish and patriotic
spirit prevails amongst our people. In the year 1895 Mrs.

229

230 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Margaret Mooney de Morgan built, equipped fully, and
opened for public use the Clara Morgan Hospital, in
memory of her only daughter who died a few years previ-
ously while visiting the Chicago Exposition. The Hos-
pital is attended by nursing Sisters from the United
States, and is an institution of the greatest benefit to the
town and surrounding districts. Mrs. Morgan supplies all
its wants out of her own, unmatched munificence. The Irish
Convent, or Convent of Irish Sisters of Mercy, and the fine
new College of Clonmacnoise in this town are also monu-
ments to the piety, generosity and patriotism of Mrs. Mor-
gan and her sister. Miss Maria Mooney, but their foundation
does not come within the time of which my book treats.

The Partido de San Andres de Giles, or as it is com-
monly called "Giles" seems to have been occupied by Irish
settlers about the same time as San Antonio, but being
more remote from the river coast, and any large town, land
was more easily acquired there, and so, in the early days
of sheep-farming, it was taken up more largely by Irish
settlers and purchasers. I find, in 1863, the following
names on a list of subscribers to the building of the Parish
Church. There is a generous contribution after each one,
which fact would suggest that they were not then new-
comers or mere hired men, but people of stake in the dis-
trict and of public spirit enough to see that one of the
first needs of a community, a shrine wherein to worship
God, should not be wanting. Here is the list I speak of:
Edward Macken, George Morgan, R. Hall, W. M'Garry,
Joseph M'Guinness, William Cahill, Patrick Wheeler, Wil-
liam Mooney (sen.), William Mooney (jun.), John Graham,
John O'Brien, A. McCarthy, William Crinnigan, James
Scally, Bernard Hope, John Campbell, Ed. Nolan, Peter
Kenny, Thomas Kenny, Edward Morgan, Patrick Hill,
Patrick Farrell, John Rooney, Patrick Dowd, Simon Len-
non, John Clarke, Joseph Maxwell, Michael Mangan. The
good work was not completed with this first giving, and
soon after the following list appeared, largely a repetition

^^.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 231

of the one just given: L. Tormey, P. Reilly, Jeremiah
Tormey, Michael Cormick, Joseph M'Guiness, Michael Kelly,
Ann Kelly, R. Hall, J. Roberts, M. M'Garry, Ed. Macken,
Ed. Cahill, P. Ham, Patrick Wlieeler, WilHam Mooney, Wil-
liam Mooney (jun.), John Graham, J. O'Brien, A.
M'Carthy, Joseph Scally, William Crinnigan, Bernard
Hope, John Campbell, J. Flowers, N. Mullany, Ed. Nolan,
P. Kenny, Edward Morgan, George Morgan, Patrick Hill,
J. Maxwell, Patrick Farrell, Michael Mangan, N. Galaher,
S. Lennon, Patrick Dowd and L. T. Sawyer. These may
be considered, I suppose, the original Irish-Gileros ; it is a
very respectable list from a small district.

A murder committed in Giles in 1868, apart from the
victim being an Irishman, James Feeny, is interesting, in
its results, as showing how cautious people should be in
making close friendship with strangers, and how unsafe a
thing it is to form a judgment on circumstantial evidence,
at least, on some occasions. The case also throws a rather
favorable light on the police detective-work of those rather
wild times. Shortly after the murder an Irishman of the
name of Robert McShane was arrested at his work on the
Central Argentine Railway at Rosario, accused of the
crime. McShane protesting his innocence appealed to the
time sheets and payrolls of the Company to show that he
was in Rosario on the date of the murder, and for some
time before, and was duly discharged. A close watch was
kept on his movements, and although he came and went to
his work as usual he was again, after some days, re-arrested
and lodged in Mercedes jail. He was then asked to account
for how he was wearing a scarf of Feeney's and how it
happened that under his bed in the lodging house of John
Kearney, in Rosario, he had the riding gear of the murdered
man. And this was how it happened: An Englishman,
by name, Henry Audley, came to Kearney's to put up for
some days; Kearney had no spare bed, but the fellow being
a decent looking man, McShane agreed to share his bed
with him, taking him for a camp man who had come into

232 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

town on business. The supposed camp man was grateful,
and to show his recognition of the favor, and it being
winter-time and cold, he made McShane a present of a very
comfortable scarf, after a day or two he disappeared, and
it took the good-natured Irishman a long time and with no
small effort to prove to the authorities at Mercedes that he
was not a partner in the crime.

Argentina has been remarkable from the oldest times
for the large number of centenarians it could boast of in
its population. In Giles, in 1870, there died a Mrs. Fagan
at the great age of 102 years, and her husband who pre-
deceased her by a few years had reached the still higher
figure of 106. They were both from Westmeath, and were,
each one of them, over eighty years of age on their arrival
in Argentina.

Carmen de Areco, up to recently known as ^'Fortin de
Areco" (outpost, or small garrison, of the Areco), was
formerly commonly spoken of by the Irish settlers there-
about as the "Fourteen." The Areco river has its source
not very distant from the town and flows by it, and one
of its sharp curves lent itself very usefully to the forming
of a strong defense for a portion of the fort which the
colonial Spaniards established here. Some few Irish found
their way into Carmen as early as 1855. The first of them
to purchase land there was "Big Mickey Murray," men-
tioned already as one of the pioneers of the Chascomus dis-
trict. By 1860 many Irish families had settled in the de-
partment, and some of the first subscriptions to the O'Con-
nell Monument fund in 1863 were from the "Fortin." In
March of the following year Father Michael Leahy was
appointed Irish Chaplain of that and the nearby parishes,
and his district extended outward to Salto, Rojas, Chaca-
buco, Arrecifas, San Pedro and anywhere else, in an out-
ward direction, he found time or occasion to go to. From
the date of his appointment Carmen began to figure as the
best organized and most distinctively patriotic and pro-
gressive Irish center in all the land. At once he set to

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 233

organizing circulating libraries, reading rooms, clubs,
schools and everything that could be for the enlightenment,
the moral and social progress and ennoblement of his
people. For a short while previous to his being sent to
Carmen he served as Chaplain to the Irish Convent and
Hospital in Buenos Aires, and generally assisted Father
Fahey.

The first list of Irish names I have come across in con-
nection with Carmen de Areco is that of the subscribers
to the fund for the support of the families of the soldiers
of the Republic in the Paraguayan War, July, 1865, and
here they are: Dowling Bros., Peter Frazier, Thomas
Wallace, Bernard Rourke, Nicholas Pearson, W. O'Connell,
John Spring, James Carey, Tim Garraghan, John Rivers,
Phil Bonner, Thos. Bonner, Archie Creig, John Goldsmith,
V. Malone, John Carbery, Mrs. H. Kenny, John Duffy, Fran-
cis Dowling, Michael Murray, J. Mullen, J. Mullen (jun.),
Michael Murphy & Bros., C. McGuire, J. McGuire, Michael
Finnerty, J. Bannon, Michael Daly, P. Duffy, J. McGuire,
J. Mahon, M. Murray, James Bannon, Peter Langan, Peter
Egan, T. Kenny, J. Prud, J. McDonnell, Andrew Geoghe-
gan, Patrick Doherty, J. Wheeler, J. Bates, P. Langan,
Thomas Dooner, Thomas Murray, James Egan, James
Mahon, Edward Burke, Jane Burns. The subscriptions
amounted to over $12,500. Next year Michael Duffy was
appointed Alcalde of the department and John Dowling,
Comandante Militar. The famous American estancia, the
"Tatay," had already established a graseria; Samuel B.
Hale was its founder, a man who was very friendly to the
Irish and always gave them preference in his extensive em-
ployments, whether as shepherds or in other capacities.
The Tatay used to be regarded as the best equipped and
managed estate in the northern camps.

A fund to help the families of the imprisoned Fenians
was started in Carmen in '67 and a very respectable sum
of money was collected; the good lessons in patriotism and
loyalty to the old land so well taught by Father Leahy

234 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

showed their fruits in this movement. Messrs. J. E. Fin-
nerty and J. T. Murray wrote spirited and patriotic letters
in the Standard on the subject. In addition to the library
established in 1866, the Race Club and St. Brendan's Col-
lege, the men of Carmen started in '67 the Brehon's Ath-
letic Club, offering many prizes in the form of books to
be competed for in the exercises. Mr. John Murphy was
secretary of this club. The great Carmen and Salto races
were held this year midway between the two towns. A
gathering of over two thousand people assembled to wit-
ness the events. The principal race horse owners were
Murphy, Ham, Murray, McGregor, Martin, Dowling and
Burke. The Irish College of Carmen, with Father Leahy
in control, was opened in August, '69 ; the next year the
great race meeting had to be suspended because of drink
having been allowed to be sold on or near the course; many
present taking too much and becoming quarrelsome;
Messrs. Murray and M. A. Duffy being the chief stewards
decided that adjournment was the safest thing to do under
the circumstances. Thus a few non-Irish traffickers in al-
coholic drinks were able to forbid hundreds a pleasant and
legitimate day's enjoyment. Drink at such a meeting as
this was particularly dangerous, as from the nature of
things in the camp every man had to go always armed;
and as such gatherings were made up of people of many
races, and amongst them not a few who would be a danger,
under any circumstances, in a crowd, the suspension of
the meeting was a wise and very proper act. This was
practically the end of horse-racing, on the Irish style, in
Carmen de Areco. The following year, however, saw in-
augurated a movement much more to the taste of the good
Chaplain and to the credit of the Carmeleros. It was the
first proposal to found a Fahey Institute and Boys' Or-
phanage. It did not then materialize, it is true, but the
attempt to realize one of Father Fahey's fondest dreams
was there and then commenced. A meeting was called in
August, '71, to take steps towards the raising of a monu-

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 235

merit to the memory of the late Father Fahey. A great
rainstorm came on the eve of the meeting day and only
these few were able to attend: Father M. L. Leahy,
Messrs. M. Duffy, P. Doherty, M. Murray, J. Murray,
T. Dooner, T. McGuire, L. Wheeler, J. Mullen and M.
Ward. The meeting adjourned to September 3, follow-
ing, when a large gathering of the Irish of the district
assembled, and resolved, "That the most fitting monu-
ment to the memory of Father Fahey would be the estab-
lishment of the Christian Brothers to take charge of the
education of the poor and orphan boys of Irish birth and
descent." This resolution was moved by James Kenny and
seconded by J. J. T. Murphy. T. McGuire proposed and
M. Grace seconded, "That a Committee consisting of Messrs.
Duffy, Dowling, Doherty, Murray, Kenny, Dooner be
formed to carry out the foregoing resolution and collect
funds to that end." Mr. McGuire was added to the com-
mittee. The following sums were subscribed on the spot,
in pounds sterling: Duffy & Sons, £20; Messrs. Murray,
£20; McGuire, £10; Doherty, £5; Mullaly, £3; Grace, £1;
Gannon, £2/2; Murphy, £2/2; Lyons, £10; Widow Shan-
aghan, £1/1 ; Rev. M. L. Leahy, £20. Father Leahy pre-
sided and James Bracken acted as secretary. "The Largo,"
as this Father Leahy used to be familiarly called, was not
the man to take an enterprise in hands and after a brief
fit of enthusiasm let it fizzle out and make way for some
other grand project to be of like Dermanence, as was then,
and still is, so much the fashion with our community in
Argentina. He lived and labored solely for the good of
his people and spared himself no effort or inconvenience
where their true interests could in any form be served. And
accordingly was he loved and all his efforts seconded by
his people. No Irish Chaplain, not even Father Fahey,
ever enjoyed or earned the whole-hearted loyalty and love
of his flock more than he did. Having taken up the Father
Fahey Memorial movement the following statement and list

^36 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of subscribers will show with what tenacity and good effect
he pursued the project:

FATHER FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND

To the Subscribers, Carmen de Areco and Salto.

Friends:

At a meeting in town last July, it being found impossible to state
the amount of Father Fahey's debts, it was determined to initiate a
Memorial Fund to pay them off, and with the surplus to erect a suit-
able monument. The following sums paid in or guaranteed, and for
which I hereby acknowledge myself responsible is our first installment.

M. L. Leahy,
Carmen de Areco, Jan. 27, 1872.

List of Subscribees.

Duffy & Sons, M. L. Leahy, M. Murray, T. McGuire,
Mr. Mullaly, P. Doherty, M. Gannon, J. J. F. Murphy,
M. Grace, D. Lyons, Mrs. Shanahan, P. Moran, D.
McCarthy, Mrs. J. Mahon, Mrs. Mason, C. McGuire, Ed.
Kelly, J. B. Dowling, Mrs. Murphy & Sons, Mr. Scally,
L. Murray, E. Kenny, J. Furlong, P. Walsh, D. Coughlan,
M. Murphy, J. Norton, W. Hyland, H. Mullen, J. Mullen,
P. Howlin, J. McCormack, J. Kavanagh, R. Gray, P. Kil-
lien, D. Murphy, J. Bracken, M. Murray, B. Degnan, J.
Moran, J. Gaynor, E. Fagan, P. Fallon, B. Fagan, W.
Lynch, Wm. Brien, Mrs. Kenny, J. Cormick, M. Sheehy,
J. McGinnis, T. Cordon, T. Dalton, P. Cordon, M. Le-
strange, J. Moran, E. Walpole, J. Kelly, J. McLoughlin,
M. Rigney, J. Tumulty, J. Lennon, T. Boland, M. Farrell,
J. Kelly, J. Creevy, M. Finn, P. Carey, M. Killimed, M.
Sheely, A. Corcoran, M. Scallan, J. Reilly, J. McGrath,
D. Walsh, P. Ford, Mrs. Burns, P. Kinsella, P. Murphy,
J. Flood, R. Murphy, J. Murphy, E. Boyle, James Moore,

D. Ney, E. Hayden, Mrs. Rourke, F. O'Neill, J. Doolen,
P. Codd, M. Connor, J. Rooney, P. Harkins, J. Doolen,

E. Hayden, D. O'Connell, J. Mahon, R. Hammond, B.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 237

Hope, A. Craig, S. Mason, Mrs. Rurke, P. Bryan, P.
Whelan, P. Ganisder, Sarah Bryan, J. Gannon, T. Ros-
siter, P. Bates, B. Parker, C. Flanagan, P. Martin, M.
Daly, J. Rourke, H. Anderson, T. Mason, Jr., Miss Mason,
Mary Mason, Eliza Mason, J. Mason, Jr., John Bannon,
J. Byrne, C. Byrne, D. Brennan, W. Mulligan, M. Murtagh,
M. Cassidy, M. Dowd, J. Murphy, J. Rodgers, M. Daly,
T. McLoughlin, J. Finnegan, E. Geoghegan, C. Dennigan,
H. Dalton, J. Ward, J. Stewart. Total, $57,699.c/l.

Salto List.

W. Murphy, T. Ledwith, J. Rafferty, J. Macken, J.
Doyle, P. Downes, L. Ganly, P. Dalton, P. Keogh, Coyley,
J. Rooney, J. Walsh, L. Gaul, J. Farrell, P. Farrell, M.
Pierce, Michael Pierce, J. O'Neill, P. Rowe, J. Jeffers, J.
Gaul, J. Murphy, P. Cormack, T. Cullen, F. Gaul, T.
Cardiff, J. Pender, J. Roach, J. Coady, J. Keogh, P. Roche,
Dr. Creagh, J. Allen, J. Rock, P. Scally, T. Downes, T.
Cleary, J. Downey, J. Crowley, W. Bulger, D. G. Brett,
W. Carr, P. Cleary, P. Toole, J. Lynagh, P. Carr, J. Keogh,
W. Furlong, M. Browne, Henry Liffe, B. Carbery, J. Fur-
long, R. Hagen, P. Ennis, L. Carbery, M. Quinn, Mrs.
Coady, H. Bannon, B. Mahon, J. Kenny, R. Daly, J. Roch-
ford, W. Richards, Mrs. Hyland, J. Patts, M. Kennedy,
J. Brennan, P. Young, W. Gilligan, M. Geoghegan, O. Ward,
P. Ward, J. McGuire, J. Scally, J. Dennan, M. Farrell,
M. Feeny, J. Heslin, P. Shanly, Mrs. Langan, J. Cormack,
J. Downes, J. Kenny, J. Ham, J. Grennan, John Grennan,
Sylvester Neighster, J. Mullen, M. Ledwith, P. Geoghegan,
L. Egan, J. Wilson, D. Coughlan, M. Lynch, A. McDermott,
P. Wallace, M. Gilligan, Joseph Daly, M. Cregan, Joseph
Hafford, G. Ledwith, J. Drennan, E. Casey, P. Browne, L.
Scally, L. Quinn, T. King, G. McDonald, P. Keogan, P.
O'Loughlin, P. Lynn, J. Donohue, J. Lynn, An Irishman.
Total, $26,532.c/l.

'^o Tnovemcnt for the good of the old land was started

238 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

that did not strike a responsive chord in Carmen de Areco
while Father Leahy was Irish Chaplain of that district.
The Fenian Movement had its echo there. In '75 the Home
Government (Home Rule) cause was taken up there, and
a branch of the organization formed; O'Connell's Centen-
ary was duly celebrated in the same year by a meeting in
St. Brendan's College, and in 1880, when the Irish Relief
Fund was started, there was sent from the district the
largest sum collected in any one locality, about £300. Both
the Father Leahys seem to have been nationalists of much
more advanced views than the rest of their fellow-chaplains.
The Committee formed in Buenos Aires to carry out the
collecting of the Relief Fund, although they did their work
very creditably, were not very strong from the nationalist
point of view, and for that, or some other cause. Father
Leahy ignored them and sent his collection directly to cer-
tain of the Bishops in Ireland, where he conceived the money
was most needed. This action brought, indirectly, a little
newspaper controversy between him and Mr. Michael Car-
roll, the President of the Buenos Aires Committee. Both
defended their causes very well, but it can be seen that
Father Leahy had no great faith in the Committee and its
methods, and in all truth the Committeemen were not of
the kind that would ever break many bones in making Ire-
land a Nation.

A seemingly, from the report of examinations for the
year 1875, very successful Spanish-English College, under
the control of Thomas G. Nolan, was carried on in Carmen
for some time. In '78 the people of Carmen presented
Father Leahy with a testimonial of £360 on the occasion
of his starting on a trip to Ireland to recruit his health.

The trip, although helping him somewhat, did not bring
about anything like a permanent improvement and six years
later, after long suffering he died in Mendoza, whither he
had gone with the hope of husbanding out "life's taper" a
little longer. Nine years from this latter date his remains
were brought back and interred in Carmen de Areco.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 239

Some two years after the death of the Chaplain another
Irishman, a more or less public character, and a very great
benefactor of his countrymen, died in Carmen, Patrick Ward.
He came of a famous family of bone-setters in Westmeath,
and many a dislocated joint and broken limb from San
Antonio to Salto, and from the Parana to Chacabuco, his
skillful hands brought to order and usefulness during his
career of benevolence and kindliness. The cure, I believe,
"runs in the family," and, so, he was not, fortunately, the
last of his line of benefactors.

A strange man came to a house on Dooner's camp one
day in 1886 and asked for a revolver or hatchet or any
similar deadly weapon that might be about. The men of
the house were not at home and the woman of the house
fled to where her sons were engaged with their flock on the
plain. A neighbor, by the name of Owens, was consulted,
and he said he would go and see what the strange man
wanted with the articles asked for. Soon after some shots
were heard and when another neighbor went to make in-
quiries he found Owens dead in front of the house, and the
strange man walking about leisurely. The police were
brought as soon as possible, and when they came the strange
man, too, was lying dead. He was a maniac, but unknown
in the district.

In 1887 another fund for the advancing of the Irish
cause at home was started in Carmen, Thomas McGuire
and James Lawless being President and Secretary, re-
spectively, of the committee having charge of the move-
ment, and a sum of over £200 was raised. The next public
spirited act of importance which the district had to its
credit was the raising of the necessary funds to bring home
the remains of its beloved Chaplain from their resting place
in far off Mendoza. The Passionists were then in the dis-
trict, and Fathers Cyprian and Victor took a leading part
in this movement. The people erected memorial tablets to
both the Father Leahys in the Parish Church of Carmen.
I should not forget to mention that McGuire's and Bowling's

240 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

chapels were both in this district. The building of the
Passionist Monastery, near the famous Irish district, Arroyo
Luna, was commenced in 1892, and opened and occupied
some two years later.

So much of what I have said of Carmen de Areco is true
of Salto that I have scarcely anything, or very little peculiar
to the place, to tell. It is older as a settlement and a
town than Carmen, but like Carmen was a frontier strong-
hold at first. In 1820 Miguel Carrera, the Chilian fugitive
and Argentine interloper, with a band of traitors, adven-
turers and Indian confederates assaulted the town, over-
came and slaughtered the garrison, desecrated the church,
sacked and burned the place and gave as slaves to the
Indians its women and children. Father M. L. Leahy was
its first regular Irish Chaplain. It became a sheep-farm-
ing district about 1860, or perhaps a year or two earlier,
and by '64 it had quite an important Irish colony. Messrs.
Patrick and William Murphy, M. Murray, John Hyland,
and J. Riddle were then its principal Irish estancieros. As
in Carmen, so in Salto, Father M. L. Leahy at once, on
his advent to the place, set to providing his people with the
means of moral and social betterment and progress. A
club or society called St. Patrick's was founded and a cir-
culating library was established in the town with the fol-
lowing for officers: J. Murphy, W. Murphy, J. Hyland,
P. Browne, Ed. Casey, J. Ham; J. J. T. Murphy being
secretary. Father John B. Leahy, after serving for a short
time as Chaplain to the Irish Convent in Buenos Aires,
and, of course, attending the Hospital and Orphanage, and
generally assisting Father Fahey, was transferred to the
district of his brother and so was, as assistant, Irish Chap-
lain in Salto, Rojas, Chacabuco and Carmen for some
time. His stay, however, on his first appointment to the
district was brief, as Father Fahey recalled him again to
Buenos Aires in the year '70. Two years after Father
Fahey's death he resigned the city Chaplaincy in very
broken health and made a short visit to Ireland, On hi§

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 241

return, and for the third time, he was attached to the Chap-
laincy of his brother. Like M. L. he was a very ardent
nationalist.

Salto was one of the departments wherein robbery and
murder of the foreign settlers in the first years of their
coming was of so frequent occurrence as to give the district
a sinister prominence among places of evil fame. And al-
though the strong hand of the law began slowly to assert
itself, as late as '76 and '77 some shocking deeds of
savagery and crime were committed. An Irishman's puesto
on Kenny's camp was broken into, the man murdered and
all his belongings carried away. Same night, on the Hyland
estancia, a number of robbers assembled and began driving
away the sheep of a lone shepherd. On being awakened
by his watch-dogs he boldly sallied out in pursuit and came
in range of the robbers, at once commencing to fire shots
at them and put them to flight without their carrying away
any of his flock. On his return, however, with his rescued
sheep, he found his house robbed of everything it contained
of value, and even his horse and riding gear included in
the spoil. The year following, within two leagues of the
town, another Irishman, Martin Lynam, was attacked by
two gauchos and died within a couple of hours after he
had received fifteen stabs and two revolver-shots. A kindly
native family who lived close by, hearing the shouts of the
unfortunate shepherd, hastened to his aid and did what
they could to save his life. Our people are to a great
extent secure and prosperous in the camps to-day, but it
is well, I repeat, they should be reminded once in a while
of the cost and danger at which the foundations of that
prosperity and security were laid. It used to be said that
you could not enter Salto by road from any of the neigh-
boring towns without passing over the lands of some Irish-
man. The saying, I believe, holds true still, although the
roads to Salto are more numerous now than they used to be.

In 1880 a great Land League meeting was held in Salto,
and a branch of the home organization established there.

242 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

In the latter part of the year 1880 prosecutions were in-
stituted by the English Government against Parnell and
many of his lieutenants in the land movement in the old
country. Money was needed to defend the political prison-
ers, and in the first week of the year 1881 William Murphy
of Salto started the local collection for the "Parnell Defense
Fund," and the following subscribed $7275: W. Murphy,
J. Dennen, A Well-wisher, E. Casey, John Dennen, P.
Geoghegan, P. Dalton, R. Doyle, E. Hayden, T. Daly, E.
Kenny, P. Regan, J. McDonnell, H. Ravertos, P. McCarthy,
J. Geoghegan, J. Reilly, P. McLoughlin, O. Geoghegan, J.
Leonard, P. Wallace, T. Leonard, T. Dinnen, C. Byrne,
T. Ledwith, J. Leslee, E. Hafford, P. Conway, E. Richard,
B. Austin, J. Grennan, W. Bannon, M. Evers, E. Brown,
J. M'Cormack, J. Hanlon, M. Neville, S. Keating, A Fenian
from Catamarca, Fr. Leahy, J. Green, An enemy of the
Downing St. Club, P. Scally, B. McDermott, J. Tuite, P.
Connor, P. Killimet, P. McGuire, P. McManus, M. Scally,
M. Gannon and E. Moran.

In 1884 the Passionist Fathers Victor and Cyprian
started their branch house in Salto and opened a school;
they have attended to the chaplaincies of the district ever
since.

Although Rojas as an Irish settlement is of about the
same date as Salto it was for twenty years after its open-
ing up the very outpost of civilization in its direction, and
its further borders suffered from frequent Indian raids even
into the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Who, to-day,
would think, looking at the innumerable farms and homes
of Santa Fe and Southern Cordoba, and even to the hills
of San Luis, that less than forty years ago tribes of wild
Indians were a reality in Rojas!

James Ballesty was the first Irishman to purchase land
in this department, and for long he was the leading Irish
estanciero of the place. And no man, native or foreign
born, took a truer or more intelligent interest in its welfare
and progress than he. Soon after Ballesty came Tormey,

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 243

Fox, Lennon and Hughes, and by ^65, six years after the
opening up of the place, it was one of the great sheep-
farming districts of the country, and in addition was mak-
ing great headway in agriculture. Of its 320,000 sheep in
that year 65,000 belonged to Irishmen, Mr. Hughes being
then the largest owner. In '66 Father Leahy founded its
Irish Club and Library, and it was the first district in the
country to start the Fenian Prisoners' Fund in '67 ; the
following subscribed $3670 thereto; James Ballesty,
Thomas Geoghegan, John Lennon, Patrick Murphy, John
Tobin, James Tobin, Henry N. Geddes (Scotch), Thomas
Mullaly, Michael Dalton, Nicholas Pirce, G. D., Patrick
Barret, Martin Feeney, David Walsh, Michael Keenan, John
Gannon, Peter Claifey, Terence Toole, John Ledwith, John
Cunningham, Christopher Dalton, John Egan, James
Nicholson, Thomas Reynolds, Patrick Ward, Peter Ward,
William Boggan, Michael Browne, Michael Scallan, George
Furlong, Joseph Murphy, Mrs. Gill, Francis Doyle, Wil-
liam Furlong, Patrick Malone, Patrick McMinnigan, Wm.
Harford, John Mullen, James Furlong, C. W., Thomas
Connor, Patrick Ballesty, Timothy Dalton. James Bal-
lesty was chairman of the fund committee, and John Gannon,
secretary. As soon as Carmen started the Fahey Memorial
in practical form, Rojas at once moved in the matter, and
a meeting was called in the same month to consider the
project. There was some little opposition not to the cause,
but to the men who had taken it up, this, however, was
smoothed over and the movement as to the founding of a
Boys' Orphanage under the charge of the Christian Brothers
unanimously approved. Messrs. M. Tormey, R. B. Browne,
and P. Murphy made the Committee to take charge of
the movement locally, with Father Leahy for President
and Mr. E. O'C. O'Farrell for Secretary. Chacara extended
rapidly around Rojas, much more so than in districts
twenty leagues nearer to the Capital, and as early as '75
Mr. Ballesty introduced the latest and most approved steam
thresliing machine into the parish and let it for hire to the

244 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

farmers around, and this enterprise on his part had much
to do with the advance in agriculture, especially in wheat
growing.

Much has been said and written of the cruelty of the
Spaniards towards the Indians, the truth, as regards the
Plate country is that they interfered with the aborigines
as little and as seldom as circumstances would allow. Thus,
although there were garrisons at Areco, Salto, Rojas,
Pergamino, Melincue, Fraile Muerte, and so on to Cordoba
and Mendoza on the line of communications, twenty leagues
west of the Viceregal Capital the Indians lived quite un-
molested, save when they came eastward looking for trouble.
But as population increased and land became scarce in the
protected districts, the garrisons were pushed out somewhat
and the wild men had to move back, but never, in those days,
without a contest. Thus when civilization crept westward
as far as the outpost of Lujan, it was time to clear a
sufficient stretch of territory to keep the civilized and the
uncivilized brothers a safe distance apart, and the Guardia
de Lujan was established. In time with punitive forays,
peace treaties and expeditions to the desert, "guardas"
found their occupation gone, and in place of the fosse and
stockade the city of Mercedes sprung up. From Lujan and
Moreno as well as from the old camps of the near South
Irish sheep-men crossed its borders soon after the epoch
making day of Caseros. But the movement was not as sud-
den and as general as in the case of the camps more to the
north. However, in the year '60 I find a very considerable
population in the parish; and three years later the fol-
lowing subscribed a large sum of money as a reward for
the man, or men, who would arrest and bring to Mercedes
the murderer of Mr. Kirby and his workman, two English-
men assassinated on Mahon's camp, shortly before: Rev.
Thomas Carolan (Irish Chaplain), John Cotter, Thomas
Ledwith, M. Heavy, M. Tyrrell, D. Dowling, L. Barry, O.
Owens, T. W. Fitzgerald, W. Dennehy, Martin Synnott,
John Dunne, R. Moore, R. Nugent, M. Murray, P.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 245

Walsh, R. Coffey, J. F. Coughlan, J. Nugent, Michael
Hogan, M. Tyrrell, J. Allen, R. Lodge, M. Culleton, J.
Gallagher, T. Howlin, T. J. Fitzgerald, D. Casey, J. Din-
nen, R. Rooney, R. Moore, L. Kenny, Ed. Garraghan,
James Kenny, M. Gallagher, J. Furlong, Mrs. Cotter S.
Burke, T. Doyle, J. Dinnan, J. Dillon, J. Slaven, M.
Carmody, M. Murray, Patrick Gannon, T. Kilmurray, J.
McMahon, J. Martin, Timothy Fahey, T. Ledwith, T.
McGuire, Wm. Cleary, Julia McKey, Patrick Scally, G.
Robbins, M. Kenny, J. Murray, J. Heavy, J. Kelly,
Michael Tyrrell, P. Garaghan, P. Dowling, James Doolin,
David Lennon, F. Crinnigan, M. McDonnell, T. Evans,
Peter Kearney, B. Rourke, M. McDonough, T. Naughton,
J. Murray and J. Glass. A report in the same year states
that one-ninth of the land of the department belonged to
Irishmen, chiefly these: Fleming, Dowling, Murray,
Kearney, Kelly, Lowe, Martin, Hallion, Ledwith, McGuire,
Tyrrell, Connor, Dillon, Flannagan, McKey, etc.

In '67 the following subscribed $4200 to what they
rather curiously termed, "The Poor of Ireland Fund" ; it
was, of course, for the same purpose as the fund in other
places called the "Fenian Prisoners Fund." Like at all
times here, and never more than at the present day, there were
then in Mercedes some would-be Irish leaders who wouldn't
be Irish all out. Those whose names figured in the list
of subscribers to the "Poor" fund were the following, and
it was hardly from them that the fund got its peculiar
title: J. Gallagher, B. Furlong, B. Heavy, J. Fay, J.
Heavy, James Gallagher, M. Connolly, R. Deane, P. Green,
R. Moore, H. Deery, W. Cleary, T. Howlin, T. Scally,
T. Geoghegan, L. Heavy, L. Murphy, M. Murray, J.
McGuire, J. Dillon, James Duffy, T. Dillon, Rev. T. Caro-
lan, L. Estrange, N. Browne, Peter Moore, M. Kenny,
Luke Rooney, Frank Kelly, Dr. Hutchinson, Thomas Miller,
T. Cunningham, Michael Healy, James Savage, J. Moran,
P. Slammon, M, Slammon, Ed. Garraghan, B. Miller, P.

246 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Sullivan, E. McGreggor, J. Browne, F. Slammon, E. Slam-
mon, D. Bowes, Mrs. Ward and John Ward.

The year 1872 is the most important one in the history
of the Irish community in Mercedes, for in that year the
Irish Sisters of Mercy opened their Convent there, and a
few months later Father McNamara established his school
for boys in the town. In February the Nuns, at their own
expense, rented and furnished a house and started their
school therein. Very soon after Sefiora Josefa Gonzales
de Saubidet made them a present of a piece of land and at
once they commenced to raise money to build a house of
their own on this ground, so kindly presented to them. A
couple of months later they issued a circular naming the
following Irish Chaplains collectors of funds for the carry-
ing out of their project: Fathers Patrick Lynch, Samuel
O'Reilly, James Curran, M. L. Leahy, Thomas Mullady,
C. W. Walsh, William Grennon, and Edmund Flannery.
Father Leahy declined to act, giving as his reasons, that
until the debt on the Irish Hospital was all cleared off and
the institution in a condition of getting on he could not
ask the people for subscriptions for any other charitable
enterprise; he would, however, be glad to forward to the
Sisters any contributions given him for their purpose.
Father Mullady seems to have been the first of the Chap-
lains to raise a subscription for the Convent, and the year
after its foundation published the following list: C. Le-
strange, J. Lestrange, Mrs. Nolan, M. McDermott, Mrs.
Liffe, S. Mason, D. G. M. Ballanabarna, P. Casey, J.
Keegan, P. Hogan, J. Campbell, M. Mulvihill, J. Allen, J.
Noonan, P. Thompson, E. Maxwell, J. Dunne, J. Maxwell,
W. Rooney, J. Caskell, E. Nolan, J. Vidal, J. Maxwell,
John Melia, J. Gallagher, B. Casey, S. Martinez, P.
Devereux, Mrs. Devereux, J. O'Brien, L. Hurley, M. Fay,
L. Kilimet, T. Mulvey, T. Martin, J. Street, D. J. D., B.
Fay, B. Gearaghty, T. Noonan, Mrs. M. Kelly, Mrs. P.
Wallace, Mrs. E. Brownson, P. Caskell, P. Mitchell, A.
Abbot, P. Keegan, T. Donovan, J. Walsh, P. Connolly,

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED £47

W. Ryan, J. Hogan, J. Howard, F. Casey, R. Kirwan, B.
Farrell, M. McDonnell, V. Aldert, J. D. Viera, J. Wheeler,
H. Phillips, E. Duggan, P. Kearney, E. Malone, J. Nally,
J. Gaffney, J. Cunningham, E. Cunniffe, T. Austin, T.
Ward, P. Farrell, P. King, A Friend. Collected by Rev.
P. Lynch, Lujan: J. Donlon, P. Moore, P. Donlon, W.
Jackson, B. Heavy, T. Heavy, Mrs. Heavy, T. Clavin, T.
Langan, J. Dunne, T. Newman, G. Clarke, G. Scally, An
Irishman, L. Kirwan, John Cunningham, T. Cunningham,
J. Ham, D. Clavin, Mrs. Casey, Mr. Armstrong, Miss Justa
Armstrong also subscribed. The total of this first list of
subscriptions published being $21,180.c/l.

Father McNamara's college became at once a success,
and had a very encouraging attendance of boys, but in its
second year a bad epidemic of measles broke out amongst
its pupils and the institution had to be temporarily closed.

The Sisters lost no time in pushing on the work of their
new Convent, and notwithstanding that they had continued
receiving subscriptions and donations, two years after the
foundation of the house they issued a statement showing
that they were $168,000 in debt, and mentioned that they
would have to appeal to the generosity of their country
people for its liquidation.

Like other camp districts Mercedes early started horse-
racing, and its meets were among some of the best and most
largely attended in the country. In 1876 it consolidated
with Navarro with the intention of holding but one meet
for the two districts, and a difficulty arose as to which
place should have the Race-course and meet. After some
argument and disagreement they very sensibly left the ques-
tion to be settled by arbitration. A few years previously,
however, when the Race-course was at Altamirana so in-
ordinately enamored of the sport did the people become that
when the regular two days' event was over, the crowds re-
fused to be satisfied and kept up the diversion for a whole
week. The promoters of the meet tried in vain to bring it
to a close at the end of the third day. The gathering, was,

^48 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of course, of all nationalities and the disorderly proceedings
disgusted many of the people of the district, and set them
rather against such diversions.

In 1880 the Irish Convent closed, the Sisters removing
with those of the parent house in Buenos Aires, to Australia.
A few months later another memorable loss befell the Irish
community of the district in the death of their pastor. Rev.
Patrick Lynch, on May 15. At that time the Chaplaincy
of Mercedes included Chivilcoy and Suipacha. Father
Lynch was, like Father O'Reilly, a Longfordman, and came
to Buenos Aires in '67, he had been in failing health
for some time and was removed to Buenos Aires to assist
Dean Dillon, with the hope that the change would be good
for his health, but it had the opposite effect, and he re-
turned to Mercedes where he died, soon after. Father
O'Reilly succeeded him in the Chaplaincy. Mercedes had
a Judge O'Connor in 1866, and previous to that time rob-
beries were greatly complained of, the police and the
bandits, it was said, making common cause against the
stock-owners. Some of the police, in uniform, were caught
in broad day-light with the most noted robbers, in stock-
lifting raids. No district suffered more from the Cholera
plague. An Irish doctor came to the place in '72, Dr.
Richard Windle, a Corkman, but he only lived a couple of
years, dying in '74. As in all the districts where the first
Irish settlers acquired a considerable portion of the land
there is still a flourishing Irish colony in Mercedes, and
its annual Irish feasts and pastimes are second to none in
the country. The Pallotine Fathers, amongst whom are
many Irish priests, have given to Mercedes the best and
most truly Irish College in the Republic. This Order was
established here in 1886 by Fathers B. Feeney, J. P. Ban-
ning, and W. Withmee. Dean Dillon was very anxious
that the Fathers establish a Boys' Orphanage and a Train-
ing School, and with Mrs. Morgan's help, something in the
order of a training school was started at Azcuenega, Giles,
but was found not to be feasible just then. Father Feeney

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 249

was a literary man to some extent, and published a little
monthly called "Flowers and Fruit," of a religious nature,
but, like the training school, it was not the thing for the
time or place, and it had a very short life.

Navarro as an Irish settlement is somewhat older than
Mercedes, but as it first depended, as it were, on Lobos and
afterwards on the more compact and advantageously situ-
ated colony of Mercedes, it has not greatly stood out as a
self-sufficient center like some of those named. As early as
'63, however, the parish had a pulpero named Sheehan, and
his is the first Irish name I have come across in that busi-
ness, outside of Buenos Aires. Two years after the district
organized its first Irish Races. Messrs. Norris, Kenny, Fox,
McClusky, Martin, Austin and Manny were the chief or-
ganizers of the meet and the principal owners of the race-
horses. The parish was well represented in the Father
Fahey Testimonial in the same year. In '67 its Races were
equal, it was said, to "the best ever held in Mullingar."
There were tents on the course, a band of music, dancing
and all kinds of gamesters. Father Curran, in true home-
Sagart style, cautioned the people to avoid drink and ex-
citement and to keep the peace and such good order as would
be to the credit of their name and race. A cup worth
$4000 was won by Gahan's "Sebruno" from Murphy's
"Saino," the riders being J. Casey and J. Moore, respec-
tively. The racing was for two days, but the meeting did
not wholly terminate for nearly a week — those were funny
times, good times, in the camp. The best of good order,
however, was maintained, and it was Navarro's greatest
Irish event so far. The racing was kept up for many years
in this district, and was one of the very important meets of
the camp.

On St. Patrick's Day a club was founded to assist the
Irish people in "their struggle for liberty." The follow-
ing subscribed $3630: John Fitzgerald, J. McLoughlin, F.
O'Louglilin, Peter O'Loughlin, L. Walton, M. Dillon, James
McLoughlin, Owen Gearaghty, M. Daly, J. McLoughlin,

250 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

James Kenny, Bartle Fagan, Pat Murray, Pat Brennan,
John Kelly, M. Sexton, P. Casey, W. Birmingham, J.
Hughes, J. Byrne, Ed. Brady, T. Pidgeon, P. Finneran,
P. Nolan, P. Kelly, J. Moran, Pat McGuinness, J. Clavin,
F. Farrell, J. Shanley, Mgr. Curley, Irish Chaplain.
Father Curran was for some time Irish Chaplain of the dis-
trict, and in this year his countrymen erected in the Parish
Church, a splendid altar to his memory.

Navarro had an Irish Judge, Thomas Kenny, in '81,
and his investiture with the office was attended with great
ceremony. Reports of the proceedings would to some ex-
tent remind one of the installation of a governor or presi-
dent of some important state. The close relations between
Church and State were nicely and usefully manifested in
the function. A special mass was celebrated in the parish
church, whereat the new functionary was administered the
oath of office, and the day was held a local feast. Empty
ceremony and pomp in the official business of a republic
is not, on general principles, to be encouraged, but I think
such a ceremony as this one was useful and its continuance
on such occasions might be of public advantage. That an
official who has to deal with so many affairs where moral
rectitude and strict faithfulness to duty are the first princi-
ples required should be pledged, in the most public and
solemn manner in presence of those whose interests will be
in his keeping, cannot but have a good effect both on the
administrator and on those to be administered to. There
is much in a public pledge, or oath, especially when the
parties concerned are face to face with each other every
day while the pledge lasts.

Chivilcoy, although it quickly became an Irish settlement
of considerable importance, was from its very beginning
an agricultural district. A return made in 1853, when the
department was still new, gave the number of "ingleses"
within its confines as ten. There being seven Protestants,
and there being no Germans or Americans recorded in the
census, it is pretty safe to say that the seven were English,

MGR. O'REILLY. "FATHER SAM "
( At the time of his death, 1917, dean of the Irish Chaplains

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 251

which would make it appear that there could not be more
than three Irish in the parish, in all probability. It had
then nearly thirty thousand sheep and ten thousand squares
of chacara. It would seem that but few Irish gathered in
there before the middle Sixties, for there were but two sub-
scriptions, in '65, to the Fahey Testimonial from the parish.
In '68 the Municipality appealed to the Archbishop to send
them a company of the Irish Sisters of Mercy as no nurses
could be found who would attend to the cholera patients,
and conditions in the town were most deplorable. The
Sisters could not meet one-twentieth part the demand on
them then here in Buenos Aires, and so, of course, the heart-
rending request could not be complied with.

None of the new towns, nor, indeed, of the old ones,
rose to importance so rapidly as Chivilcoy. In twenty years
it sprang from the position of a mere camp village into
that of first interior city of the Province. It owes this sud-
den and steady progress mostly to the fact that a large
colony of Italian and Basque agriculturists was planted here
in the latter Fifties on very favorable land tenure condi-
tions. Sheep-farming developed also in the district at a
rate scarcely surpassed in any other department, and by
the year '80 it was one of the wealthiest and most important
centers of Irish wool-farmers in the land. An Irish school
was opened in the town by a Mrs. Bent in the early Seven-
ties. In 1880 the famous case of the murderous assault
on Mr. Patrick Cantlon, by soldiers, under superior orders,
gave the place a rather unenviable notoriety. A revolution
was in progress, and as in such times there was no pro-
tection for families, sparsely spread over the plains, from
the bands of lawless ruffians and bandits who went about
the country in the name of representing one or other of
the contending factions, on military duty, but mostly to
rob and outrage at their own sweet will, it was the custom
with settlers to move their women folk and children into
the nearest town, for protection, until order would be re-
stored. Mr. Cantlon had done this, but had himself re-

25^ THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

mained at his homo to tend his flocks and protect his
household effects in so far as he could. It is right to say
that single men who let the soldiers have what they wanted
in the way of eatables and use the house as they needed
were seldom or never maltreated. Cantlon got his family
into town hurriedly when the trouble broke out, and some
days later was proceeding to bring them some clothing and
other things in the way of supplies which the hurry of
leaving did not permit them of providing themselves with
on their flight to the town. On his way he had to pass not
far from an encampment of soldiers ; he was hailed by one
who demanded his horses; the plucky Kerryman, for such
Cantlon was, refused the demand, and when the militaryman
drew his sword to enforce his will, the sheep-farmer de-
fended himself so well with his whip that the soldier beat
a retreat to the camp to report the engagement. Immedi-
ately a picket was dispatched to bring the offender to the
camp, dead or alive. Cantlon continuing his journey saw
that the picket was on his track, turned off his road and
asked admission at the house of a Basque. Just then the
soldiers arrived and informed all present that their orders
were to shoot the "gringo." Cantlon hastened inside and
six rifle bullets were poured through the door, two of them
lodging in his body. He was seized in the most brutal
manner, battered and beaten without mercy, although sup-
posed to be mortally wounded, bound and brought to the
encampment where the "General" told him he ought to
have been put to death at once. He was sent a prisoner
to Chivilcoy where he was well-known as a most respectable
and intelligent man, and the outrage provoked such horror
and indignation amongst all classes that he was at once
released, and with good surgical attention recovered in a
short time. The case was brought before the English
Parliament by some of the Irish representatives and the
Argentine Government, I believe, offered him some com-
pensation.

Father Samuel O'Reilly removed from Mercedes to

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 253

Chivilcoy in 1887, where, thirty years later, he died. He
was fifty years an Irish Chaplain in Argentina, a practical
believer in the simple life, he grew wealthy fast, and gave
of that wealth in every charitable and patriotic cause, Irish
and Argentine, with unstinted liberality. He lived to be
the Dean of the Irish Chaplains, was popular with his
people, a kindly and generous friend, a good priest and a
good Irishman.

Saladillo, 25 de Mayo and Bragado were Indian terri-
tory for the most part till about the year 1860, when sheep-
raising was extended gradually from the older districts
adjoining. None of these seems to have become centers of
attraction for Irish immigrants as did the partidos of the
North of the Province; they each and all, however, had
a few Irish landowners at an early date, and Bragado
between '80 and '90 had a considerable number of Irish
residents. The most common account from these places in
their first years of settlement are of Indian raids, shocking
murders and wholesale robberies.

In 1863 a man was publicly executed in 25 de Mayo
who had committed twelve murders and many other mon-
strous crimes, and he was only twenty years of age. In
Bragado a few years later a band of murderers, in which
police officials and women figured, broke into the house of
a Spanish inn-keeper, murdered him then laid him out to
wake, with candles lighted, standing in bottles and a large
open book at his head, the account says a Mass Book.
Thus arranged they prepared supper and enjoyed a grand
feast of eating and drinking. One of the females who was
threatened with death by her consort, for her loose habits,
went to the authorities, in fear of her own life, and told
the whole story. But after all this it took a strong threat
of an all-round dose of Lynch-law to make the Justice of
the Peace and the Chief of Police take action in the matter.
Saladillo, like Salto, and at about the same time, had a
double Irish murder one night in June, '75. Two old Irish-
men, Michael McCullogh and John Cormack had their

254 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

throats cut, almost to the severance of their heads from
their bodies, by bands of roving assassins. In '68 there
was a famous case of horse-stealing in the department of
25 de Mayo. Two Irish estancieros, Moore and Kenny,
lost some thirty of the very pick of their horses. A diligent
search was immediately made for the animals, by their
owners, of course, and they were traced to the port of
Zarate; but when Kenny came up with them in the port
they were already loaded in a ship about to sail for Brazil.
He identified the horses and claimed them before the authori-
ties, but some legal difficulty was found between the juris-
diction of the Provincial authorities and those of the
Nation, who attended to customs and port affairs, and the
ship sailed away with the stolen horses.

Further out and newer are the districts of Nueve de
Julio, Azul and Las Flores. There is little to be recorded
of these departments, although they have all some Irish
residents. John Gaynor, a rich Irishman of Capilla del
Sefior, bought and stocked some leagues of land in Nueve
de Julio in '65. He was greatly pleased with his purchase
and thought it was something very like foolishness to re-
main trying to make any kind of a living at all on the in-
side camps, when such camps, and so cheap, could be got
outside. He had two Irishmen minding his sheep, and a
squad of seven Basques working in the building of a fine
mansion on his new estate. One day in the spring of ^65
a band of Indians from the neighboring "long grass" sud-
denly swooped down on the poor Basques killing five of
them, leaving for dead the remaining couple and carrying
off horses, carts and everything portable that could be
moved rapidly. The sheep being not of this latter category
were left unmolested and the Irishmen got away with their
lives.

In the Revista de la Plata is told an interesting story
in the commercial life of the town and district of Azul.
Life on the outer edges of new settlements was always
strenuous and a good bit exciting, security for life or

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 255

property not very soundly established and business ethics,
like the manners of the sons of the soil, of a rather primitive
order. Hides and grease were the chief marketable products,
and as the country for hundreds of leagues around was
covered over with herds of cattle and troops of horses there
was a big trade in the said marketable articles. A certain
foreigner who kept a large business establishment and made
money fast, supplied all needed goods to the surrounding
districts and bought all salable articles, and, as well, had
a large estancia stocked with cattle and horses. One day
he said to a young gaucho, an employee of one of the
principal cattle ranches of the department. "How much
salary do you get from that rich man for whom you work
so hard.?" "So much," replied the young man, naming his
monthly wage. "What a scandal!" exclaimed the kindly
merchant, sympathetically. "Man, you cannot live on that
wage, and moreover you will never be anything more than
a mere peon if you do not try some other way of making
a livelihood. Why don't you go in for collecting hides.?
It is a shame that a wealthy man like your master would
not pay you a decent wage — I'll buy any hides you bring
me at night and enable you to make a decent living for
yourself." It was agreed. Next night the young man and
a friend came at the appointed hour with a bundle of
cow-hides which they heaved over the wall of the merchant's
yard, and immediately rapped at the private door of the
business man to collect for the goods just delivered. The
little operation was repeated steadily for a month or so,
until one day, by accident, the merchant discovered a hide
with his own mark on it. He immediately called his yard-
man, who knew nothing about the arrangement with the
young gaucho, to explain how this hide came to be here
without his having heard of any of his bullocks having died.
The yardman explained that he was mistaken, and that a
great many of them must have died as he had been receiving
their hides every night now for more than a month. The
wrath of the merchant was very temptestuous and the

^56 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

stupidity of the yardman was proclaimed to all within reach
of the trader's voice. He stood well with the police, how-
ever, and when his worthy protege would this night come
to receive the profit of his traitor traffic he would demand
back all of the hundreds of dollars he had paid this per-
fidious robber for doubly robbing him, in not only killing
his fine cattle, but having him pay the vile scoundrel for
doing it. The young man presented himself as usual. The
merchant fulfilled his promise of threat and demand. But
the young man with an almost childish simplicity asked was
it not the bargain that he was to bring in the hides and the
merchant was to pay for them. "But," stormed the dealer,
"not the hides of my own cattle." "Ah, Senor," meekly
responded the young man, "you did not mention that; I
thought it was all the same to you what herd you got them
from, so long as you got hides, and you just pay me now
for what I have delivered, or as soon as I call, a couple of
friends I have outside will step in and help me to collect,
and if you want to apply to the police, why, do so, but I
have some friends there, too." The merchant paid up and
parted with his young friend on the best of terms.

This department had very few Irish before the year
'70, and even then it did not become a place of settlement
for our people in any great numbers, although a few fami-
lies purchased land there, and there were many Irishmen
engaged on native and other estancias in the district. The
place was raided by Indians in '67, and much damage done
in the way of house burning and the driving away of stock.
There are few Irish there now.

Flores was something of an Irish settlement in the year
'60. It is said that the building of the town commenced in
the year '57, but sheep-farming was then so profitable and
popular an employment that all the masons and laborers
left their bricks and mortar for the chiqueros and sheep-
runs, and generally became wealthy farmers and estancieros
in a short time. Flores was for long the greatest sheep
department of the south. Mr. Paniel C. Kellj established

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 257

a commission agency for the purchase and sale of land
there in ^66, and his was said to be the first enterprise
of its kind opened in any camp town. In this and the other
parishes of the south there are still some Irish families, but
rather scattered and it would be hazardous to even make
a guess at how many they number. It would be a very
tedious and heavy labor to search them out and note them
down; but if some of our people resident, in these out-of-
the-way places, would, in their leisure hours, enter down
the names of those they know in their district, and any
little data as to when they settled there, and whence they
came, and send the information to the Irish papers, it would
be doing a service greater than any of us may now be
aware of, supplying very interesting matter to the papers,
and performing a very .patriotic and not unpleasant task.
It would be of no particular matter whether the notes were
written in the national language or in English, getting such
notes into print, and as correctly as possible is what would
count.

From Mercedes and Carmen de Areco sheep-farmers
spread into the nearer parts of Chacabuco about the year
'60. At that time the lands where is now the town of
Chacabuco were beyond the pale of civilization. The colony
of Chacabuco having been founded only in the year 1870,
and the town being a place of but some 500 inhabitants
five years after when Mulhall compiled his Handbook. The
inside portion of the parish must have filled up quite rapidly
with Irish sheep-farmers, as the Irish Chapel, "Kilallen,"
on Michael Allen's land was opened in '68, the opening is
described in the Standard by the well-known, and brightest
of all camp-correspondents of those days, "Fontenoy,"
Mr. Deehan. The two Fathers Leahy officiated. There was
a great day's athletic sports, and dances were held after the
day's work was done in some of the houses close by. Mr.
Allen defrayed almost all the expenses of building the
chapel, according to the account referred to. Father Leahy,
as was customary with him, wherever the opportunity of-

258 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

fered, founded a library at the church later on. At the
opening of the library, Michael Kearney, a boy of 14 years,
delivered a very remarkable address, for one of his age,
on the event of the day.

As the Irish people with their flocks pushed westward
and many new estancias were established, "Kilallen" was
left far behind and a new chapel was needed. This want
was duly supplied by Thomas Duggan in what is known
in that district as "Duggan's Chapel," near San Patricio
Railway Station. I attended Mass there in 1893 and was
surprised at the fine, happy and prosperous-looking con-
gregation that gathered there to the little edifice remote
by many leagues from anything with even the pretentions
of a village. But many a fair home and wealthy mansion
with their white walls peeping through green plantations
were visible in every direction on the wide plains. In those
days for leagues and leagues around that locality it was
all grass and sheep and horsemen. Some families, however,
came to that Mass in comfortable brakes and coaches, and
there were not half a dozen people in the congregation that
were not Irish by birth or by parentage. The Chapel was
in Father O'Reilly's district, but it was Father Patrick
O'Grady of Mercedes who attended that day, "Father
Sam" being occupied somewhere else.

In the latter part of 1881 Patrick Mulvihill collected
for the Land League, in this parish, $3550 from the fol-
lowing: P. Callaghan, J. O'Loughlin, P. Scott, J. Ward,
L. Keenan, T. Egan, J. Reynolds, Hugh McGrath, J. Rush,
W. Carr, M. Creevy, T. Fox, T. Farrell, J. Slaven, P.
Reynolds, P. Downey, F. Crinnigan, P. Mulvihill (sen.),
J. Conroy, M. Gerety, M. Dalton, J. Egan and P. Mulvi-
hill (jun.).

Such notorious robbers and generally lawless men were
the Judge and Mayor of the town in the middle Eighties,
that fifty of the principal land owners petitioned the Gov-
ernment to have the department relieved of them. The dis-
trict has still a large and flourishing Irish community.

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 259

Suipacha was formerly part of the Mercedes depart-
ment, and the settlement of our people there dates from the
same time as their settlement in Chacabuco. The Irish
Chaplain of Mercedes was their Chaplain until the year
1879 when Father Lawrence Kirwan, then some twenty-two
years in the country, was appointed to reside in the district
and form a new Chaplaincy. In the same year he took sick
while saying Mass, was brought back to Buenos Aires and
died at the Merced Church, where he had previously been
Parish priest, in the month of October. The department
of Suipacha was but a short time established then, and the
Committee appointed by the Irish Catholics of Buenos
Aires, in '79, "with a view to make better provision for the
religious and educational wants of said community" named
as delegates to represent the district and collect funds for
the Committee therein, L. Kenny and T. Kenny. After
the death of Father Kirwan the parish remained for some
time without an Irish Chaplain, Father McNerney came to
the district in '84 but did not remain long. The Pallotine
Fathers have looked after the Chaplaincy since his time.

San Pedro being a river port, at one time of great
importance, is one of the old towns of the Province. In
the latter Twenties I find a few Irish names amongst those
who sought passports to the district, but it was not until
about '55 that Irish sheep-farmers reached the place, and
then not in large numbers. By the year Sixty, however, a
good number of our people had established themselves there
and soon purchased large estancias. The first subscriber
towards the O'Connell Monument Fund came from this dis-
trict, in '63. The district was included in Fr. Michael
I^eahy's Chaplaincy of Carmen de Areco, until the coming
of Father Edmund Flannery in 1869.

About twenty miles, westward, in the open camp, in the
year 1875, Father Flannery commenced building his church.
The place was then the center of a populous Irish district,
and lay from fifteen to twenty miles from the nearest church
or chapel. Such an edifice was a deeply felt want, indeed,

260 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

as the response of those concerned, to the appeal of their
pastor, in the matter, proclaims as decisively as it does their
generosity and piety. The Church and priest's house were
completed and opened to service in 1876. A press report
of the inauguration of the new Chapel had this to say:
"The chapel and priest's house built by the parishioners of
Father Flannery surpass anything of the kind we have seen
in this country. The new buildings are situated on very
high ground; the steeple of the church is visible at a dis-
tance of seven leagues. The worthy pastor deserves the
highest praise for his exertions to establish a permanent
Irish mission in San Pedro, by building there an Irish
Church with a residence for a priest attached. The disin-
terestedness of Father Flannery is well known to his flock;
hence their willingness to assist him. The church is a
handsome building with a handsome spire. The priest's
residence is a well-built brick house of five rooms. The land
was generously given by Mr. John Harrington, who also
gave a handsome donation towards the erection of the
church, heading the list with $10,000.m/c. The building cost
£2000 sterling; there is yet a deficit of £500 sterling, but
it will be paid off. The Irish were well represented at the
ceremony. There were the Harringtons, Mooneys, Austins,
Kennedys' Doyles, Youngs, McDonnells, Owens, Newmans,
Martins, Griffins, Keoghs, Eustaces, Quinns, Flahertys,
Walls, Cullens, Kearneys, Roches, Wheelers, Cummins,
Riardons, Nallys, Cloughisseys, Cavanaghs, Hogans,
Brownes, Daltons, Kennys, Wades, Streets, Caseys, Bren-
nans and a host of others. Wexford, Longford and West-
meath were well represented." The writer should have said
that Clare was also well represented. Soon after the open-
ing Father Flannery pubhshed the following statement:

"All the neighboring Irish people and many natives have
subscribed liberally. The accounts stand thus: Cost of
Church, $261,402; amount subscribed, $195,846; balance
due, $65,556."

The building is eighty feet long, twenty-six feet wide

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 261

and thirty feet in height; it has a tower fifty feet high.
Archdeacon Dillon performed the ceremony of consecration.

Arrecifes is within the Chaplaincy of San Pedro. It is
an old town and was a stage on the old coach road to the
northern and western provinces. Robertson described it
in 1811 as like Areco, "a miserable village"; it is now a
pretty little town and in the midst of one of the richest dis-
tricts in the whole province. Its occupation by the Irish
is of about the same time as that of Salto and San Pedro;
and as in these latter departments the occupation was a
permanent one, many of the settlers having purchased fine
estancias where they or their children still enjoy the fruits
of their wisdom and industry. The parish is pretty well
represented on the Fahey Testimonial list of ^65, the first
general camp list of Irish subscribers I have been able to
find. It was forward in the Fenian Prisoners' Fund, as
might be expected from a part of Father Leahy's Chap-
laincy, and the following subscribed $3965: Owen Owens,
Thomas Dwyer, John O'Brien, Jeremiah O'Brien, Michael
O'Farrell, Michael O'Crehan, Paul Quinones (Argentino),
Clement Cutelli (Italiano), C. de S. Morales (Argentino),
M. Bird, J. M. Aramburo (Espanol), M. M. de Jose
Mendez (Argentino), Mrs. Hogan, J. M., Lawrence Scally,
Michael Hogan, Charles Geoghegan, Thomas Hogan, John
Harrington, Patrick Martin, And. Geoghegan, John Fin-
negan, John Evans, F. P. O'Connor, Patrick Pitt, Thomas
Naughton, Michael Crowley, James Doyle, R. Hayes, Owen
Kilmurray, John Wall, James Kehoe, William Greaves,
Hugh O'Reilly, John Brennan, Patrick O'Connor, Edward
Molloy, Terence Molloy, William Martin, Edward Wall, N.
Finnerty, N. Doyle, J. Crowley, John Crowley, M. O'Leary,
M. Connery, P. York, D. Murphy, J. Curran, P. Cormic,
M. Griffin, W. Hanly, P. Keenan, E. Cleary, J. Lennon, J.
Baggot, P. Cullen, J. McDonnell, P. Martin.

In later Irish movements and charities it has been equally
well represented, and it is amongst the very first of the
Irish centers in celebrating the Irish National Festival in

262 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a truly worthy and patriotic manner. There is a fine sturdy
and spirited Irish community in the parish.

Civil wars and political broils had so weakened the na-
tional authority in the first few years after the deposition
of Rosas that in the general encroachment of the Indians
even the old and long settled department of Pergamino was
raided by the savages in ^56 and again in '61. These, how-
ever, were the last advances ; raids they made afterwards,
but only in their quick retreat to fall back further and
further desertwards. From Arrecifes and San Pedro the
next invasion of Pergamino came, slowly and peacefully, as
the shepherd and his flock move, and when Cepeda and
Pavon were over, with their varying fortunes, the new order
of camp life quickly began to estabHsh itself up to and even
beyond the Arroyo del Medio. In '68 the death of Darby
Tormey was reported from Pergamino, and it was stated
that he was one of the richest Irishmen in the country.

Murders and robberies had been as common in the Ar-
recifes and Pergamino districts as in any others where our
people settled, but as their recounting is a harrowing and
weary work, I shall pass them by for the most part. The
following, however, from its importance for the good of the
neighborhood and because some of our people had to do
with it deserves to be recorded. It was the year '74, and
many murders of strangers had been lately committed in
the district, some of the victims being Irish. A murdering
party came to a native cabin; the man of the house was
sick; his wife on hearing the dogs give alarm went to in-
vestigate the cause; she had not gone far beyond the thres-
hold when one of the band threw a poncho over her head ; her
screams brought the sick man promptly to her aid with his
knife. He fought like a tiger, killing the first man he met
and stabbing all around with great effect. The struggle
was short, for a revolver bullet was sent through the poor
fellow's head. Those who could fled, leaving two corpses at
the door of the hut. It happened near Mooney's estancia,
to which, later, one of the wounded men came in a dying

FATHER EDMUND FLANNERY
( Recently celebrated his Golden Jubilee, now dean ot the Irish Chaplains )

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED 263

state; he was attended as carefully and kindly as possible,
and soon another man in the same condition made his way
to the same house. He was also looked after, but both cases
were hopeless. Mr. Mooney sent for the authorities; the
men confessed their latest crime and much more; so much
more as led to the clearing up of the mystery of many a
previous crime, and the arrest of the remainder of the
band, about twenty in all.

The first Irishman who settled in that district, John
Doyle, was killed by soldiers after the famous battle of
Cepeda, fought between the Federation forces and those of
Buenos Aires, led by Urquiza and Mitre, respectively. The
first permanent Irish settlers were William Mooney, John
Doyle and A. Winter.

Ramallo and San Nicolas, especially the latter are com-
paratively small departments. The former was never of
very much importance as a settling place of our people.
By the time sheep-farming had spread so far north a con-
siderable part of the land of the parish had been taken
up for other purposes; notwithstanding this, however, some
Irish families settled there and there are some Irish there
still. Although the same may be said of San Nicolas, as
regards its camps, the city itself became at one time quite
an important Irish center, for here the large and prosperous
colony of sheep-farmers and estancieros of the Pavon and
Arroyo Seco districts used to do most of their marketing
and other business. But the opening up of the many new
railroads which cross the Pavon country made Rosario a
more convenient place for attending to all kinds of affairs,
and San Nicolas became less and less a place of interest
from the point of view of this work. In 1887 the killing
of Michael Crehan, by the police, aroused great indignation
amongst the Irish people of the surrounding districts and
proceedings were taken to have the accused brought to
justice.

San Nicolas is one of the towns mentioned by Robertson
in his trip to Paraguay. It had then five or six hundred

^64 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

inhabitants. Thomas Armstrong, the good and worthy
merchant of Buenos Aires, seems to have been the first Irish-
man to find his way into the district. It was here he got
his wife, Miss Villanueva, and with her very large and valu-
able estates. In San Nicolas the story is still current of
Mooney's fight with the Basque. They were both neigh-
bors, but not good friends, as there was some litigation on
between them. Flocks belonging to each got mixed and the
Basque proposed entering Mooney's flock in the camp and
driving out the portion in which animals of his mark were
most plentiful; this Mooney refused to permit, but, of
course, agreed to have the sheep separated in the usual way
in the chiqueros. His neighbor would have his own way
whether Mooney liked it or not, and when the latter in-
terfered to prevent him from entering his flock, the Basque
lodged three revolver shots in Mooney's body. Kier, for
this was the Basque's name, did not know the kind of man
he was dealing with, and before he could discharge all his
shots he was seized by the throat and lifted bodily off his
horse and thrown across the withers of the horse on which
the man he was trying to murder was mounted. Mooney
took the revolver from his would-be assassin and putting its
muzzle against the fellow's breast demonstrated to him how
easily he could have full revenge if he wanted to ; the Basque
begged piteously to be spared his life; Mooney said, yes,
he would spare him his life as it was such a one as no man
of spirit would debase himself by taking, and galloping his
horse to the nearest laguna he threw the would-be murderer
in the shallow pool, and proceeded on his way to San
Nicolas to have his bullets extracted and his wounds at-
tended to, there are sightly divergent stories of the incident,
but the one I give is, in brief, the version I deem most oc-
curate. Mr. Mooney is now an old man, one of the oldest
Irish-Argentines living, and his adventures, experiences and
deeds of daring, both in this and the neighboring Republic
of Uruguay, would, in themselves alone make a volume as

CAMP SETTLEMENTS CONTINUED ^65

sensational and interesting as any novel or book of adven-
ture I can call to mind.

Mr. Carmody formerly president of the Irish Society
was an important contractor of railway-building work, in
San Nicolas, in '71, and six years later William Foley was
appointed Commissioner of the Port. After the founding
of the religious houses of the Salesians, for priests and
nuns, with their extensive schools, in San Nicolas, the place
was seldom without an Irish priest and Irish or Irish-
Argentine nuns. The priests frequently assisted or sub-
stituted for a time the Irish chaplains on both sides of the
Arroyo del Medio. Fathers Foran, O'Grady and Diamond
were well known to, and very popular with, the Irish of that
district, and several young Irish-Argentines who have since
become Salisian priests entered the Order in San Nicolas.
A number, too, of Irish-Argentine girls, who were educated
in the Convent schools of the Salisian Sisters, remained to
become nuns or joined the Order afterwards. Father
Michael Quinn, one of the first Irish-Argentine priests, in
the sense of having both father and mother Irish-born, to
be ordained in the country, was stationed here from 1896
as Chaplain to one of the Convents. The schools of the
Salesians in San Nicolas were greatly patronized by the
Irish in the surrounding parishes in the latter decade or
so of the 19th century.

CHAPTER XV

Irish Chaplains

AS may be easily reasoned out all of our people who
emigrated to the Plate country did not turn to
the arts of war by sea or land, the commerce of
the rising, if turbulent, young city, the artizan's well re-
munerated labors, the heavy toil of the saladera and
graceria, or to the lonely and risky life of the sheep-farmer.
Irish professional men, especially of the medical order, were
proportionately plentiful from the beginning, and Irish
teachers and college professors came early and were very
acceptable at all times, even to the present day. When
Irish immigration was sought to be stimulated by govern-
ment endowment in 1822, one of the stipulations made with
General O'Brien was, that the emigrants were to be ac-
companied by a chaplain and a physician to be solely at
their disposition and for their use. J. A. Wild, in his
book of reminiscences of Buenos Aires, "Setenta Anos
Atras," says that 200 Irish laborers, so accompanied, did
come in 1822, but I believe he took the making of the ar-
rangement with O'Brien for its actual accomplishment. It
is recorded that the arrangement fell through for lack of
funds at that particular period. But the notion that the
Irish should have their own chaplain was an accepted and
approved one as far back as then. From the sketch de-
scribing Father Fahey's first missionary labors something
may be gathered of the life of an Irish Chaplain in the
camp districts, and as a considerable number of devoted
priests dedicated themselves to this noble and self-sacrificing
labor for the last jijnety years, some record of how and
when aod whej^e they labored, whg thej ^ej-e ^nd what befell

266

IRISH CHAPLAINS 267

them, in so far as the resources at my command will permit,
will be attempted in this chapter. It has often struck me
as strange that some priest has not undertaken this work
as a priest's professional knowledge and special opportuni-
ties would fit some one of them for it in numberless rela-
tions that a layman is not likely to think of, and provide
them with materials not so easily in the reach of one like
myself. But as such a book as I have set out to write
would be hopelessly incomplete without a chapter on the
Irish Chaplains, I must attempt its writing with all my
unfitness about me, and with the hope to be judged leniently
for my shortcomings, as, at least, I mean well and will do
the best I can.

That Irish-Catholic priests had to go to Argentina to
attend to the spiritual wants of their fellow-countrymen is
not to be taken as indicating a scarcity of priests and
churches in the districts wherein the Irish usually settled,
or any unwillingness on the part of the resident clergy to
render every service possible to the foreigners amongst their
congregations. The situation arose from a quite different
and very simple cause — the language. The resident clergy,
mostly native of the country or Spanish born, of course,
spoke only the Spanish tongue; our countrymen, generally
men of limited education, and past the years, even if the
time or opportunity available allowed, when people easily
acquire a new language, knew only English or Irish, and
confessions, prayers and other religious duties and exercises
were quite impossible to them in the language of the coun-
try, at least in a satisfactory manner. Hence the need of
clergymen who understood not alone their words but their
ways, and whom they could understand and regard as
wholly of themselves, interested in all their joys and sor-
rows, trustful and helpful as their counsellor and guide,
their reliable friend in every difficulty, whether of this or
the next world. Such, in brief, is the explanation of a
number of Catholic priests officiating in a Catholic country
quite apart from the local clergy, and with regulations and

^68 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

privileges for their special convenience, granted by the local
Church authorities, and which make them seem almost in-
dependent of these authorities.

As shown some chapters back there had been, before
Father Fahey's coming, some three or four Irish priests who
attended their countrymen, in Buenos Aires, but seldom
went beyond the city. Two of these, Fathers Moran and
O'Gorman had come at the direct solicitation of the Irish
colony in Buenos Aires. Father Burke, a Dominican, who
first filled the post of Irish Chaplain, came to Buenos Aires
in obedience to the arrangements of his Order, possibly for
the purpose of meeting the needs of the hundreds of Irish
Catholics then in the city; I only offer this as a conjecture.
The other two. Fathers McCartan and Gannon, were not
Irish chaplains in the sense that we ordinarily understand,
and they are dealt with in other chapters.

With the influx of Irish immigrants after the Famine,
and the establishment of the Irish Convent with its de-
pendent institutions, Father Fahey's duties became so
augmented within the city itself, that the ever-widening
extent of the rural districts into which the Irish had spread
would have to be left wholly or in very great part unat-
tended to unless a number of Irish priests could be found
to follow this ever-shifting and spreading current of
colonizers. He consequently made due and urgent applica-
tion for the number of missionary priests needed to meet
the new demand. In 1856 Father Cullen came with the
Sisters of Mercy, soon after Fathers Kirwan and Smith,
and in a short time young priests from the Missionary
College of All Hallows, Dublin, began to come, and from
then on there has been no real shortage of chaplains.
Father Fahey always kept the newly arrived missionaries
for some time in his own house, and under his own careful
direction and advice before sending them to the district
wherein their ministrations were then most needed.

The new pastor after that had mostly to shift for him-
self, and make the best of his surroundings. The "parish"

IRISH CHAPLAINS 269

allotted to him, especially in the districts newly settled
by his countrymen, had generally no accurately defined
boundaries, but was usually measured from the mearing of
the chaplaincy nearest to him on the inside outward as far
as the Irish sheep-farmers had ventured. When this dis-
trict became more thickly settled, and the settlers felt that
they needed more frequent and regularly arranged visits
from the Chaplain, and that they were sufficiently numerous
to maintain another clergyman, the district was divided and
a new chaplaincy formed. Sometimes a chaplaincy would be
only co-extensive with one or perhaps two of the parishes
or departments established by the Church organization of
the country ; at other times it would be much more extensive,
and even an area larger than a couple of counties of Ire-
land would be covered by it. This part of the arrangement,
of course, depended on the number of the faithful to be
looked after. Some of what were in the early days im-
portant Irish centers with the passing of the years became,
by reason of the changes in the values of land, abandoned
by the sheep-farmers, and only the few who had good luck
or good sense enough to purchase land in the days when
it was cheap remained. So, many of the old chaplaincies
have long since ceased to exist, their incumbents moving to
the new settlements or retiring from active service. The
chaplain as a rule took up his residence in the town or
village nearest to the center of his "parish"; very soon
his flock provided him with a house, horses, saddle and
all the other necessaries of his office, or with the requisite
funds to purchase these. Whatever the labors and diffi-
culties of his mission might be, and however careless in-
dividual ones of his parishioners might be in their observance
of some of the commandments, he had never any reason to
complain of their manner of complying with the fifth precept
of the Church.

The work of a chaplain in the old days was exceedingly
trying. His flock was often scattered over two or three
hundred square leagues of country. There are some cases

270 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

well known where the area was of much larger extent, and
it sometimes took the priest a couple of weeks to attend
a sick call. A district, however, the limits of which were
ten or fifteen leagues apart was more the order of Father
Fahey's latter years and ever since. The Chaplain said
Mass at a stated hour on a certain Sunday each month in
the Parish Church, hearing confessions on the morning of
that day in the same church. On the other Sundays of the
month he went to the other churches within his district, if
such there were, and did likewise. If churches were not
located in convenient reach of large numbers of his people
he arranged to have stations on regular occasions at the
principal houses, native or Irish, where there were many
of his people employed. The first such Mass which I at-
tended was celebrated at an old-fashioned estancia in the
parish of Carmen de Areco, called the "Azotea" (flat-
roofed), and was the property of Don Juan Dowling, whose
beautiful residence was close by. The congregation was
a very diversified one, and its gathering around the low,
flat-roofed building on the wide plains many miles from
the nearest town or village, delightfully picturesque. When
I tell how that congregation was made up, the manner of
its mobilizing and other small details which occur to me now,
more than twenty years after, it will be possible to form
some sort of an idea of what an old-fashioned camp-con-
gregation looked like.

The season was early Spring ; not an acre of land so far
as the eye could reach over the rich plains had ever yet
been touched with a plough, all was clothed in the soft
green that followed a generous drenching of very timely
rains. The sauce, or weeping willow, loaded with its sur-
passing wealth of foliage was, like the Indian tree of
Moore's touching verses:

Bending its arms downward again to that dear earth
From which the life that fills and warms its grateful being first
1^ ^ had birth.

IRISH CHAPLAINS 271

The sena-sena hedges that surrounded the little enclosure
in which the "Azotea" nestled were full in their thorny
bloom, with their pale green leaves and yellow catkins; tall
hemlock, secuta, with its peculiar fragrance was shooting
up rankly and plentifully within the enclosure; the kindly
paradise-tree was shedding its sweet-scented blossom, and
the solemn eucalyptus, dark and proud, with its ragged and
twisted trunk, stood sentinel above all.

Some of the congregation had already arrived, as could
be seen by the number of saddled horses that stood tethered
to the line of wire paling that ran outside the hedge, others
were approaching in the near distance, while farther away,
in whatever direction one looked, the cantering steed was
bearing its master or mistress gaily to the sacred tryst.
The assembly numbered somewhat less than two hundred,
and were gathered from a radius of a couple or three
leagues. Two-thirds of those present were born in West-
meath and Longford or were the children of parents born
there; the greater part of the remaining third being of
Wexford birth or extraction. Women and youngsters made
up about half the gathering. All the older men wore beards,
some wild and shaggy, some trimmed and reduced, prob-
ably with the wool-shears, whilst the young men generally
cultivated no further facial adornments than the common-
place, but almost always becoming mustachio. The elder
and more fully developed men were for the most part re-
markably large, rugged, sturdy, intelligent farmers, bear-
ing, I thought, a striking resemblance to the pictures I
used to see of the Boers of South Africa. The young men
were tall, well-formed, usually rather spare of flesh and
dressed quite picturesquely and very sensibly. The shining
top-boots, the wide loose pantaloons, the short jacket,
nicely knotted silk neckerchief and the Chambergo hat,
with its characteristic poise, made them always appear to
me as ideally dressed for men in their line of life, and in
the climate to which they belonged. The most remarkable
thing about the women was that, although nearly all Irish

272 THE RUSH IN ARGENTINA

born, the elder portion of them, at least, they rode a-horse-
back with such ease and security. What I have said of
the young men I may say of their sisters, whether as to
stature or to dress. One pretty custom which the women
have, whether in town or country, which I cannot help men-
tioning here, is that they never approach the Communion
rail wearing a hat, but rather with a dark veil thrown
loosely over their head.

The assembly, after Mass was over, and just as it was
about to disperse, was a subject for a painter, and Rosa
Bonheur could have found more color and life and natural
diversity in the scene than any of the subjects her gifted
brush has made famous. Vehicles of any kind but the cart
of all work, with its enormous wheels, seven or eight feet
high, were very scarce at that time in the camp. A couple
of open brakes, a tilbury and one or two covered coaches,
all of American manufacture, were the only means of transit,
apart from the saddle-horse, availed of by the gathering.
Nobody came afoot. The horses were of a race now nearly
extinct, save in remote districts of the country, they were
all of the criollo strain, or old native breed — an animal,
campmen hold, much more suited to the needs of the day
than would be the prettier shaped ones of foreign blood
that have replaced them. In color they were as diversified
and fantastic as the most varied herd of horn-cattle could
be. And in the beautiful, fresh spring day, with brightness
and young life on almost everything in sight they made a
picture, to an unaccustomed eye, as they pranced and
cantered away with their happy riders, long to be remem-
bered with wonder and delight. The priest was one of the
Passionists, a Tipperaryman, Father Cyprian. He had
come some seven or eight leagues, from Salto, the evening
before, heard confessions all the morning, preached after
Mass and returned home in the evening. He, however, made
the trip to and fro in a coach, whereas in the earlier times
all such journeys had to be made on horseback, and even
still in rainy weather, when the roads are in many cases

IRISH CHAPLAINS 27S

impassable to any kind of a drive, the Chaplain has often to
trust to his steed to get to where his duties call him.

But the Sunday Mass was never the matter of most
hardship and difficulty in the duties of the Chaplain, for
in that case he could take, to some extent, his measures
in accordance with distance and conditions of the weather.
With sick calls it was a different matter, there was but
one measure to be adopted, and that one stood for all dis-
tances and weather conditions — get out and attend them on
the spot. Often times the stricken person lay as far as ten
or even twenty leagues away, and not infrequently this
journey had to be made, perhaps, for the most part at
night. Roads, even at the present time, after a few days'
rain can hardly be said to exist, as such, and yet for the
last forty years a great deal has been done in the way of
making and repairing them,^ what then must they have
been when in many cases their very course was scarcely
known to any except special guides.'' In those days the
rivers had very few or no bridges in the remote camps, and
usually had to be forded wherever opportunity best of-
fered. In times of flood the water at those fording places
rose above the rider's knees and not at all rarely the horse
had to make the crossing as much by swimming as by
wading. After 1860 the chaplains who came to the country
were mostly young men fresh from the seminary and who
had undergone a course of training specially designed for
priests going on missionary work abroad. They were
usually very zealous men who spared themselves in nothing
that was for the good, spiritual and temporal, of their
charge. Few of them lived to be old men, and many of

^ A few years ago I remember living in a little town within five leagues of
the Capital, and through which two lines of railway passed. One of these was
wholly interrupted and the other partially so by an unusually long continued
rainfall. The baker, butcher and milkman had to deliver their goods on
horseback owing to the impassable state of the roads and the streets of the town.
This will give an idea, to those unacquainted with Argentina, what our roads
are like in rainy winter weather.

274 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

them, like Father Fahey, himself, fell martyrs, one might
say, to the great cause to which they had dedicated them-
selves. In the proper place their names will be given with
some account of their lives in so far as I have been able
to learn authoritatively about them. The foregoing with
the realistic sketch copied from Bulfin's essay describing
Father Fahey 's itinerary among his scattered flock will give
the reader a means of forming a fairly correct idea of what
the life of the Irish Chaplain was in the days when an order
of things prevailed that have passed forever out of Argen-
tine life.

The present and three previous Archbishops of Buenos
Aires have always taken the warmest and most kindly in-
terest in the Irish, and have never failed to assist them in
providing chaplains and teachers in every way in their
power, and to confer very special honors and privileges on
the Irish priests. I believe the Irish Chaplains are the only
priests in the country that have been allowed to dress in
any other than the prescribed ecclesiastical garb. The fact
that so much of their journeyings had to be done on horse-
back made the use of the long soutane and broad-leafed flat
hat a great inconvenience, so the authorities readily dis-
pensed with the dress formalities in their case and allowed
them to use a garb that is much more to their convenience.

As I have given a list of Directors and Governors of
the nation from its founding as an independent entity, for
handy reference, I shall follow a somewhat similar course
in regard to the Irish Chaplains and priests who devoted
themselves in any way to our people here. I cannot say
for certain that I have been able to secure the names of all
the clergyman who served in this order, but if any have
escaped my search in this direction their term in such labor
must have been short and little noticed.

Father Burke, a priest of the Dominican Order, attended
to the Irish people in Buenos Aires up to 1828, when he
died at an advanced age.

IRISH CHAPLAINS 275

Father Patrick Moran, first Irish Chaplain sent to the
country, arrived February, 1829, died in May 1830.

Father Patrick J. O'Gorman, arrived October, 1831,
died March 3, 1847, buried in the vault of the clergy,
Recoleta.

Father Michael M'Cartan came to Buenos Aires, on his
own account, in 1835 ; is noted in the "Guia de Forasteros"
for 1837, as one of the two Irish Chaplains; officiated in
San Roque. Left Buenos Aires soon after this date, re-
turned in the early sixties, died here in 1876.

Father Michael Gannon officiated in Buenos Aires in
1843. Went north after about four years, when last heard
of, 1850, was Parish Priest of Bellavista, Corrientes.

Father Anthony D. Fahey arrived in Buenos Aires,
January 17, St. Anthony's Day, 1844; died February 20,
1871. Father Cullen wrote in '89 that Bishop Kinsela of
Ossory, at the request of Archbishop Murray, selected
Father Fahey from the Black Abbey of Kilkenny for the
mission to Argentina. Born at Loughrea, Galway, 1804.

Father John Cullen, native of Dublin, Father Fahey's
first assistant, came out with the Sisters of Mercy in 1856.
He wrote more than thirty years afterwards: "My first
mission was to the 'camp' as the open land country is
termed. I went through all the parishes north and south,
eighty leagues in length. This was a work of three months'
duration. I then settled down at Capilla del Seiior with
charge of the Irish in eight parishes. I was constantly on
horseback on circuit. In those days there were no rail-
ways." Father Cullen, who was an order priest, returned in
1868 to his monastery in Haverford West, England, and
died in Dublin, May, 1891, 77 years of age.

Father Lawrence Kirwan was ordained in Montevideo
and came over from there early in 1857. Almost immedi-
ately on his arrival here Father Fahey sent him to minister
to the Irish Catholics in the Malvina islands, from which
place he returned in April of the same year; was Chaplain
in various districts a?id died October 1^, 1879.

276 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Father Patrick Donovan, like Father Kirwan, came
over from Montevideo in 1857. He was a brother of Dr.
Cornelius Donovan of the first Irish Hospital. Ordained
in Paris ; was Irish Chaplain in Magdalena and Chascomus ;
a native of Cork; died in Buenos Aires, May 5, 1868.

Father Henry Smith came in 1859, died in Lobos, May
8, 1865.

Father Thomas Carolan, North of Irelandman; came in
1860; was Chaplain in Lujan; returned to Ireland in 1868.

Father Patrick J. Dillon, native of Ballyhaunis, Mayo;
ordained priest at the age of twenty-one, for Argentine
mission; arrived in Buenos Aires in 1863. Was a man of
great brilliancy, energy and tact in handling affairs; won
many distinctions in lay as well as clerical life; was an
orator of exceptional power; on the whole a good Irish-
man, but somewhat erratic. Died in Dublin, of heart
disease, June, 1889, at the age of 47 years.

Father M. A. Connolly was Chaplain of Chascomus and
district at the beginning of 1864, but I have not been able
to find the exact date of his coming or retiring. He built
the first Irish Chapel in Argentina.

Father Michael L. Leahy came in '63, and in March,
'64, was appointed Chaplain of Carmen de Areco, Salto,
Chacabuco, San Pedro, Arrecifes, Rojas and as far north
and west as there were any Irish to look after. Native of
Kerry, was delicate, and from overwork developed con-
sumption; went to Mendoza in 1884 to recover his health
and died there, June 1, same year. Nine years after his
body was brought back and buried in the Parish Church
of Carmen de Areco. Age, 42 years.

Father William Grennon, native of Kings Co., came
also in 1863, died in Capilla del Senor, first days of Jan-
uary, '88.

Father Edward Cavanagh seems to have come to Buenos
Aires about the year 1865 ; died in Bragado, February,
1880. Served as Chaplain in Buenos Aires and many of
the camp districts.

IRISH CHAPLAINS 9n1

Father Callaghan came from Dublin about the same
time as the last named, but does not seem to have remained
long in the country.

Father James J. Curran came in 1862; died in Navarro
in 1881, March 2. Was a native of Co. Meath, and 46
years of age when he died. On his arrival in Buenos Aires
he spent some time with Father Kirwan in charge of Father
Fahey's college where is now the San Salvador. The people
of Navarro erected a costly altar to his memory in 1882.

Father William M. Walsh, native of Navan, came to
Buenos Aires a Franciscan student, was ordained Decem-
ber, 1866. Served as Irish Chaplain, within his Order,
in Buenos Aires and assisted occasionally in some of the
camp districts; was ordered home in 1873; subsequently
was sent on the mission to Australia.

Father Patrick Lynch, ordained in Dublin, All Hallows,
in '67 by Bishop Moriarty, with Fathers O'Reilly and
Mullady, for the Argentine mission; was appointed on his
arrival, same year, to be Chaplain in Mercedes, Chivilcoy
and Suipacha. After a long illness died in Mercedes, May
15, '80; was a native of Co. Longford.

Father Thomas Mullady, native of Westmeath, came
in '67; Irish Chaplain of San Antonio de Areco, Giles and
Baradero for some thirty years; retired to Ireland in
1903; died a few years ago in Moate.

Father Samuel O'Reilly, born in Longford, college com-
rade of the two previous, was Chaplain of Lujan, Mer-
cedes and Chivilcoy successively; died in the latter named
place a few months ago, with nearly fifty years' service
to his credit. Monsenor O'Reilly was a very simple-living
man; was all his life a generous giver to every charity,
Irish and Argentine, yet amassed considerable wealth which
he left at his death, principally, to Irish charities and re-
ligious communities. He was a ready writer and never
feared to face anyone in the press who said aught that was
ill or unfair of his country; an unassuming but very good
Irishman.

278 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Father John B. Leahy, ordained All Hallows, '69;
came to Argentina immediately after; for a while assisted
his brother, M. L., in the Chaplaincy of Carmen de Areco;
succeeded Father Fahey as city Chaplain; always in poor
health he was unable to continue the duties of the city
district ; tried various changes of air ; went home in '82 and
on the voyage from Spain to Ireland died, July, 1882;
buried at sea.

Father Edmund Flannery, college, ordination and date
of coming as the last named; native of Cork; appointed
Chaplain of San Pedro, Ramallo, Arrecifes, Pergamino,
San Nicolas and the Santa Fe country wherever he was
needed; still on active service, and the Dean of Irish Chap-
lains.

Father John Joseph Curley (Mgr.), came from Rome
in '72, was appointed Chaplain of Chascomus and the
southern parishes; succeeded Father Curran in Navarro
where he died.

Father J. P. Gormley, Irish born, nephew of Mgr.
Curley, was ordained in Buenos Aires, December, '80; died
of small pox in May, 1882.

Father John Davis, Englishman, came in 1869; gave
Missions in Buenos Aires and Montevideo; Chaplain for
some time in Capilla del Sefior, later in Lobos; died in
Buenos Aires, March, 1883.

Father Anthony McNamara was a widower when he
returned to Ireland from Buenos Aires, studied and became
a priest; came back in '72, opened a college in Mercedes;
assisted the Irish Chaplains of his district; later removed
to Brazil.

Father John Purcell, Irish born, was ordained in Buenos
Aires, March 1879; Chaplain in Chascomus and Capilla del
Senor ; died in the latter named place.

Father John M. Sheehy, came to Rosario in 1888; has
been Irish Chaplain of Santa Fe ever since ; native of County
Cork.

Father Richard E. Gearty came to Rosario in 1895;

IRISH CHAPLAINS 279

assisted Father Sheehy for some time; returned to Ireland
following year; succeeded Father Mullady in San Antonio
de Areco where he is still Irish Chaplain; native of County
Roscommon.

Father Black was an Irish sheepfarmer on the south-
ern camps when he felt that his call was to the priesthood;
sold his flock, went home and in due time was ordained;
went to Australia, did not get on well there, returned home,
got connected with the Dresden enterprise and came to
Buenos Aires as Chaplain to the immigrants. After the
failure of the Naposta colony, remained in Buenos Aires,
fell into bad health and died in great poverty, June, 1899;
was buried from the Balvanera church by the Cura of that
parish, who had been for long his only friend. Seems to
have not been of entirely sound mind.

Father P. J. Brady had been a Passionist but withdrew
from the Order and became Irish Chaplain of Chascomus
and all the southern district; he fell into bad health and
retired after a few years.

Father Joseph Geoghegan, Irish-Argentine, ordained in
Ireland, served as Chaplain in Mercedes for some time;
succeeded Father Brady in Chascomus and district; died
a couple of years ago in Pergamino.

There were other Irish priests who, though not Chap-
lains in the sense this chapter recognizes, bore a part in
attending to the spiritual wants of our people. One of these
was Father Burke of the Dominican Order. By the way,
the Burkes seem to have a special fondness for that Order,
our first Irish Chaplain, as stated, was a Dominican Burke,
and who has not heard of the great Father Tom? The
present Father Burke was active in the early seventies, and
in '79 was Prior in Buenos Aires and took part freely in
Irish affairs ; died in San Juan, October, 1882.

There was a Father McNerney in Suipacha in the
middle Eighties, but did not remain very long. In recent
years, apart from the Passionist Fathers, who do most of
the Irish Chaplain labor now, there are many Irish and

280 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Irish-Argentine priests in the Palotine, Salesian, Franciscan
and other Orders as well as amongst the secular clergy, who
attend to their people whenever called upon. The Irish
Chaplains at present in the country, solely as such, are
Fathers Flannery, Sheehy, Gearty and O'Grady. Father
Patrick O'Grady, Irish Chaplain of Capilla del Seiior, al-
though not very many years in this charge, is the oldest
Irish priest in active service, he being now in his eighty-
fifth year; a native of Limerick he was for some years
head of the Palotine Order in this country. Father Henry
Gray, Lazarist, at present in Lujan, has spent some forty
years in the country, has always been at the call of his
people and aided the Irish Chaplains in missionary and other
labors.

CHAPTER XVI

The Camp Schoolmaster 'and Ne'er-do-well

THE Irish settlers for the first couple of generations
or more had some queer ideas as to the bringing
up of their children. One of the things they were
usually most anxious to do effectually in that direction was
to prevent their children from learning the language and
ways of the country in which these children had to live.
Their intentions were good, but the result decidedly to the
disadvantage of the children and, consequently, to the Irish-
Argentine colony. The poor native in those days was a
rather lawless and unlovely character, while rich and poor
alike in the country districts were, in the eyes of the Irish
settlers, shamefully immoral, in the sexual sense. The Irish
father and mother were, therefore, quite satisfied that the
less intercourse their boys or girls had with such neigh-
bors the better it would be for them. Whatever good fruit
this exclusiveness bore, and I am sure it bore much, one of
its effects was that one could in times gone by often meet
Irish-Argentine men and women who had scarcely sufficient
use of the language of their country to buy the clothes they
needed to wear or to sell the products of their labor. Many
comical stories springing from this strange notion of the
settlers are current among the people still. One story from
the Carmen de Areco district will here serve the double pur-
pose of showing the truth of what I have just stated as to
the inability of some to speak their native language, and
that such inability was not always an unmixed evil. Back
in the Sixties, long before conscription was put regularly
in force, a young Irish-Argentine was arrested for not duly
presenting himself for registry in the National Guard, or

281

282 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

State Militia. An Irishman of influence in the district and
who, I beHeve, was a Justice of the Peace, interested himself
in behalf of the young Porteno. He saw no way out of the
difficulty but to have the young man say that he was born
in Ireland and was not long in the country. In a land
where the rural order of occupation with most of the people
was nomadic few families remained long in the same dis-
trict; so, as there was no evidence at hand as to the birth-
place of the young man, the J. P. proposed to the military
man to question the accused thoroughly on the matter and
decide for himself, from the manner in which he spoke the
national tongue, as to whether he was native or foreign-
born. The officer thought, under the circumstances, that it
was a fair manner of test and set to work. The questioned,
knowing little or nothing what the catechizing was about,
answered with great frankness, but in phrases mostly un-
intelligible and in a pronunciation all his own. The expres-
sion of sternness on the commandant's face soon began to
change to one of pity mixed with contempt, and turning to
the sergeant who had brought in the prisoner, with a sar-
casm that must have bitten the poor man very deeply, de-
livered judgment thus: "Go on you fool, did you not have
intelligence enough to know that this was only a poor
gringo?" The story is also told of an Irishman who hear-
ing his eldest son repeat some Spanish phrase, learned that
day in the sheep-pen from the peons who were working in
the flock, threatened the boy that if he ever heard him speak
a word of Spanish again, unless when he had to, that he
would send him oif to the school in Buenos Aires — a boys'
school had then just been started. Many such tales could
be repeated, but it was by no means because parents did
not understand the great need there was for educating their
children that this strange feeling prevailed. Far from it;
there were hardly any people in the world who made greater
sacrifices to have their children taught, in what they con-
ceived to be the best and safest way. And it was the uni-
versal desire to have them instructed thus that was mostly

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 283

responsible for the peculiar order of individuals which this
chapter proposes to treat of.

Who the first camp schoolmaster was, when he existed
and where he operated, I do not propose to decide, for
certain. It is known, however, for McCann mentions the
fact, that Mr. Handy, on the banks of the Salado, in the
district of Chascomus, had one in his employ in the year
1842. But there may have been, possibly, some earlier
practitioners than this "bit of a philomath," as Darby the
Blast called himself, who "taught his little school" at Mr.
Handy's estancia. McCann does not say how long he had
then been there but as Handy had "a fine family" and was
already quite rich, it is likely the camp tutor was not then
an entirely new institution. 1835 would be about as early
as there could have been any need for a family teacher
amongst our people in the camp, so I will take Mr. Handy's
trainer of "the tender soul" as the first of his genus that
I know of on all the wide plains of the Plate. As the rise
of families went on the number of teachers naturally in-
creased until by the year Sixty they were as much a feature
of our system of colonization as was the chaplain, almost.
But only as a feature of the system could there be any
relationship established between the master and the clergy-
man. The great majority of the teachers in the early
times were in many ways the most unfit men imaginable to
entrust the instruction and education of children to. They
were, as a rule, men whom we would to-day describe as
"undesirable citizens," failures at everything else they had
tried. They were mostly men of poor or scarcely any educa-
tion; deserters from English or American ships, outcasts
from commercial or professional callings, because of their
weakness for strong drinks, or once in a while a ne'er-do-
well who taught for a few months here and a few months
there merely as resting spots on the vagrant course of
life he had marked out for himself. Such were the camp
schoolmasters, in general. But the order was never without
some very worthy men. Conscientious, well educated, highly

^84 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

moral men, some of whom became wealthy estancieros and
men of prominence in other walks of life. I may name,
as one amongst the latter class, the late Michael Dineen,
for many years editor and proprietor of the Southern
Cross. I have often heard it said, by men competent to
judge, that Dineen was, by far, the most learned man of
his race in Argentina, in his time. In later years a very
superior class of men have devoted themselves to this line
of business and it is quite a rare thing now to meet with
one of the old-fashioned type of schoolmasters. My pur-
pose in these pages is to preserve something of the memory
of the old order, now almost vanished — the historic "Camp
Schoolmaster." This sketch, therefore, while seeking to deal
with an interesting phase in the life of our early settlers
will, from this on, be mostly devoted to the works and ways
of what I may call the conspicuously unfit of the tutor
order of the olden time, and items pertaining thereto.

The schoolmaster, if a fairly young man was expected
to take a hand in all the work of his employer, and, more
or less, to teach when there was nothing else to be done.
If too old, or for some other reason too infirm for the
harder work of the chiquero he was expected, at least, to
be able to assist in the lighter work of the dipping (cur-
ing), dagging, marking and shearing of the flocks. The
good woman of the house, too, at times when the former
operations were not in season could always find him little
jobs around the home to occupy his idle moments before
and after class hours. He was expected to have a quite
thorough knowledge of carpentry, ordinary painting, shoe-
making, gardening, house-repairing, such as making floors,
patching broken walls and mending leaking roofs. These
things, of course, were never mentioned as a part of the
educator's duties when the employment arrangements were
being entered into, and scarcely any of them was ever per-
formed, notwithstanding the kind mistress's persevering and
most diplomatic insinuations, entreaties and suggestions.
In this connection all the well-meaning mothers had a saintly

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 28^

injunction of Father Fahey's which they never neglected to
keep before the wayward minds of the teachers; and it was
to the effect, that when a man has nothing to do in the
camp it would be better for him to dig holes in the ground
and fill them up again than remain any length of time
idle, for so occupied the devil has no opportunity to fill
a man's mind with bad thoughts. A new hand might for
some weeks show symptoms of a willingness to meet some
of the requirements of his employeress, but the symptoms
usually began to wilt and wane soon after the extensiveness
of his extra duties unfolded themselves before him, and by
the time he received his first month's pay he was generally
in full disagreement with Father Fahey's reported principle
and the moral and industrial philosophy of his mistress.
After that auspicious date the whole routine of his labors
usually suffered some modifications. He visited the nearest
pulperia, or shebeen, and remained there for a couple of
days; sometimes longer, oftentimes as long as his money
lasted. His return to his employer's home was usually made
between the hours of midnight and the first dawn. Thus
the youngsters were saved the scandal of seeing their
teacher in a condition of lapse from the ways of moral
dignity and rectitude. He was unwell next day and did not
call his class together until afternoon. How-much-so-ever
he might dislike the varied recreations and exercises the
lady of the house was always ready to provide for him,
he seldom or never objected to taking a hand with the men
in the sheep-pens, for the labor although hard was only
for a few hours in the morning, and the gossip and jokes
of the neighbors, who habitually gathered to lend a hand
in the work, were much more to his taste than the kind
of relaxations his well-meaning and economical mistress
would like to provide him with. The teacher generally en-
joyed about the same salary as the man of all work around
the farmstead, had his place at the family board, and shared
the school-room with some of his elder male pupils as
dormitory. He had a horse and riding gear of his own.

286 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a few traps, in the way of spare clothing, and perhaps a
few books treating of nothing in particular. He taught
his pupils how to read and write and "do sums" ; these men
were mostly good at spelling, sufficiently well acquainted
with grammar to know that there were nine parts of speech,
were often capable of strikingly beautiful handwriting, and
could find their way^ through puzzling mazes of arithmetic
well enough to be able to keep a safe distance ahead of
their most advanced pupil. One of the chief difficulties for
the parents in this system of education was the religious
instruction. Catechism and prayers had to be taught, in
fact were of first importance all the time. Both father and
mother in almost all cases were well and carefully grounded
in these particulars, but had little time and less capacity
for giving religious instruction, and the teacher, especially
those of English or North American nationality, when not
Protestant were certain to be agnostic or atheistic. As
teachers, of course, they never hesitated to instruct the
children in the catechism and teach them the prayers they
found therein ; some of these teachers became Catholics, and
even practical and pious ones. But for all that there were
oftentimes grave suspicions and fears as the following story,
told me long ago by an old Kilbegganman, will illustrate.
A certain Ballinacarrigaman lived alone in a shepherd's hut
far out on the broad plains; he was a deeply religious man
of simple but very unbending faith; Free Masons, atheists
and the Old Boy himself were all about one and the same
to him. One evening late a North American who followed
the teaching profession rode up to the hut on a very sorry
looking mount. The stranger, after the hospitable ways of
the country, was invited to dismount and stay for the night.
But just then it dawned on the host that he had seen and
heard of his guest before. Supper was provided and as
the traveler set to appeasing his appetite, the host set to
thinking out a plan whereby he would be able to ease his
mind on a matter that had begun to trouble him just as
soon as he had recognized his guest as a certain school-

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 287

master he had once heard discussing religion in a Baradero
pulperia, just after he had arrived in the country. It
would go very hard on him to put any man out of his
house after night had fallen, and that too so far from any
human habitation, but hard or no hard, unless his visitor
had changed his views on religion since their previous meet-
ing they could not both sleep under that roof that night.
He was lying on his catre, smoking his pipe and watching
the American as he helped himself in the dim light of the
thick, soft tallow-candle.

This was how he commenced to put into execution his
plan for the discovery of the guest's present state of mind
on religious matters : "What trade do you follow. Mister,
is it any harm to ask you?"

"By no means, my friend, is it of any inconvenience to
me to inform you on a matter of such insignificancy. I
pursue no trade, in the proper sense of the word."

"Ay, but proper or improper, sure you must do some-
thing for a living, and you don't seem to be an estanciero,
nor a puestero of anyone's.?"

"You have judged rightly, good friend, I have never
been so fortunate as to have risen to either grades on our
social scale; for a living — an existence — I have been teach-
ing the rudiments to the families of some of your worthy
countrymen in various parts of this vast country."

"Teaching what.?"

"Well, the primary elements of education."

"Ah, then, you're a schoolmaster.?"
"So I am called."

"Then, you must be a man of great learning and ought
to know nearly everything.?"

"One of the things on which nearly all of the really
learned men of the world are agreed is that man knows
but few things for certain, and these few of small moment
compared with the things he knows not of."

"Ah, I see ; I see ! Well now here's a thing that it's not
very hard to know and" — turning his feet o\it of the catre

288 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

and rising to a sitting posture — "let me see if you have
it. Who— made— the— world ?"

"Who made the world?"

"Yes, just, who made the world?"

"That incomprehensible Will — that Power invisible save
to the eye of inspired faith — that Hand at Whose touch
the countless millions of worlds "

"That'll do now — that'll do! I suspected, me boyo,
from the beginning what you were. Out with you, out of
here now — devil a night ever you'll sleep under my roof;
and so that you may know better the next time, God made
the world! — and if you learned a little of the catechism when
you were getting off all your grand rhetoric you'd be a
better man, so, go on now with yourself."

That was one type — the American. An Englishman
who was of a very morose and unlovable temperament was
teaching in a house where there was a very large family
of somewhat young children, and although he was a strong,
healthy man, he would never give a hand in the sheep-pens
where all the rest of the family, husband, wife and children
used at times to be hard at work in the cold mornings of
winter. It was noticed, though, that he was always out
of bed very nimbly at the first sound of the table's being
set for coffee. The weather was very cold and as for some
days there was no work to be done with the flock the
family slept a little late, but one of the boys who knew the
master's weakness for hot coffee got out of bed and with
cups and saucers made a rattling on the dining-room table
as if coffee was just about to be served. The good man
of the birch and scowl stepped into the dining room very
lightly and rubbing one hand in the other, but found the
table bare and no stir in the whole concern. Not a word
was uttered, his horse was got in readiness, and before any
of the family, except the apt pupil of the cup-and-saucer
trick, got on foot he had left some leagues of camp be-
tween him and his late employer. The boy, for good reasons,
kept his own counsels, and the mysterious flight of the

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 289

teacher was by all attributed to some mental derangement
or some unearthly influence, until his denunciation, from
his new location, many leagues away, of the felonious and
irreverent conduct of his last employer echoed faintly over
the intervening "partidos."

Here is another tale which I submit as exemplifying
another type of this fraternity. The hero in the present
case spent his youth around where "Shruel's silent grave-
yard looks across the Inny's breast," as Leo wrote. It was
Christmastime and he was on what in Ireland we would
call the "Shoughraun" ; he was knocking about with a view
to falling in with someone who wanted, or who knew someone
who wanted, a teacher. At a house where he called up some
members of another family had called on a friendly visit.
In the calling family was a boy with a certain amount of
grammatical knowledge, and not a little pluck, for a coun-
try youngster. The man on the shoughraun, as was natural
for one in his position, was anxious to impress the company
with a thorough comprehension of his capability and high
standing as a teacher. To this end he felt that nothing
could be more effective than a rehearsal of the names of
some of those whose families he had brought the light of
learning to, and so he held forth in this wise: "It was me
that taiched Mr. So-and-So's family, an' I taiched for
two years at such-and-such an estancia," etc., in this order
until the boy with the unexpected turn for grammatical
propriety sought to tranquillize his aroused curiosity by
remarking: "I thought that word should be Haught' in-
stead of *teached?' " The master in very nettled tones re-
torted: "How dare a pup of your years presume to cor-
rect a man of my beard?" The "pup" is now a well-known
Irish-Argentine priest.

But these stories are all of long ago, here is one of
quite recent times. I had, myself, the pleasure of knowing
the master in this little episode. He was a very traveled
man, a great bore when sober, a somewhat pleasant fellow
with a little drink in, but utterly intolerable when he had

290 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

taken over much of the "appetizer," as he used to call his
favorite beverage. He knew enough to be a very good
teacher; at the time I write of he was in the employ of
an Irish-Argentine family, and had steered what might be
called a midway course for a good while. One day he re-
turned from the pulperia after a rather prolonged absence
from the class-room. The mother of his pupils feeling that
she was under some obligation to express her displeasure
for the example he was setting those he was expected to be
guide and model to, told him that any further deviation
from the straight onward and upward line would mean a
separation between him and his class. The man of letters
felt this a gross infringement of his rights and privileges
as a free man in a free country, and an indignity to his
person and profession for which neither explanation nor
apology could be accepted. He went to his room, which
was also his school-hall, and collecting his belongings into a
small bundle, he gathered bed, bedding and other belongings
of the school, carried them forth, dropped them down some
fifteen or twenty meters into the well close by, picked up
his bundle and proceeded on his way in search of occupation
in some place where the dignity of his person and profession
would be held in higher consideration.

These few tales somewhat illustrative of the character
and capability of the great majority of the men who taught
most of the Irish- Argentine families, at least in their young
days, up to very near the end of the last century, are
chosen almost at random from stories innumerable which
can be heard related in all the departments, and which if
collected would make a droll and not uninteresting volume.
Colleges, where English is taught, are now plentiful, and
where families still follow the old custom of employing a
private teacher they are careful to select one of high moral
character and assured capability. In the olden time this
could not be done and the parents had no resource but to
"make the best of a bad matter." One characteristic in
those camp schoolmasters of the errant type which may

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 291

have operated usefully, in a negative way, was that they
never stopped long enough with any one family to greatly
influence the ethical sense of any, young or old, who came
in contact with them. Whatever in their earlier careers
may have been their failings, in their magisterial days drink
was their besetting sin. They were neither an evil nor an
unconditional blessing; they were far from just what could
be desired, but they were the nearest thing to it that could
then be procured. Without them, such as they were, the
first couple of generations of Irish- Argentines would, from
the educational point of view, be in very sorry state.

In the early days very few men born in the country
turned to the occupation as a means of a livelihood, but
latterly a small number have tried it, some of them with
marked success, and many Argentine-born women and girls
are engaged in what some poet called the "delightful task."
But scarcely anything of the old order remains. Spanish
holds as high, if not higher place, in those home-colleges as
English. Parents have in too many cases passed from one
extreme to the other in their ideas as to the language their
children should know first, and English, such a very useful
tongue to know, is frequently neglected where its imparting
would cost no more effort than its daily use by the parents
within the family circle. Irish-Argentines are very for-
tunately placed, they can by very slightly concerning them-
selves endow their children with the very great advantage
of the two principal languages of the world, they will be
acting very foolishly if they do not fully avail themselves
of this good fortune.

The camp schoolmaster, no doubt, like other features of
the first settlement of our people in this great new land,
where systems and conditions change so rapidly, has passed
forever, and because he was a part of the old life of our
people I have deemed his memory worth preserving; other-
wise, a generation or two hence, it would hardly be known
that he ever existed.

292 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

The "Atorrante" or
Ne'er-Do-Well.

•'Atorrante" is a Spanish word which I think is best
translated into English by the word "tramp." But the
word, in the sense that I use it, is much more compre-
hensive than the English word which I give as its equivalent,
for it also takes in the knock-about, the unfortunate rake,
"the hard case" and perhaps some other divisions of the
human species whose philosophy of life is somewhat out
of agreement with that of the majority.

For the lazy man, the man with the hard thirst, the
man of migratory propensities and the man the Americans
call the "weary brother," Buenos Aires in the years gone
by was truly the land of heart's desire. Wherever the way-
farer turned he could have food and lodging for the bare
asking of them; sometimes he did not even need to humiliate
himself to the extent of asking. At nearly every single-
man's house he could dismount, "claim kindred there, and
have his claim allowed"; drink was exceedingly cheap and
excessively strong; horses of an age and mettle proper to
the unexacting and easy nature of the true atorrante could
be had usually for nothing, and on occasion the generous
owner of such stock would not hesitate to offer a small
bonus with the animal, so as to encourage the new proprietor
to pursue his career onward. The climate, too, was most
propitious, so, as might be conjectured, under such a num-
ber of favorable circumstances, the genus increased in
number. I must say before going any further I am not
interested in atorrantes of any nationality except my own,
and numerous as at one time they were I do not believe
that it could be said that any of them were to the manner
born. Most, if not all, of them had started well and honor-
ably, and many of them had risen in their earlier years to
circumstances of comparative wealth and comfort. But
Argentina is the land par excellence of ups and downs, for
quick successes and equally quick failures. A long season's

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 293

drought or any one of several bad epidemics in sheep might
destroy the fruit of several years' hard labor. There is a
pecuHar tendency to fatalism in the native Argentines, and
whether from climate or from association many of our
people get tinged with the same notions. The endless level
of the lonely Pampas, too, like much looking on the sea, or
much thinking on eternity, inspires a certain melancholy in
some natures and these two spiritual conditions in a man
living alone are very dangerous when disappointments come
and the drink-shop is in easy reach. Combine with these
the seemingly easy life of the knock-about and you will, I
think, be on the right track towards understanding why so
many of our people "went to the bad," as the saying is.
Not all atorrantes, however, reached the same degree
of perfection — yes, perfection in, or mastery of their art.
For whatever be one's order or grade the greater extremes
he gets to in that line the more perfect he is, in his way.
Thus we hear people say someone is a "perfect fool";
someone else is a "perfect madman" ; and someone else again
is a "perfect blackguard," hence we may have perfect ator-
rantes. The most advanced were those who crouched about
the camp towns watching to see someone in from the estan-
cias and sheep-runs, with the hope of begging a few cents
to procure a mouthful of alcoholic drink with, who obtained
what served for their daily bread from neighborly charity
and slept in some bam or untenanted house at night. There
are wrecks like these in every community, and I shall pass
on to the next grade by merely remarking that it does not
speak well for the philanthropy of our many millionaires
and very wealthy people that there is no home to shelter
such unhappy ones, except the native institutions, in their
last few weary years.

The element in the next grade is a much less sorry one.
They did an occasional day's work of the lighter kinds,
such as tidying up wire fences, digging fuel in the corrals
or cutting weeds and so established a claim to hospitality
and a few dollars. This class would stay in the same place

294 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a month or more were there nothing in the way of hard
work on the programme. But just as soon as any prepara-
tions for, or talk of, working the flock, stacking hay or
digging a well or ditch, were seen or heard some unexpected,
but urgent, demand for the presence of the journeyman
elsewhere was remembered and attended to, with regret,
of course, but promptly. Stories in plenty are told of
ruses and stratagems planned and practiced by sheep-men
when they would be beginning to feel that their guest, or
guests, were wearing out their friendship. Sometimes a
farmer whose sheep would be perfectly healthy would begin
to make the usual preparations for an early morning in
the sheep-pens, and maybe ask some passing neighbor if
he would come to give a hand in the morning at sunrise
at the "curing." The neighbor under such circumstances
could never come, and the guest discovered, after some
thought, that to-morrow was exactly, and unfortunately, the
very day he had promised Don Such-a-one, some leagues
away to help him with his sheep — a man he was under a
great compliment to, and with whom he would not break
his word for anything.

One of this class in his professional rounds happened to
call up at the house of a sheep-farmer whom he found to
be an old friend of his in other times. They were both
glad to see each other. The farmer was never without a
drop and the heart to divide it. He made his guest quite
at home, as he was himself all alone, and the visitor might
be found to be a little useful in more ways than as mere
company. The drink went around quite freely for some
days; the company was jovial and very reminiscent, the
drink, food and uses of the house had been shared equally
by the two friends, but in the performance of the many little
labors in and around the place there was no such cordial
equality. The host was most politely allowed to discharge
all the duties without the least interference by his courteous
guest. In raising the glass to his lips in the numerous
libations of the previous days the visitor never once forgot

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 295

to repeat the same toast, which for other reasons than its
monotonous reiteration was getting tiresome to the host.
The day came when the last of the store of drink was in
the hands of the two friends ; the guest, ever faithful to his
good manners and his single toast, raised his glass and
repeated: "I look towards you, Mr. So-and-So," and re-
ceived the unexpected but very suggestive response: "Well,
you can look to hell out of here now, for there's no more
in the demijohn!"

Another type of the order which, although least numer-
ous, had much more of the historic, universal and unmistak-
able tramp, was one that traveled all the country, north,
south and west, as far as civilization extended in unbroken
expanse, and did his journeying on foot. Unlike his North
American brother he seldom stole rides on the cargo trains,
but occasionally made a deal with his host or employer,
as the case might be, to the effect that if said host, or em-
ployer, would take him to the nearest railway station and
pay his fare on the train to some place of a moderate dis-
tance away he would, unlike Poe's unwelcome visitor, "take
his form from off his floor." This class usually sought
house work — cooking, by preference. They seldom remained
less than a week with any employer, and in the very fine
weather not often for a longer period. They rarely learned
to go a-horse-back and so, for the greater part, passed their
lives on foot. They would sometimes be a year or two, or
even five, away from a given district, but you might meet
them in Tandil, Santa Fe, Lujan or Venado Tuerto, always,
however, the same, taking it easy and ever pleased to meet
an old acquaintance. On such occasions they were always
after suffering some very serious disappointment through
the unfair impositions or exactions of some inconsiderate
emploj^er, but were then just on their way to take up a
permanent and very lucrative position at the estancia of
a most respectable gentleman who was extremely anxious to
secure their services. As well as being the fewest in number
they were the least interesting of the fraternity. They were

206 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

too much of a product of Old World civilization, and never
became really Argentinized. But, like French chivalry, the
days of the better class atorrante are gone.

The largest and most respectable class of the confra-
ternity have yet to be dealt with, and were of the knock-
about and unfortunate rake variety, much more than of the
pure tramp and hard-case types. They were what might
be called the fathers or founders of the order in our com-
munity, and the two first grades dealt with were something
of a development of, or better, a degeneracy from the
original standards. These had no aversion to work, under
certain circumstances, on the contrary, they were commonly
the best horsemen, the best shearers, the best lassoers, the
best horse-tamers, in the country, and this superiority as
day's-work men may have been the cause, to a great extent,
of their roving and unsteady life. Wherever they put up
for a day or two they were quite willing to make full re-
compense for the hospitality extended to them, in any kind
of work that might be to be done. No races or cattle-
marking were held anywhere within four or five leagues of
their whereabouts but they took part in. In the shearing
season they were able to reserve from gambling and drink
a sufficient amount of their wages to buy a few necessary
articles of clothing, but beyond this their economic sense
seldom led them.

In shearing-time a rainy day or two came as a real
God-send to them, as the work would have to be suspended
for a start. Then they could enjoy, without loss of time
through their fault, and in their own fond fashion, the
fruits of their labors during the previous fine days of heavy
toil. Gambling on the taba,^ running challenge-races made
among themselves, or with some neighboring sheep-farmer,

* A kind of pitch and toss, all in one, in which the instrument of the game is
a bone from the ankle joint of a cow or bullock duly smoothed and prepared.
The side of the taba (bone) remaining uppermost after it is pitched a length of
not less than five meters decides the win or lose of the throw. It is an inter-
esting and very fair gamblmg game.

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 297

or making things lively in the nearest liquor shop was
generally the shape these enjoyments took. At night a
company of them usually gathered at the house of some
» single man known to be not too particular as to the com-
pany he kept or the manner in which he conducted his
home affairs. In such places the national beverage of the
day, cana^ went round more in accordance with the financial
resources of the company than with any canon of good
morality or hygienic safety. If the break in the weather
lasted a day or so all the men were not sure to return to
the shearing on the moment of its mending, but if the
unfavorable days chanced to continue for a week or more,
even the most unreserved would be on hand in time and
probably sober. A story of the old days from the Capilla
del Seiior district will help to make clearer this single-
man's house phase of the better class atorrante life:

It was broken weather; half a dozen of the shearers
had gathered at the puesto of a shepherd on the estancia
where the shearing was being done; the shepherd was a
man of great size and strength, and reputed a not very
desirable person to get into any serious difficulties with.
His employer recommended him to keep such of the shearers
as might hang around his place as much as possible under
control, so that when a take-up would come on the weather
they might be found fit for immediate service. It was also
suggested that it was not meant by this that they were
to be subjected to anything resembling actual monastic
discipline, lest some of them become disaffected and retire
to some neighboring estate where a fuller and more congenial
form of individual liberty prevailed. The big man said that
would be all right, that the fullest liberty, consistent with
the safety of life and limb would be allowed till the weather
should show signs of taking-up. His rule was according to
his promise. No man was interfered with so long as he
conducted himself in a manner at all worthy of his state.
But there were lapses, and not a few, and the big man had
to interfere* The chief virtue of his intervention on such

298 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

occasions being that it restored order unfailingly and
quickly, and that it had, at least, the tacit approval of all
the non-combatants. After a day or two it was noticeable
that the self-billeted forces became less mutinous, and were
enjoying their days of rest in a manner that might be
justly described as fairly harmonious. So far there were
no restrictive measures taken as regarded the drink ques-
tion. But the sky cleared one day, the rain ceased, and
there were various other signs that the weather was getting
on its good behavior. The big man gave out the edict that
if no rain fell during the afternoon or night shearing would
be resumed next day, and there was to be no more cafia
brought to the house; the store on hand might be con-
sumed, but every man was in honor and duty bound to be
on hand in the morning and the night should be spent in
rest and recuperation. The order was not to be questioned,
although some of the audience devoutly wished for a good
farewell shower before the night came down. But no; the
rain had taken its leave as it had come, suddenly, and there
were no lingering, tearful partings, to put it that way.
Orders were for an early retirement and no singing or
carousing during the night, and every man to be on foot
at daylight. But ere the witching hour arrived the thirst
in some of the sleepless had become insufferable and as
the liquor-shop was scarcely a league away, it was un-
thinkable to be forced to endure such inhuman torture in
a free country. One of the wakeful sufferers was handed
the result of a surreptitious collection of funds, bade mount
the night-horse, nor waste time in dressing or saddling, and
gallop in all haste into Capilla before the liquor shop closed.
A fleecy sheep-skin was thrown on the horse's back, some-
body else groped around for a demijohn, the envoy put
his feet in the first pair of boots he found, not noticing
that they were very large, and soon was urging his steed
through the darkness towards the village. The enterprise
prospered so that within an hour the fiery fluid was being
put around amongst the thirsty, the panting steed was in

CAMP SCHOOLMASTER AND NE'ER-DO-WELL 299

his place again, but the rider noticed, for the first time
that he had put one boot on, and he further discovered that
the feetwear he had lately been in were not his own but
those of his host. This was the most serious part of the
night's insubordination, but it was hoped to be gotten over
by each and all of the compromised ones standing firm in
the denial that anybody had stirred out of the encampment
during the night.

The big man was astir with the first dawn, he could find
but one of his boots — this was strange ; further investigation
as to the whereabouts of the missing item of the foot-gear
revealed signs of some illicit movement in the settlement
during the night ; the sleep of some of the men did not seem
a quite natural one; the tethered horse had perspired
heavily, a thing unusual with animals standing in the open
air and fetlock deep in cold mud. Horse-tracks in the direc-
tion of the village, the same tracks in an opposite direction,
the mud still wet on the one boot he had — signs and tokens
enough. The tracks must be followed at once before some-
one else should come the way and find the boot. Labor in
vain! No boot on the road, no boot in the liquor-shop.
The angered and disappointed man was returning to his
dwelling when he met a neighbor and fellow-countryman
from Lough-na Valley. The neighbor surprised to see the
big man out so early, in such unwonted humor and bare of
one foot, inquired what had happened. The tale, as the
reader may imagine, was related with some amplifications
and sequences which suggested danger to the injured man's
guests. The neighbor, with a praiseworthy aim, sought to
make light of the incident, that, anyhow, the boot alone
was no use to anyone, and that after whoever had found
it, had taken a bit of a rise out of him he would surely
return it. The aggrieved one replied to all this soothing
delivery: "Sure, man alive, I'm not thinking the loss the
ould boot in itself, and if they weren't there it's a pair of
alpargatas I'd have on me, but don't you see it's the boot
off the foot that I kick them with."

SOO THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

In the sheep-camps a few of this grade of the atorrante
still remain, but in altered circumstances. The changed
times have stripped them of most of their independence.
Many of them in the olden times used to return to the
ways of righteousness and wisdom; many a one of them,
too, suffered the penalty of their dissolute ways in ultimely
and violent deaths. It was easy to become an atorrante
when labor was scarce and food very plentiful, the reverse
is now the order of things. And the man who puts the life
of the rover and knock-about before him choses the hardest
and most miserable career that Argentina knows to-day.
There are tramps and knock-abouts in great abundance in
the country now, but they are of other nationalities, and
for the most part scarcely to blame for their sorry plight.
As said already, it is a country of change and disappoint-
ment, and many a fair promise and fine hope are daily
dashed to earth forever herein.

What the future may bring to the country no one may
tell, but like the schooUnasters of the early days, the Irish
atorrante, a product, to a large extent, of his kindly sur-
roundings, has passed for good. They were a strange order
of society, more to be sympathized with than censured.
They had what, I suppose, they thought a good time; may
they all live now in a still brighter and fairer land, than
even Buenos Aires was when they knew it !

CHAPTER XVII

The Mulhalls and "The Standard"

I HAVE heard it said, and seen it written, that it was
Michael Duggan that was mainly instrumental in
founding the newspaper, "The Standard." He is said
to have interested a number of Irish wool-farmers in the
enterprise, getting them to subscribe a fund whereon the
paper was established. I have not been able to find any
proof that this tradition is well-founded, although I have
made inquiries amongst old Irish- Argentines who should be
able to confirm or corroborate the legend if it had any real
foundation in fact. The paper at its first start was an
exceedingly simple affair — a weekly sheet, doubled over,
making four pages. It had advertising enough right from
the beginning to more than pay the cost of getting it out.
Which cost at the start could hardly be so much as one
hundred dollars a week of our present money; there could,
therefore, be no need for a big fund for the starting of
such a paper. The story of Duggan's collecting money for
it probably originated in this way. Michael Duggan was
then a well-known man amongst the Irish sheep-farmers ;
as wool and hide broker and consignee, he was acquainted
with most of them, and Michael Mulhall when he founded
the paper appointed, as may be seen by notice published
at the time, Michael Duggan as one of his agents for its
sale. Duggan, seeing the advantage of having a newspaper
to defend and assert the rights of the English-speaking com-
munity, and being a personal friend of Mulhall, induced
many, if not most, of his countrymen with whom he came
in contact to become subscribers in the ordinary way.
When Michael Mulhall came to Buenos Aires, in 1860, he

301

302 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

started a college in Calle San Martin where he taught Eng-
lish and various other languages. He was a highly educated
man, having served for some time as professor in Carlow
College. I believe he went to Rome to continue his studies
for the priesthood, but not having a vocation for the clerical
life he decided on coming to Buenos Aires where his brother,
Edward Thomas, had been living for some five years. On
May 1, 1861, the first number of "The Standard" ap-
peared. In the following year Edward gave up sheep-
farming, at which he had but poor success, and joined his
brother in the newspaper enterprise. The paper had already
taken well and was going ahead, and it is told that Michael
said to Edward on his starting with him in the journalistic
venture: "Look here now, in this business there is a chance
for us to make fame for ourselves." Whereupon Edward
replied: "To hell with fame, let us make money out of
it!" Be this tale true or not, it pretty well expresses the
policy of the paper under Edward's control and ever since.
Michael Mulhall and Edward had undoubtedly good
business ability and were ready and clever newspaper writers.
The}^ quickly made the paper a success, assuming the role
of champion of all English-speaking residents, as well as
that of Germans and foreigners in general. They did very
great service in exposing and denouncing outrages com-
mitted against settlers, especially against their own com-
patriots, and they never hesitated to denounce in the boldest
terms the neglect or partiality of the authorities in bring-
ing evil-doers to justice, nor did they refrain, when occasion
demanded, from denouncing with spirit the inactivity or in-
competency of the English consular agent and his officials
here in such matters. In the Sixties, following the many
changes of government and the numerous revolutions of the
previous ten years, murder and all kinds of lawlessness were
rampant in the camp districts; there was not a parish of
the country wherein our people were then settling but had
its good fame deeply stained by some dreadful murder and
frequent robberies. Not one of these came under the notice

THE MULHALLS AND "THE STANDARD" 303

of the Mulhalls but was thoroughly ventilated and the crime
charged up to the account of the authorities and even to
the Government if every effort was not made to catch and
punish the criminals. How hard and constant a fight they
made on behalf of the law-abiding and industrious settlers
and with what success, can best be understand by a perusal
of the volumes of their paper for those years.

Michael Mulhall was not what we would call to-day a
good nationalist, but in his time he was quite a respectable
one. He was a true O'Connellite and, therefore, deeply loyal
to "our gracious Queen," as he used to write. We would
call him a shoneen now, but that was the political cult of
most of our public men under the O'Connell influence until
the Fenian awakening came to save the masses and make
"Liberals" and West-Britons of the few. The revival of
the Irish National spirit dates more from the advent of
Fenianism than from the coming of the Gaelic League.
That in time the Mulhalls turned the paper into an
out and out English organ is not a thing that we should
have any wonder for. Loyal as they were to their O'Con-
nellism and to "our leige Lady, the Queen" they were more
loyal to the rather commonplace principle of get on in the
worlds and if the success of their paper lay in a policy of
sturdy and exclusive Irishism, that would surely be the
line of their journalistic march. Their paper never got
sufficient support from the Irish-Argentine people to keep
it alive, and although there were in 1864 some twenty-five
thousand Irish in the province of Buenos Aires they did
not number one-third of the fifteen hundred subscribers to
the "Standard," according to the Mulhalls themselves.
Dependent on their own efforts, loyalists at heart, and am-
bitious to get on, they tended daily more and more to the
side that gave them most support, till finally their paper
came to be the recognized organ of the English community
in Buenos Aires.

Of the three brothers Michael seems to have been the
one of most literary ability and spirit. As a statistician

304 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

he rose to considerable fame, but the two books on Argen-
tine compiled in partnership with his brother Edward are
far from satisfactory or safe as authorities on the subjects
on which they treat. As a few striking examples of the
carelessness and want of information they frequently ex-
hibited throughout these volumes, I will quote: "Handbook
of the River Plate," page 92; "The Recoleta Cemetery is
now little used ; here the inhabitants of the city were interred
for three centuries." When these words were written the
Recoleta, as a burial place was scarcely fifty years old. All
burials previous to 1824 having been made in and around
the Catholic churches. The dissentients — Protestants, etc.
— previous to this date had, it is true, a little burial place
near the Retiro which was really the first cemetery opened
in Buenos Aires. Whenever reference was to be made to
any well-to-do Irishmen the Mulhalls usually set them down
as Englishmen. A very misleading instance of this kind
of pandering to the British and snob element amongst the
Irish is met with on page 26 of the volume already men-
tioned. Rosario is being described in the year 1875, and
the following is tacked on, with what intent let the reader
decide: "Excursions may be made by rail to the colony
of Bernstadt, or on horseback to the fine English estancias
in the valley of the Pavon." There was not then a single
English estancia in the valley of the Pavon, and I doubt
if there was even an English resident or employee. There
were, however, a score or so of very prosperous Irish fami-
lies scattered over the district, and being prosperous they
should, of course, be put to the credit of England. To
Edward Mulhall is mostly attributed this kind of syco-
phancy.

To connect a dancing pavilion and amusements grounds,
which some Englishmen had invested money in, with some
historic and remarkable happening they have this in their
"British in South America," page 330: "The venerable
Dean Funes, the historian used to frequent the gardens, and
was one day found dead seated oji his usual bench." Young

THE MULHALLS AND "THE STANDARD" 305

Mitre, in his life of the Dean, tells that he had just entered
the garden for the first time, urged by some of his friends,
when he dropped down where he stood and expired. J. A.
Wild, in his "70 Alios Atras," bears out Mitre, and men-
tions that he remembered the dead man being carried into
his father's house, the elder Wild being one of the friends
who urged the illustrious old patriot and statesman to visit
the place. Further on in the same volume, at page 325, is
set down this "historic" incident: "Dona Clara (an English
woman) was the widow of Captain Taylor, who pulled down
the Spanish and hoisted the Argentine flag at the fort in
1810." It would scarcely be necessary to tell any Argentine
schoolboy who had past the kindergarten stage that there
was no Argentine flag for some years after 1810. Nor
that when the patriots of Buenos Aires revolted against the
governmental system under which they lived there was no
fighting or seizure of the fort; the Viceroy was simply de-
posed and popular government established by vote of the
Cabildo, the new authorities just then being as loyal to the
Spanish flag as were the old. The foregoing are only a
few of many glaring misstatements and errors in the Mul-
hall books, and are merely noticed here to give an idea of
the political bias of their authors and to show how un-
trustworthy these volumes are as authorities on the matters
with which they deal.

Before parting with these books, however, I would like
to point out the absurdity of the story quoted from Miller
on page 284 of "The British in South America." The fact,
of course, that it was calculated to show up the great power
for good of England, the "savagery" of the Spaniards, and
had a very palatable dash of the stage Irishman in it, made
its claim on their pages irresistible. It is to the effect that
the Spaniards had a row of men, half naked, standing on
a beach somewhere in the northern part of South America
waiting to be shot by court-martial, when a sailor belong-
ing to an English war-ship ran up to one of the doomed
ones, whose white skin attracted his notice, and asked the

306 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

condemned if he were an Englishman. Of course he wasn't,
he was an Irishman, so was his interlocutor, and after a
real stage-Irishman dialogue the latter made off to his
English officer, got him in due course to go and half-frighten
the lives out of all the Spaniards in that part of the coun-
try and save that of the man with the very white skin. It
is all very like the ways of courts-martial. A sailor getting
off his ship and going to one of the doomed men, having a
long and quite free conversation with him, getting back and
having an interview with his commander, and then the com-
mander upsetting all the military arrangements of the place.
But at the end of it all one feels glad that it was with the
Spaniards in South America this Irishman had to deal, a
hundred years ago, instead of with Maxwell and Colthurst
in Dublin in the year of our Lord 1916. To boom the
English was hardly more grateful to the Mulhall taste than
to clown their own countrymen, and this peculiar want of
national self-respect, one of the political mortal sins, made
many enemies for them among the enlightened and more
spirited of their compatriots. Here is a typical editorial
joke from the "Standard," 1866: "An error appeared in
our impression of Sunday making Col. Palleja speak of
horses as horned cattle: the Col. is not an Irishman." To
derive Argentine names from Irish family names was another
form of humor (?) they found great pleasure in indulging
in. Thus Nunez was Nooney, Aguirre Maguire, Bareto
O'Barret, and so on, although I doubt if even their English
admirers could discover much to enjoy in this peculiar order
of wit or humor, or whatever it was offered for. If they
had never written their books their memory would be less
unhappy, for with all their faults they did many a good
service to our people, and the "Standard" in its first twenty
years had much that was very useful and little that was
very objectionable in it. Their business principle seems
to have been to boom themselves, flatter their friends and
work hard. They wrote their own copy, were their own
news-gatherers, did their own typesetting, operated them-

THE MULHALLS AND "THE STANDARD" 307

selves the old-fashioned hand-power printing machine on
which they turned out the paper, folded it and went around
to their city subscribers delivering it. I have often been
told by people, whose word I have no reason to doubt, that
they many a time saw Edward Mulhall out on horseback
as far as Flores, early in the morning delivering his paper.
Whatever may be thought or said of their political prin-
ciples their industry, commonsense and wise moral courage
were highly commendable. This, of course, was in the early
and difficult days of the paper's life. In a few years it
became the leading business paper of the city. The
"Prensa" and the "Nacion" which have since risen to be
among the great daily papers of the world did not then
exist. The private lives of the Mulhalls were clean and
honorable, and although they were not popular with the
masses of their own countrymen they were generally held in
high respect by the leaders and public men of their adopted
country.

They were generous in subscribing to every Irish and
Catholic charity and always willing to lend a helping hand
in any cause that did not conflict with loyalty to "our leige
Lady." When the Englishwoman tried to assassinate
O'Donovan Rossa in New York, in 1885, the "Standard"
said editorially: "His wound is not a dangerous one, but
this fact causes general regret, as it is generally held every-
where in America that he richly deserved to be killed." This
is a vile libel on Rossa and on the people of the United
States. Rossa was a good and highly respected citizen of
the Union, and if he was guilty of any misdemeanor the law
of the land provided the remedy, but assassination, of even
an enemy of "our leige Lady," is not generally approved
in the great Republic. But the Mulhalls should prove their
loyalty at any cost !

Edward took an active part in public affairs, and there
was scarcely a foreigner in the county, in his time, who
wielded a greater influence therein. For saying in his paper
on an occasion, while it was yet young and vigorous, that

308 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

"God made the country and man made the town, but the
devil made the Municipality of Buenos Aires," he was sued
by that body to the courts, and government was called on
to banish himself and his paper out of the country. Of
course the courts took the commonsense view of the case
and the joke remained on the city fathers. Edwal*d, in time,
assumed full control of the paper, Michael withdrawing to
Ireland where his fame as a statistician rose high. The
elder of the brothers seemed always able to keep more in
the public eye. He made several attempts to found Irish-
Argentine societies or clubs, but was always a most pro-
nounced failure in these efforts. F. H. Mulhall, the young-
est of the three brothers, edited the "Southern Cross" for
a couple of years in the latter Seventies, but did not make
much of a success of the paper. None of the family, except
Michael, seemed to be possessed of any real Irish spirit, and
I doubt, even if they tried, if they could write a newspaper
that would appeal to any of their countr3^men save those
of the snobbish element. It is a remarkable thing that four
of the family connected with the "Standard" died within
a little over a year. E. T. and F. H. in February, 1899',
and in the following year, Michael G., the founder of the
paper, and W. F., a son of Edward's, passed away. They
were a Dublin family, very Catholic and very loyal.

CHAPTER XVIII

Hutchinson and His Books — Proposed Irish Agricultural Colony —
Testimonials to Ship Captains — Lists of Immigrants — Martin O'Con-
nor Saves Lives — " First Aspiration " of the Irish — O'Connell
Monument Subscription — Father Fahey Honored — Miscellaneous
Items — ^Testimonial to Father Fahey — The First Irish Society.

WE are now at the year 1860, and as affording a
glimpse at Buenos Aires, its ways, affairs, politics
and prospects at this time, one of the most use-
ful books I have met is a volume called "Gleanings," by
an Irishman, Thomas Hutchinson. He was English Consul
at Rosario for some years, but took a deep and sympathetic
interest in the progress of the country generally, and made
laborous investigations as to its possibilities as a cotton
producing region. In view of the almost prohibitive prices
of flesh meat at the present time it will be, perhaps, inter-
esting to quote these couple of sentences from his look
into the markets: "A good leg of mutton can be bought
for one shilling. The very best beef is seldom higher in
price than from a penny to three half-pence per pound."
To-day it is only the rich who can afford to pay the price
of the "very best beef," and even they complain that they
cannot get it, as all the best is exported to Europe in one
form or another. He notes with pleasure that the most
successful sheep-farmers in the Republic are his own coun-
trymen, and also remarks the preponderance in numbers of
Westmeathmen and Wexfordians over those from the other
Irish counties. Apropos of this fact a little joke of Father
John Leahy's, which his seminary and early missionary-
days' friend. Father Flannery, often tells will not be out
of place here. Father John was from the Kingdom of
Kerry, and he used to tell that when he was going to

309

SIO THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

school he had to learn that Ireland was divided into four
provinces, but when he came to Argentina he found that the
geographies were all wrong, and that the divisions were,
Westmeath, Wexford, and all the rest Connact.

Hutchinson was not a too fond admirer of the Argen-
tine peasant, the gaucho, and this little sketch, though not
quite fair, is keenly descriptive as far as it goes. "Set a
Gaucho to dance and he moves as if he were on a procession
to his execution; ask him to sing, and he gives utterance to
sounds resembling an Irish keen, accompanied with nasal
drones suggestive of croup; put him to play the guitar,
and you feel your flesh beginning to creep, for the tinkling
elicited is as if a number of sick crickets were crackling
their legs over the fingers of the player. Even the trum-
peteer of our troop sounds the reveille and other calls as if
they were fragments of the 'Dead March in Saul.' The
Gaucho is only true to his type when he assumes the form
of a Centaur." Hutchinson can never have seen the "gato"
danced, nor have passed a day with the gaucho in the
shearing pen. The military bugle calls are, indeed, doleful.
I never hear them but I think of the frozen solitudes of
the "Passing of the Andes," or that picture of Lavalle's
soldiers bearing his dead body through the mountain break.
But the purpose of an army under any and all circum-
stances is a solemn and a sad thing and this plaintive note
on the bugle, after all, is not quite unbecoming.

Hutchinson like every man who is worth while had his
non-friends, and the tale was circulated here in Buenos Aires
that he got his appointment and preference from the Eng-
lish Government for betraying his friends. He was an
Irishman and was, it is said, one of O'Connell's secretaries.
As such he was in the know of all the Liberator's move-
ments and plans, and kept the Government advised thereof.
As the Repeal movement was an entirely open one I do not
see where the secrets to be given away could come from.
I do not give the story as having any foundation in fact,
or the opposite, for I have not made any investigation of

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 311

it, and I merely mention it here as a piece of interesting
gossip. Those who knew the man speak kindly of him, and
his writings give one to understand that he was a rather
good type of an Irishman. But speaking of his writings,
gossip comes forward again with an unfavorable word, and
says that, to his wife, who was a very brilliant Irishwoman,
and served for some time as governess in the French royal
family of Bonaparte, belongs the authorship of his books.
Between them let it be ; they were both very interesting char-
acters and their books are well worth reading.

In '67 when there was a bad epidemic of cholera in
Rosario they rendered great service to the poor and stricken
of the city, for the Consul was an eminent medical man, and
his wife was instrumental in establishing a sanatorium to
cope with the plague. Numbers of people in Rosario owed
their lives to them. Everything they did was for charity,
and instead of any profit accruing to them from this they
spent their own means freely in the good work. The Pro-
vincial Governor gratefully mentioned the Doctor's services
in his message to the legislature in 1867.

Alsina in his history of immigration shows that it was
in the year 1857 that a real turning of European emigra-
tion towards the River Plate commenced. In twenty years
from that date more than three hundred and forty thousand
immigrants arrived in Buenos Aires, and although a very
small proportion of that vast host of peaceful invaders came
from Ireland it is not the less true that Irish emigration
to Argentina reached its greatest numerical strength in the
Sixty decade. Several of the best sheep districts were then
opening up, the battle of Pavon in 1861 closed all serious
internal troubles, enabled the army to be devoted to the
widening and securing of the frontiers of civilization, and
wherever anything in the semblance of safety was hoped for
there the sheep-farmers spread in. And every extension of
the sheep-keeping area meant further requirements of Irish
immigrants, hence the high-water mark of Irish immigra-
tion in these years. The governments. National and Pro-

31^ THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

vincial, were awaking to the needs of encouraging the inflow
of Europeans and the destructive and prolonged Civil War
in the United States contributed greatly to the success of
their efforts. Cullen, in Santa Fe, had a special law made
for facilitating the settlement in his province of agri-
cultural immigrants. And the fact that Santa Fe, al-
though one of the small provinces, is the second in im-
portance in the Republic to-day is, in no small measure,
due to this intelligent fostering of agriculture. About the
same time President Mitre assumed the reins of National
Government, and one of his first acts was to encourage the
founding of an Irish agricultural colony on the same lines
as other agricultural colonies were formed. To this end he
took Father Fahey and some other of the leading Irishmen
of Buenos Aires at the time into his confidence with the
result that a large tract of land near Bahia Blanca was
granted for this purpose. The scheme, however, did not
prosper. With no railways and few or no coastwise steamers
Bahia Blanca was very far away in '62.

In those days ships sailed directly for the River Plate,
and the Buenos Aires Fianna, in its seventh number, pub-
lished a few years ago, gave some interesting data, collected
from newspapers of the time, with reference to the sailing
in the latter part of the year '56 of the "Waterwitch" with
115 emigrants "all from the neighborhood of Mullingar."
This was probably the largest number of passengers that
left by any one boat from Ireland for Argentina up to that
date. In '62 the "Raymond" beat this record by twenty-
one, she landing in Buenos Aires, on October 1st of that
year, 136 passengers from Ireland. In August, 1863,
the "Rosalie" discharged 50 immigrants, one passenger, a
man named Spens from Ballinacarriga, having died on the
voyage. Later in the same year, in October, the "Ray-
mond" beat its previous record by one, landing safely 137
immigrants; and still later, December 27, another batch
arrived by "La Zingara," full number not stated, but I
find some forty names to a testimonial of praise to the

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 313

Captain of the boat and his officers for their kindness, and
it is mentioned that some of the passengers went ashore
without signing the document; in all there were, probably,
some fifty or sixty. These figures do not by any means
include all the Irish immigrants who arrived between '57
and ^65, possibly, not even half the number, but I give them
as showing what a strong inflow of Irish there was then.

It was customary, it would appear, for the passengers
to give expression of their gratitude to the ship's Captain
and ofllcers for the kindness and care shown by these on
the voyage. How much such testimonials were deserved,
or how much of the real feelings of the subscribers they
expressed, is not worth while considering now. I suppose
they were a sort of trade advertisement gotten up by the
interested parties and passed around to be signed, as a
matter of course. Be this as it may, I am glad to avail
of them to add to the record of the names of, if not the
, first, some of the early comers and founders of the Irish-
Argentine colony. Thus in unexpected places and through
strange accidents and chances one often meets with very
useful and interesting historical data. There must be many
documents, old subscription lists, newspaper cuttings, and
private correspondence in the homes of many of the de-
scendants of the first Irish settlers that would be of great
value in the compiling of a complete record of the founding
of the Irish Argentine colony. Let us hope that they will
be some day given to the light. Following is a list of pas-
sengers by the ships above named, not all, but such as I
could find :

On the "Raymond," arrived Oct. 1st, 1862: J. G. F.
Murphy, P. Fitzsimons and family, C. C. Power, Andrew
Kirwan, M.D., W. Mahony and family, J. Pigot, H.
McCracken, J. Robinson, H. Leader, H. Gormley.

On the "Rosalie," arrived Aug. 4, 1863: Thomas
Phelan, James Molphy, Thomas Nally, Michael M'Dermott,
Con Conroy, James Dean, Michael Kenny, George Quinn —
signers of testimonial.

S14 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

On the "La Zingara," arrived Dec. 27, 1863 : Michael
Hyland, Richard Howlin, Nicholas Doyle, Christopher
Molloy, John Brosnan, Patrick Berne, Michael Flanagan,
Michael Molloy, Michael Dolan, John Cooper, Thomas Har-
rington, Patrick Beirne, Thomas McLoughlin, John Hig-
gins, Thomas McLoughlin, Michael Dunleary, Peter Ward,
Thomas Hughes, Owen Ward, John Leavy, James Leonard,
Patrick Fitzpatrick, James Shrule, James Fox, Michael
Griffin, William Spellman, Michael Casey, Michael Farrell,
Joseph McGovern, Patrick Kilmarney, Thomas Carney,
Thomas Harrington, Michael Molloy, John Bacon, James
Farrell, Andrew Culligan, William Spellman — signers of
testimonial.

Of the passengers arrived on the "Raymond," Oct. 6,
1862, "The Standard" reporter said: "They all seem
strong, healthy and respectable, and bear a striking con-
trast to the embryo orange-venders and lottery-ticket sellers
from the Mediterranean. The Rev. Mr. Fahey was most
untiring in his exertions to see that they were properly
accommodated. Thanks to his noble exertions all our fel-
low-countrymen were properly taken care of. About sixty
or seventy were placed in the Emigrants' Asylum, but owing
to the want of beds and separate apartments for the females,
the greater part were removed to private lodging houses."
The steerage passengers of this trip presented the Cap-
tain, J. F. Sanders, with a silver cup and an address for
his kindness. Dr. Gibbings, Ranchos, wrote as follows to the
same officer:

Dear Sir:

I am thankful to you for your care and attention to the men sent
to me by my brother from Ireland. Their account of the voyage and
your consideration of them, is very flattering to you. If in any way I
can be of service to you here, it shall be most grateful to me to be so.

Yours faithfully,

Michael Gibbings.
An incident happened in the early days of 1862 which
gave a young man from Galway, named Martin O'Connor,

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 315

a good deal of well-deserved fame. A certain boat-master,
or skipper, being the worse for over-festivity, indulged in
some queer antics in a small boat, upsetting it and spilling
its contents, part of which he was himself, into the water.
O'Connor being a good swimmer went to the rescue and
saved two of the drowning, at the risk of his life, the
over-festive officer being one of them. The young man was
greatly lauded for his brave deed.

Business announcements, reports in the papers and
registry of transactions in the ordinary course of affairs
show that Irishmen were already in very considerable
prominence in city and country. An article translated from
the "Nacion Argentina" by the "Standard" in September,
'62, is, I think, worth quoting in this connection:

"On Saturday last was sold by auction under the Cabildo
a suerte of estancia, about three-fourths of a league square,
for the sum of $l,010,000.m/c. The land is situated in the
Partido of Lujan, about seventeen leagues from town, and has
realized the largest price ever known in this country. Senor
Ledesma lately sold a league of camp for $1,300,000. m/c,
but this included some splendid plantations, fine buildings,
etc., with a better situation and richer lands. Buenos Aires
is now beginning to reap the fruits of her sacrifices. The
era of prosperity for the Republic is heralded by facts and
figures which nobody can deny. We see this in the fall of
specie, $30 per doublon, and in the increase of the value of
land. It is unnecessary to state that the purchaser was an
Irishman. Who can pay $l,010,000.m/c. for three-fourths of
a league unless an Irishman? It was also an Irishman who
bought Senor Ledesma's estancia. The fact is that Irishmen
pay for land what no one else can afford; and hence they
are becoming owners of the best lands in the province. There
are whole partidos in the north belonging exclusively to
Irishmen. At this rate no one can compete with them.
Presevering and laborious, their first aspiration, their lead-
ing passion is a flock of sheep and after that a piece of
ground whereon to feed them. Thanks to this the Irishmen

316 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

for ten years back have been working an incredible revolu-
tion in the country. In the midst of our wars, in spite of
disturbances, drought and depreciation of produce they have
kept up the value of land and gradually increased the figure
to an amount which the most sanguine could never have
expected.

"Pastoral industry must undergo a change in sight of
the rise of land. It is ascertained that a field of green
alfalfa will support seven times as many sheep as verdant
camp, and if the alfalfa be cut, double that number. We
have yet to bring a hundred thousand sheep to feed on a
league of land if we do not wish to remain a hundred years
behind. Meantime it is but just to acknowledge that Irish-
men are the apostles of the great pacific and moralizing
revolution in which we are all following. We hope they
will continue to buy land by the million."

I am unwilling to pass from this very generous and in-
teresting tribute to the Irish immigrant without reminding
the reader that it is that age-old characteristic of the race
which the editor of the "Nacion Argentina" calls their "first
aspiration," their "leading passion," that has left us the
Irish Nation. It was the longing for a land they could call
their own that brought our remote ancestors "from beyond
the sea" to that isle of Destiny which the race has ever since
held. It was that old "first aspiration," that "leading pas-
sion" that led the descendants of those ancestors to fight
the Dane, the Norman, the Tudor, the Cromwellian, and
the landlords, Cromwell's spawn, and finally triumph over
them all, for the land of the Destined Isle is still in the hands
of the Gael. And but for that "first aspiration," that
"leading passion," to get the land, and to keep, as Parnell
said, "a firm grip" of it, the Irish people would be no more
of a nation to-day than are the Jews.

It was often said in years gone-by, as we frequently
hear repeated in these times, that the Irish of Argentina,
considering their great wealth as a whole, were far from
over-generous in their assistance of patriotic or charitable

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 317

causes. Whatever truth there may be in that charge, as
regards the present generation, it would seem to be much
better grounded in the case of the previous one, as the
following item in my record for the year 1863 will, I be-
lieve, testify, but I do not admit that it is well grounded
in either case. A movement had been started lately in
Dublin for the building of a monument to the memory of
O'Connell. Michael Mulhall, good loyal O'Connellite that
he was, reported the movement duly in his paper and gave it
his warmest approval. A subscription was started, John
Kehoe of San Pedro contributing the first $100.m/c. At fre-
quent intervals for several months Mulhall urged on his
Irish readers to lend a generous hand in so worthy and
patriotic a cause, but the result of all his efforts did not
reach twenty pounds sterling; yet as we have just seen
there were Irishmen buying million-dollar estancias at the
time, and whole partidos were passing into their possession.
It may be said that Mulhall's influence and popularity were
not very great amongst the Irish people, and I am inclined
to that belief, myself, but one would think that the memory
of O'Connell, only twenty years after the monster meetings,
should appeal to his Catholic fellow-countrymen in Argen-
tina with somewhat greater effect than is expressed in an
outpouring that rises no higher than £19-13-0.

Wherever I can find the names of any of our people
who in the olden days did anything in the cause of patriotism
or charity I gladly set them down, for they deserve to be
remembered, and to this end the subscribers to the O'Connell
Monument Fund follow: John Kehoe, San Pedro; T.
Fallon, Buenos Aires; M. G. Mulhall; M. McDonagh, C.
de Areco; E. Lennon, Capilla del Sefior; M. P. Rosenblad,
Thomas Ledwith, Mercedes ; J. T. Fitzgerald, C. de Areco ;
"Kilcoursey," Patrick Fleming, Buenos Aires; Edmund
Dwyer, do. ; Eugene Lynch, John Crowley, Edward Casey,
Laurance Tormey, Suffern Bros., J. O'Connor, San Antonio
de Areco ; Thomas Fox, Gerald Kobbins, John O'Connor,
Dr. Fermin Irigoyen, Lujan; George Comyn, Thomas

318 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Kearney, Rev. John Cullen, Miss Anne Cathcart (Scotch).
The highest subscription was one of three hundred dollars
made by Patrick Fleming, an old resident of Buenos Aires
and who was brother of Archbishop Fleming of St. John's
Newfoundland; nearly all the others were one hundred dol-
lars each. Edmund Dwyer was a Tipperary man and head
of the gas-works of Buenos Aires. I have given the ad-
dresses of the subscribers wherever noted. There was some
open opposition to the movement, but the chief difficulty
seems to have been that the people took practically no in-
terest in it. A correspondent rather approvingly re-
marked, when the fund was closed, that but one of the
half-dozen or more Irish priests in the country at the time
could see his way to giving a subscription. Complaint was
also made that it would be better to spend any money that
could be got in relieving distress in the West of Ireland,
which was dire, indeed, at the time. Still it is a strange
fact that a fund for the building of a memorial to the
Liberator, who, no matter how opinions may differ, was a
great Irishman and a great benefactor of his people, kept
open and strongly urged for six months was patronized by
only about one in every thousand of our wealthy Catholic
community in Argentina. Of the twenty-five subscribers of
the less than twenty pounds sterling, three were non-Irish.
In this year the first Irishman, not a Spanish citizen, to
settle in Buenos Aires, Thomas Craig, died, at the advanced
age of eighty-four years.

It was in May, 1864, that President Mitre conferred the
honor of Canon on Father Fahey. The decree of the
Soldier-President conferring this high distinction on the
Irish Patriarch, "Patriarca Irlandes," as he was called, is
a document very worthy of being inserted here. Although
it would be almost impossible to find two men who rose to
the first position in their nation more opposed to each other
in political principle and governmental systems than Dictator
Rosas and President Mitre they were at one in their respect
and esteem for Father Fahey, and both of them took occa-

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 319

sion to manifest their distinguished regard for him. This
is the decree:

Buenos Aires, May 19, 1864.
The President of the Argentine Repubhc has ordained and decreed :
Art. 1. The Reverends Dr. Edward 0' Gorman and Anthony
Fahey are hereby named honorary Canons of the Cathedral Church
of Buenos Aires.

Art. 2. Let this be communicated, pubHshed and registered.

Mitre, President.
Eduardo Costa, Secretary.

Canon O'Gorman was a native of Buenos Aires and
grandson of Thomas O'Gorman who, although seemingly an
Irishman, came to Argentina from France, on account, it
would appear, of the political troubles there. A great
many Franco-Irish families who clung to the Bourbon cause
had to fly from France in those days. They usually turned
towards Spain and later to the Spanish- American colonies.
Their descendants can be met with still in Mexico, the West
Indies, and the Republics of South America. I call to
mind the case of one of these, Patrick Daly by name, who
established himself near the city of San Juan, in Puerto
Rico, naming his estancia "San Patricio." The English in
1797 sought to take the city of San Juan, but failing to
force their way past the Moro Castle into the harbor, they
made a landing some miles to the east of the city and finding
the principle estancia of the place called "San Patricio,"
and learning that its owner was a Senor Daly, they treated
it the way their descendants treated the Boer farmsteads
a hundred years afterwards, destroyed every stick and stake
of it. Daly and many other French exiles were within the
walls of the city and it is related that to some of these
French, who were trained gunners, was largely due the suc-
cessful holding of the forts and the final expulsion of the
invaders.

Want of Irish spirit amongst our wealthy countrymen
of Argentina is not, by any means, a new characteristic. As
soon ag our people began to get wealthy, some of them

320 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

began to get snobbish. To be of the English, to be with
the English, to be thought English, in a word to ape the
English, and so deserve their condescending smiles of recog-
nition, would seem to have been the aim, laboriously and
at large cost, sought by many of those and by their children
as far back as fifty or sixty years ago. The Irish Hospital
had then to be abandoned so that our new-rich might be
more free to support the English institution without seeming
to desert their own. To-day it is only sought to hand the
Irish Girls' Orphanage over to a little group of purse-
proud, Anglicized Irish- Argentine ladies. There is no Eng-
lish Girls' Orphanage here, hence, I suppose, the present
move to undo an Irish institution that is really Irish. Still
the Orphanage is not to be destroyed altogether, it is only
to be made sufficiently English to suit the tastes of these
Irish-Argentine, English-Red-Cross ladies; so we are not
getting anything worse. A study of these matters, at the
time I refer to, would be rather disheartening were it not
that by making an honest and careful comparison between
our rich people of then and now, we must arrive at the
conclusion that we are not losing ground in that direction.
We have, it is true, a greater number of these undesirables
amongst us now than ever, but in the olden time they were
left to work their evil way almost unquestioned, now there
is a very general spirit of rebellion against them which holds
them well at bay. In these days we hear a great deal about
the difficulty of raising money by subscription to support
the Irish Girls' Orphanage, and various causes are assigned
for the paucity with which subscribers come forward.
Whether these causes sufficiently explain the condition or
no I shall not wait to consider, but the following letter from
Father Fahey will amply prove that the paucity referred
to is not a new characteristic of our people, nor that of
the present is the first time that we had differences of
opinion about the conduct of our institutions. The letter
is headed, "The British Hospital," and runs: "Buenos
Aires, Feb., 16, 1865. The Editors of the 'Standard,'

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 321

Gentlemen: In reading over the report of the Secretary
of the British Hospital I was much surprised at the state-
ment 'that many poor Irishmen were admitted often on the
recommendation of Irish clergymen.' I have never recom-
mended any poor Irishman to the charity of that hospital,
for the simple reason that I could not administer the Holy
Sacrament to him when dying. I have endeavored to pro-
vide for every sick countryman that called on me either
in the Irish or native hospital, as circumstances required.
The appeal which the Sisters of Mercy made to the Irish
people last year for support for their hospital, met with
little success, they scarcely received $5000. m/c. ($100 gold),
from subscribers; they received two donations which en-
abled them to erect three rooms, and they are still expecting
that some charitable countryman will enable them to com-
plete the buildings.

"If the Directors of the British Hospital would refuse
admittance to the Irishmen who would refuse to pay, they
would avoid the expense which they now complain of. The
Sisters of Mercy are doing all they can to fit up wards
both for men and women; many of the latter come in from
the camp, and cannot find a place sufficiently adapted to
their circumstances.

"I should be glad to see both the hospitals well supported,
as they are calculated to do an immensity of good to all
poor, destitute British subjects. I am your obedient servant.
A. D. Fahey."

At this time there was a little movement on foot to con-
solidate or merge the two hospitals. As may be seen from
the foregoing Father Fahey was in no way in favor of this,
and gave very good reasons why. There is scarcely a list
of subscribers to the British Hospital at this period, when
the appeal of the nuns for the Irish Hospital met with
the response of one hundred dollars, gold, but numbers of
Irish names occur in. To help the Irish Hospital, I sup-
pose, appeared to our new-rich like acknowledging one's
poor relations, and many people, come suddenly into wealth,

322 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

are not greatly given to that kind of virtue. The Irish
Hospital, Girls' Home, and Girls' Orphanage were not sup-
ported then any more than now by regular annual sub-
scriptions, and they could no more have subsisted at that
time, or at any period since, than they can now, save for
the very generous donations and bequests which they received
from the, comparatively, few.

Father Fahey, it is well known, lived in a condition
bordering on actual poverty all his life in Buenos Aires. He
founded hospitals, a convent, schools, orphanages, homes
for the cure and care and comfort and betterment of his
people, but a house or a home for himself he never had.
His lodgings did not even afford reasonable accommodation
for a man of his state and multifarious, if voluntary, re-
sponsibilities. Some of his friends in Buenos Aires, know-
ing all this, proposed on the quiet to offer a testimonial of
their esteem and admiration of his great services in the
shape of a sum of money that would enable him to buy a
house for himself, and in due time the presentation came
off. A short address was presented, with the money, to
Father Fahey, and as the address and his reply thereto will
better explain the purpose and disposition of the fund than
anything I can say, I shall gladly give both, and following
them, in pursuance of what I have set myself as a sort of
binding principle as regards lists of names connected with
any worthy object, I shall give the whole list of subscribers:

Buenos Aires, July 12, 1865.
To the Rev. A. D. Fahey, Buenos Aires,
Dear Rev. Sir:

Some months ago it was agreed upon by a number of your friends
here, that a suitable opportunity had then arisen, for uniting your
countrymen, both in town and camp districts, in a general expression
of their unaltered regard for you personally, and of presenting you
at the same time with some slight recognition of the many services
received by them at your hands during your many years' residence in
Buenos Aires.

I have now much pleasure in inclosing herewith a list of the sub-

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 323

scribers to this object, and of placing in your hands the sum of $76,500
currency, collected by the committee. Had the amount been larger,
the propriety of presenting it to you in a more permanent, if not more
useful, form would have been considered, but a variety of circum-
stances have contributed to influence and retard the anticipations
formed by the committee. Even now it has been found necessary to
close the subscription list without having received the returns from
many of the camp districts or the subscriptions promised by others.
Nevertheless your acceptance of the above amount in money is re-
quested as an evidence of the esteem of so many of your co-religionists
shared in by several of different persuasions, who voluntarily desired
to be associated in so well merited a testimonial.

Permit me to add that, individually it is gratifying to me to be
the medium of communicating so pleasing a record of the friendship
entertained for you — a friendship which will, I trust, become daily
more strengthened. I am, dear Rev. Sir, on behalf of the Committee,
your very faithful servant, Michael Carroll, Hon. Secy.

Reply,
Buenos Aires, 13th of July, 1865.
Michael Carroll, Esq.,
Hon. Secy., etc..
My dear friend :

I wish I could convey to you in adequate terms the emotion I
experienced in receiving this token of your good will towards me;
however, that is impossible for me to do — I do thank you, thank you
most sincerely.

The present you so kindly offer me is, in itself of great value, yet
be assured that if there were not something more attached to it than
the price of silver or gold, I should set a very slight regard on it. But
I know full well it also conveys feelings of affection, and is accompanied
by those sentiments of good will that would render the most trivial gift
valuable, and, therefore, I do indeed thank you.

I have never sought for any testimonial of this kind for any little
services I may have rendered my countrymen; having devoted my life
to the service of the poor, I seek no other remuneration in this life for
my labors.

Having no particular use for this money I shall hand it over to the
Sisters of Mercy, who have incurred a heavy debt, in extending their
schools and enlarging the hospital attached to their establishment.

SU THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

I beg you will convey to the gentlemen composing the committee
the expression of my sincere gratitude.

To yourself individually I am deeply indebted for the kind sym-
pathy you have shown me on all occasions. I regret sincerely that we
are so soon to be deprived of your valuable society in this country;
but wherever your future destiny may be you may rely on having
the sympathy and good wishes of a large number of friends in Buenos
Aires.

I am, my dear Sir,

Yours very sincerely,

A. D. Fahey.

Following is the list of subscribers and subscriptions:

Collected by the Hon. Secy.

Maua & Co., Buenos Aires, $2000; Thomas Armstrong,
$2000; Michael Duggan, $2000; John Hughes, $2000;
W. Leslie, Patrick Browne, Patrick Bookey, Francis Mahon,
Terence Moore, Thomas Fallon, The Editor of "The Stand-
ard," George Temperley, A Friend, Ed. Wallace, $1000
each; T. St. G. Armstrong, Daniel Maxwell, M. J. Barry,
John Hyland (Salto), $500 each.

Collected by T. Fallon.

P. Wallace (Chascomus), M. O'Rourke (Baradero),
Jos. Clavin (Chivilcoy), J. McMahon (Giles), M. Healy
(Lujan), Mrs. Corcoran (C. de Areco), Wm. Allen, M.
Murray (C. de Areco), J. Lennon (Quilmes), Mr. Hood,
$500 each. Richard Norris (Navarro), John Mahon
(Merlo), $2000 each. A Friend (Mercedes), Thos. Gahan
(Merlo), Jas. Murphy (Merlo), $1000 each. David Fahey
(Dolores), Thos. Young (Pilar), Patrick Cormack (Merlo),
$200 each. P. Kenny (Lujan), R. Hannan (Lujan), $100
each.

Collected by Me. Michael Hipwell.

M. Hipwell (Pavon), A. C. Armstrong, do., J. P. Arm-
strong, do., E. D. Dowling, do., $200 each.

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 3^5

Collected by John Duffy.

John Duffy & Sons (C. de Areco), $5000; Peter Duffy,
do., $500; Mrs. Murphy, do., J. Cormack, do., J. Bannon,
do., A. Parle, do., Chris. McGuire, do., $200 each. James
Gilhgan, do., $250. Mrs. Byrne, do., J. Stewart, do., J.
Finnegan, do., J. Conlan, do., M. Daley, do., M. M'Dermott,
do., M. Cassidy, do., Patrick Kerr, do., Thos. Dennin, do.,
A. Cormack, do., D. Brennan, do., H. Dalton, do., B.
Rogers, do., $100 each.

Collected by Mr. Ramos, C. de Areco.

Michael Finnerty, J. B. Dowling, $500 each; Peter
Egan, $200.

Collected by P. Martin, Arrecifes.

Patrick Martin, $200; A. Geoghegan, P. Cullen, W.
Graves, E. Molloy, $100 each.

Collected at "The Standard" Office.

M. Lawless (Lujan), John McGuire (Navarro), $1000
each.

Collected by Mr. Barry.

John Whelan (Pilar), John Casey (Chivilcoy), $500
each. Ed. Wallace (Pilar), Ed. Jordan (Magdalena), $100
each.

Collected by T. Daly, Ranchos.

P. Lawyer, W. Lawyer, J. Coughlan, P. Connarton, M.
Riardon, $200 each; O. Casey, T. McMahon, T. Daly,
$100 each.

326 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Collected by Mr. L. Casey, Navarro.

Laurence Casey, $2000; J. Kenny, S. Lalor, B. Mur-
ray, J. Murray, J. Geoghegan, R. Geoghegan, $200 each.
P. Casey & Brother, $600.

Collected by Robert Kelly, Moron.

R. Kelly, $5000; Jas. Casey, $300; W. Smith, P.
Whelan, M. Casey, J. Carey, $200 each; J. Keegan, P.
AUen, P. Whalen, B. Finn, D. McYolan, P. Kenny, $100
each; W. Daley, J. Hafferty, $50 each.

Collected by Mr. Armstrong, Jr.

Henry Dose, B. A., $500; J. A. Reddington, J. G.
O'Dwyer, $300 each.

Collected by Mr. Michael Murray, Leones.

Laurence McGuire (Merlo), Laurence Kelly, do., $1000
each; T. Naughton, do., W. Cleary, do., $200 each; Ed.
Cleary, $100; P. KeUy (Leones), $200; M. Murray
(Leones), $1500; Ed. Murrogh, do., $200; J. Duffy (Mer-
cedes), J. Devitt, do., T. Dillon, do., $200 each; J. Gal-
lagher, do., T. Gaynor, do., $100; P. Kelly (Giles), $100;
A Protestant Admirer of Father Fahey, $1000.

Collected by Mr. George Morgan, San Antonio.

G. Morgan, Ed. Morgan, Patrick Wheeler, $1000 each;
L. Tormey, R. Nugent, E. Mackern, $500 each; D. Har-
rington, $200; M. Morgan, M. Eliff, $100 each.

Collected by Michael Duggan, Buenos Aires.

T. McGuire, T. Murray, T. Clancy, Jos. McLoughlin,
Jas. Ferguson, $500 each.

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 327

Collected by F. Mahon.
James Anderson, Buenos Aires, $500.

Interest on Deposit, $2097, less expenses, $347. Net,
$1750. Amt. handed to Fr. Fahey, $76,500. Michael Car-
roll, Hon. Sec. B. A. 12/7/65.

The sum of $76,500 may at first sight appear quite
large, but the dollars of those days were only worth two
pence each. Reduced to gold dollars the amount stood a
little over one thousand, five hundred dollars, a not very
large sum to be sure, but considering the number of sub-
scribers, decidedly generous. Still ten times that figure,
would not be, under the circumstances, a response to the
call to wonder at or boast about.

An editorial item in the "Standard" of January, '67,
affords some statistics in connection with the Irish Convent
deserving of notice. The establishment had sixty boarders,
forty-four orphans and a free school for three hundred
native children. The Irish Hospital, just then completed,
was an institution "where many old men and women are
cared for." The Government gave no support to the
Sisters, "not even a vote of thanks."

In 1867 and for some couple of years before there are
frequent references in the Buenos Aires papers, to the
Fenian movement in Ireland and in North America, espe-
cially is this so in the "Standard," and considering that
the Mulhalls were such ardent loyalists their treatment of
the Irish patriots and their movement is entirely creditable.
The contrast in the treatment of the Irish revolutionaries
of that period and of those of last year by the same paper
is the difference between gentlemen of a certain amount of
self-respect and mere hired ruffians. The Mulhalls who
founded the "Standard" were not grand models of the high
type Irish patriot, but they were men of character and
decent lives and they would never set their columns free to

3^8 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the scribbling renegades and panderers who last year, in
the days of the Dublin uprising, made the paper the most
blackguardly anti-Irish thing that has come off a printing
press in many years.

It is scarcely necessary to say here that the Fenian
movement brought an entirely new spirit into the Irish
people. This, or something to this effect, was said of the
Young Ireland movement also, but it was scarcely meant
politically. The Young Irelanders sang grand songs and
said fine things, but their purpose, whatever it really was,
never got down to the hearts of the people as did that of
the Fenians. The coming of the Famine with all its hor-
rors may have had much to do with this, but the fact is the
Government suppressed their movement easily enough, whilst
Fenianism defied its worst and is still a living, inspiring
and even growing force. Its call was felt here in Buenos
Aires and resulted in a number of men joining together
and forming the first truly Irish national organization of
which we have any reliable record. The Repeal Club of
1843 does not seem to have been more than a nominal thing,
and I have not been able to find more than occasional
references to it. The organization started in '67 was called
"The Irish National Society of Buenos Aires," and the
founders issued a manifesto setting forth the principles and
purposes of the new society. It was to be Irish, members
enjoying the fullest freedom of opinion, there was to be a
reading room where men from the camp could meet and
exchange ideas with each other and with their city friends.
The first officers were D. P. Carmody, President; J. G.
O'Farrell, Vice-President; J. J. Moran, Treasurer, and J.
F. Ledwith, Secretary. The society gave its first banquet
in celebration of the 25th of May, 1867. Mr. O'Farrell
presided the banquet, and took care to say that the society
was not a Fenian organization as some people had said, but
on the contrary was non-political. Still the decorations
consisted of Argentine, Irish and United States flags, there
was no Union Jack, no "God Save the Queen," not even a

HUTCHINSON AND HIS BOOKS, ETC. 329

toast to "Her Majesty." Mr. O'Farrell might be a very
loyal man, but his renunciation of Fenianism for himself
and his fellow members somehow reminds one of that lady
who did "protest too much." Mr. O'Farrell was the man-
ager of an English company and we know how much, for
we have had experience of it in our own time, the public
utterances of such employees represent Irish-Argentine
opinion. The organization had for its shield a very artistic
harp entwined in shamrocks, and on a band beneath the
harp the words, Erin go Bragh. Its permanent rooms were
at Calle Mexico 72. It did not long survive Mr. O'Far-
rell's protest of its non-Fenianism ; he was not the only
one of the officers who was employed by English business
concerns. This same circumstance has worked the failure
of many an Irish society in Buenos Aires and other places
in Argentina since '67. Why men so placed are always
allowed to get to the top of such organizations I cannot
explain, but I am convinced that while such is the order in
our efforts at organization we shall never have an active
and useful Irish society in the country.

CHAPTER XIX

The Cholera — Appeals from Father Fahey — Subscriptions — Irish
Catholic Association — Miscellaneous Items.

THROUGH nearly all the nineteenth century Buenos
Aires was periodically visited by dreadful and de-
structive plagues, cholera and yellow fever being the
most common and fatal. They attacked and imposed their
toll of mortality on all nationalities, more or less equally,
the poor, as is invariably the case in times of epidemic,
suffering most heavily. Probably the worst and most de-
structive visitation of cholera ever experienced in the coun-
try was the one which commenced in the closing months
of 1867 and continued far into the following year. Our
poor, of course, had their share in the suffering, and Canon
Fahey, a father, and more than a father, to his people,
found himself harder pressed than ever to cope with the
shocking needs of the case. The stories told of those times
in the city and in the country, and especially in the coun-
try, are indeed heartrending, but what must it have been
to be face to face with the terrible realities every day for
many months. Death visited almost every family in the
country — death, sudden and most agonizing. In some cases
whole families were swept away in a day or two. Often-
times corpses lay for several days unburied and the most
gruesome tales are told of deaths and burials. But one
story, not altogether gloomy, and the strangest I have
heard related was of a little infant girl whose parents and
brothers and sisters had all perished of the dread malady
in a shepherd's house far away in the lonesome camp. The
baby was just able to creep, and when it began to feel the
want of food it crept out of the house and worked its way

330

CHOLERA— APPEALS FROM FATHER FAHEY 331

along into a thick growth of weeds. No one may tell how,
nor after what length of creeping and wailing, it reached
a spot in the tall weeds where there was a large litter of
very young pigs, the baby got amongst them and was nour-
ished for some days by the sow, until some neighbors came
to bury the dead family and missing the baby searched about
for it and found it well in the sow's nest. The story may
seem like a fiction, but I heard it told for truth in the year
1893, on the occasion of the marriage of a certain young
woman who was said to be the lady in the case. Cases of
men digging pits to bury some of their family and dying
themselves before the fallen ones could be placed in the
grave are said to have been quite common, and many a time
I have heard it told that men, in this way, frequently dug
their own graves. It was common then to bury the people
wherever they died, especially when this happened far from
any cemetery, but I believe the remains were in most cases
of this kind taken to the cemeteries after the dread epidemic
had run its course.

The "Appeal" from Father Fahey which follows tells
its own tale, and is a part of the record of services and
sufferings of the Irish Sisters of Mercy and of the never-
to-be-forgotten old Sagart himself:

APPEAL

The unhappy circumstances under which the country is at present
laboring, have thrown additional expenses on our charitable institu-
tions, so that it is impossible to meet the many calls without public
assistance.

I have rented a house in the neighborhood of the Irish Convent to
receive a poor widow and ten or eleven orphans, who have been de-
prived of their parents by the prevaiHng sickness.

The Irish Hospital continues to tender important services to the
poor, especially to the female portion, the number of which admitted
this year has been considerable. At present there are upwards of
forty patients, between men and women.

The Sisters of Mercy have had 103 boarders during the past year,
60 only paid for their boarding, $250 per month, the remaining 43

S32 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

were the children of poor people, and several of them orphans,
supported and educated gratuitiously by the Sisters. In addition
they had a day school for the poor native children which averaged
from 80 to 100 daily.

At the present moment the Sisters are visiting all the sick poor,
taking them medicines and nourishment, and rendering them the most
important services. Such instances are well deserving of the public
support and I am sure it is only necessary to make them known in
order to excite the public sympathy.

A. D. Fahey,
Buenos Aires, Dec. 24, '67.

SuBSCEiPTioNs Acknowledged Same Date.

The "Standard," $1000 ; D. Dillon, Guardia del Monte,
$1000; J. Roynane, $1000.

The year 1868 came with terror and alarm on the Plate
countries, for the cholera epidemic, every day increasing
in virulence, had spread out over Uruguay with even greater
destructiveness than that with which it was devastating
Argentina. Many of those who could afford the cost of
distant travel fled the city, but the masses had no alternative
to remaining, for the country districts to a very wide ex-
tent on either side of the great river were, if anything, more
stricken and plagued than the city itself. The appeal issued
by Father Fahey on Christmas Eve was meeting with little
or no response. The Sisters of Mercy were overwhelmed
with the increasing demand on their resources and their
labors, and if monetary assistance was not soon forthcom-
ing they would have to abandon the unfortunate people to
their fate, in so far as shelter, food and medicines were
concerned. The greater part of our wealthy countrymen
lived in the country and were hard to be reached, heavy
sorrows had fallen upon many of them, and something like
panic had seized upon all. In no other way can the poor
response to Father Fahey's appeal be accounted for. Still
the poor could not be abandoned; his faith in the charity

CHOLERA— APPEALS FROM FATHER FAHEY 333

and generosity of his people was deep, and on January 8th
he appealed to them once more. This second exhortation
met with better success, but still was far from meeting with
a spontaneous and general response by the people, as will
be seen by the list of subscribers, generous, individually,
but extremely spare in number. I will give the second
circular with an extract from an editorial in "The
Standard," prefacing it:

"The awful state of things in Chascomus and the equally
melancholy condition of the suburbs have been met by the
Sisters with a heroism that only Religion supplies. Even
yesterday when the Official Returns show a decided diminu-
tion in the mortality the Sisters in the neighborhood of
their Convent had sixty visits in the day to make; whilst
the sad news from Chascomus arrived at mid-day that one
of the Sisters had been violently attacked, and was not
expected to survive. The little hospital at the Convent
here is now so crowded that it is with difficulty the patients
can be attended. Of course the stock of medicines has been
long since exhausted, and each day the poor Nuns have
to defray the expenses of supporting a large number, both
indoor and outdoor, as to most of the ranchos which they
visit, they take soup and bread and other necessaries.

"Hard indeed must be the heart of him who refuses ^o
aid these Angels of Mercy in this hour of gloom, and dull
the man who is insensible to the sublime satisfaction of
having given his mite to help in the cause of suffering
humanity."

CIRCULAR

Buenos Aires, January 8, 1868,
Sir:

The frightful circumstances under which the country is labouring
at present renders it necessary that every individual should do all that
he can to mitigate the consequences of so awful a visitation.

Whilst Priests, both in town and camp, are hourly exposing their
lives for the benefit of the people entrusted to their care; and whilst

334 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the Sisters of Mercy — those true heroines of charity — are sacrificing
themselves night and day, both in this city and in Chascomus, under
the most awful circumstances, I consider it a special and rigid obli-
gation on our countrymen, whom Divine Providence had blest with the
goods of this world, to come forward generously and aid us by liberal
subscriptions.

The English public have acted nobly towards our charities; and I
am sure our own countrymen will not be outdone by them in generosity.

Our expenses are great — our labor is awful. But it is all nothing
if we can save the people.

I am your faithful servant,

A. D. Fahey.

The Sisters received at once the following subscriptions:
Thomas Armstrong, $3000; Edward Lumb, $2000; "The
Standard," Joseph Ronan, T. B. Coffin, Anonymous, P.
S., $1000 each; Barry and Walker, $800; Frederick Wank-
lyn, Terence Moore, $500 each; Francis Mulhall, $300;
F. W. Moore, $250; John Kelly, Onesy y Mosquera, $200
each; Curuchi & Co., Mackern Bros., T. N. J. L. S., $100
each; H. A. S., A. Fulton, $250 each; J. H. Green, $100;
Mr. Freyra, Rev. Mr. Smyth, Anonymous, C. Somers, Mrs.
Porter, Mrs. Slevin, $50 each.

Later on the following acknowledgments were made by
the Sisters and Father Fahey for the same purpose: Mrs.
H. A. Green and Children, Flores, $450 ; Mrs. Reilly, $200 ;
Miss Bridget Murray, $100; Miss Rose Dougherty, $100;
Miss Ann Owens, $50; J. Wilson, $50. By Fr. Fahey,
M. Murray (Leones), $2000; J. Dillon, do., $100; J.
Murray, do., $300; J. Maguire, do., $200; M. Cormack,
do., $100; Peter Ham (Lujan), $1000; Ed. Morgan
(Giles), $1000; J. Butler, calle Corrientes, $1000; W.
Murphy (Salto), $1500; J. Browne (La Chosa), $1000.
By the Sisters of Mercy: Mrs. C. Lumb and Children,
$250; Miss Gates, $200; Mary Savage, $100; Mary Mur-
ray, $100; Rose McCarthy, Eliza Wallace, Maria Wallace,
Kate Moran, Maria Moran, Ann Ledwith, Rose Ledwith,
Margaret Hughes, Mary Ganly, $100 each. John Butler,
Mrs. Elortondo, Robert Kelly, $500 each.

CHOLERA— APPEALS FROM FATHER FAHEY 335

What afterwards came to be the Irish Catholic Asso-
ciation, with its Central Committee wliich in recent years
has caused so much agitation and party feeling amongst
our community, had its origin, in a sense, in 1869. Previous
to then all the Irish charities and institutions and move-
ments for Irish charitable purposes had their beginning and
control in the hands of Father Fahey and the Sisters of
Mercy. There was a committee of five trustees for the
holding of the property from the year 1851, but this com-
mittee, as such, exercised no power or authority in the
direction or management of affairs connected with the in-
stitutions. These institutions were now of very consider-
able property value, the annual outlay for their upkeep and
development was well beyond what the Sisters of Mercy,
by their own efforts, could realize ; Father Fahey was already
becoming old and the unrelenting strain of the last few
years of terrible stress was telling plainly on his health.
It was clearly necessary, and at once, to place some of the
burden he had borne so long on other shoulders. The com-
munity was far-spread and wealthy, let representatives of
that community in all its cliief districts come forward
now and help to carry on the good work. His plan was
to form a commission in whose name the property would
be held, and who would be responsible, in a measure, for
its preservation and direction. In other words, a body of
representative men who would see to the raising of the
necessary funds for the due operation of the institutions,
and to the proper use and disposition of such funds. Father
Fahey does not exactly name a committee of management,
but he announces that he retires from the temporal man-
agement himself, and fixes that collectors whom he names
to raise the funds shall deal directly with the Sisters of
Mercy who have the institutions under their care. The Irish
Hospital is always the department of the charitable institu-
tions in Calle Riobamba, and previously in Calle Merced,
now Cangallo, which enlists Father Fahey's most earnest
solicitude. The Irish Girls' Orphanage was only an acci-

336 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

dent or consequence of the Irish Girls' Boarding School.
Many girls came to the Boarding School from the camp
districts with parents in fairly good circumstances who
before the ordinary term of school life, sometimes before a
year, was over, found themselves orphans or the children
of parents reduced to poverty, and not infrequently found
themselves both orphaned and poor, such was then, and
is still, the uncertainty of the campman's life and business
position, especially, of course, the landless campman. The
boarding school thus gradually became a school for orphans
and the children of insolvent parents. So that the Irish
Girls' Orphanage may be said to have never been founded
at all, but came as a development of the charitable in-
stitutions founded for other purposes, while the Irish
Hospital was from the beginning, so to speak. When
Father Fahey began his mission in Buenos Aires there
were few Irish Orphans to be looked after, but sick
and disabled workmen in those days of little protection
for the laborer and utterly unsanitary city conditions, were
numerous and of dismal fate, and to these poor people his
sympathy and help went out more than to any other class
of sufferers. A hospital for these poor people was, there-
fore, with him the thing of all most needed. Every other
department of benevolence, schools, orphanages, immigrant
girls' home, etc., were good and had his ardent and con-
tinual approval and support, but all his public expressions
and best efforts from the commencement of his labors in
Buenos Aires showed that an Irish Catholic Hospital was
the first wish of his heart and the constant aim of his life.
Here is the statement which I regard as the origin, or what
led to the founding of the Irish Catholic Association:

"Irish Hospital.

"The innumerable benefits conferred by this institution
on a large number of our poor countrymen and women dur-

CHOLERA— APPEALS FROM FATHER FAHEY S37

ing the past year deserves the warmest approbation of our
countrymen. The frightful scourge which afflicted the
country during the months of January and February com-
pelled many, both from the camp and the city, to seek re-
lief in this charitable asylum, and the care and attention
they received from the Sisters of Mercy are too well known
to require repetition.

"The sadness of the times rendered it impossible to
collect funds in the country during the year to meet the
expenses attending the institution, so that I was obliged
to borrow money frequently to meet the monthly expenses,
the average of which was — one month with another — five
thousand dollars; having also to pay the funeral expenses
of many poor persons who left no means. As the prospects
of the country are now better, I am induced to appeal to
the charity of our countrymen to contribute generously to
the support of this excellent institution. As my health and
age render me unable to attend further to the temporal
management of the hospital, I consider it better to name
collectors throughout the different districts of the camp
and city, and to name Messrs. Michael Duggan & Co.,
treasurers, who will publish the list of subscribers, and pass
the money received to the Sisters of Mercy, whose receipt
also the treasurers will publish in acknowledgment of same.

"The following are the names of the collectors appointed
for this purpose: Messrs. Michael Duggan & Co., Plaza 11
Septiembre; Messrs. Donovan & Bentham, Plaza Constitu-
cion; Messrs. Thomas Gahan, Merlo; Robert Kelly,
Moreno; John Browne, Lujan; Peter Ham, Lujan; Michael
Murray, Mercedes; Thomas Ledwith, Mercedes; Michael
Murphy, Carmen de Areco; Thomas Kenny, Carmen de
Areco; J. and P. Murphy, Salto; J. Ballesty, Rojas; G.
Morgan, San Antonio de Areco ; Nicholas Clancy, San An-
tonio de Areco; M. Murphy, Arrecifes, M. Hipwell, Pavon;
J. Carmody, Rosario ; M. Dougherty, San Pedro ; M. Bren-
nan, Baradero; E. Lennon, Capilla del Senor; J. Scully,
Capilla del Seiior; P. O'Neill, Lobos; R. Gahagan, Jr.,

338 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Lobos; N. Furlong, Monte; D. E. Kelly, Las Flores; J.
Ronan, Chivilcoy.

"A. D. Fahey.
"Buenos Aires, November 6, 1868."

In a great number of ways our people figure in the life
of Buenos Aires within the years between 1860 and 1870,
and a little notice of them, a passing glance at them, I
am sure will not be without its interest for some readers,
at least.

William Lennon, a Westmeathman, died in Buenos Aires
in '61. He came to the country in 1833, was fifty-four
years of age when he died and had been a wool-broker for
many years. Daniel O'Hare goes into print protesting
against the bigotry of the "Commercial Times" in attack-
ing and libeling the Catholics of Buenos Aires, stating that
the Catholics are twenty times as numerous as the Protes-
tants and that they are deeply religious and tolerant. As
to how religious the Catholics were then I know not, but
they have always seemed to me very much too tolerant,
that is, when one considers the treatment they receive from
their non-Catholic critics both here in our midst and in-
some of the Protestant countries. Most of these bigoted
and libelous critics are or have been "missionaries" amongst
us who received special favors and kindnesses from our
press and authorities, and who abuse and misrepresent the
"benighted Catholics" as the most effective way of appeal-
ing to the generosity and charity of the supporters of the
"Mission." Mr. M. T. Dooley was a competitor of the
Standard editor in the teaching of all the languages.
Patrick Bookey was a Municipal Councilor. Mr. Geoghe-
gan had his hotel in Calle San Martin, in front of Presi-
dent Mitre's house and Mrs. Burns kept her lodging house
in what is now Calle Lavalle. A subscription was started
for Michael Morgan who came from the County of Down
in 1825. Two years after his arrival he was seized and
put on board an Argentine warship to fight for his adopted

CHOLERA— APPEALS FROM FATHER FAHEY 339

country he served while there was anything to be done and
never got a cent for his time, and his case was by no means
singular. He had been a baker, forced mariner, and shep-
herd, and was then 70 years of age and destitute. Who-
ever invented the phrase, history repeats itself, gave the
world a very true and useful saying, and although a bit
hackneyed I take advantage of it to introduce a little his-
toric fact which occurred the next year after the collection
for poor Michael Morgan. Some Irish immigrants arrived
in Buenos Aires just after the Paraguayan War broke out
fighting men were badly wanted at the time and a person
pretending to employ the new-comers made arrangements
with them as to work, wages, etc., telling them that the
estancia they were wanted on was in San Pedro, and put
them on the river boat to that place. The unfortunate men
were never landed at San Pedro, but shipped to Paraguay
to fight Lopez. Some of them got back alive and are still
in the flesh, but most of them, I believe, perished by the
sword or by the way. In 1865 Fathers Callaghan and
Kavanagh came to Buenos Aires, the former who used to
preach in San Roque, did not remain long; the latter died
at his nephew's in Bragado in February, 1880. Father
Walsh, a student from Navan, was ordained at the Fran-
ciscan Church in 1866. Mr. Fallon's lottery agency was
considered a lucky place to buy tickets, as many Irishmen
purchased tickets there which drew large sums of money,
and not a few of our estancieros of to-day are pointed to
as amongst the lucky ones of those times.

In the year '67 more than six hundred Irish immigrants
arrived in Buenos Aires, and in this decade a number of
the first settlers of our people passed away. Among them
being Mrs. Hanlon who came in '22, Bart. Foley, James
McGuire, Patrick Donohue, Drs. Conyngham and Brown,
all of whom came within a few years of Mrs. Hanlon's
arrival. Dr. Conyngham was father of Dr. Conyngham
of Entre Rios. Dr. Brown was the famous "silent Scotch
doctor" of whom Wild tells the story which his, the Doctor's,

340 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

servant, a very loquacious Andaluz was once heard to relate
to a friend. It ran thus: "Look here, I have been four
years in the service of the Doctor and by the Virgin of
the Miracles I have never yet heard him say a word more
than, *Juan, take her, the horse, out, and yoke her.' " The
joke is on the Doctor's Spanish as well as on his reticence,
for he makes the horse a female. Brown came to Buenos
Aires in 1825 and in the following year entered the Navy
under our famous countryman, his namesake; he knew some-
thing about medicine and surgery and was soon appointed
Fleet Surgeon. He was called the Scotch Doctor because
he came here from Scotland, but both his parents were
Irish, and some say he was born in the North of Ireland
himself. Like Conyngham, who was also an Ulsterman,
he was a Catholic, and they are both buried in the Recoleta.
In '68 Father Patrick Donovan, a Corkman, one of the
old Irish Chaplains and brother to Dr. Donovan died.
Same year the Sisters of Mercy opened their Irish Immi-
grant Girls' Home at 248 Calle Chacabuco. The first sub-
scriptions towards its support, published, were from James
McGuire, Mercedes, and from Thomas Cunningham and
his "puesteros," $500 and $400 respectively; other sub-
scriptions acknowledged soon after were from Father
Samuel O'Reilly, $500; John Brown, Lujan, $500, and
Patrick Doherty, $200. Amongst those mentioned as taking
the white veil or being professed in the Irish Convent were,
Misses Norris and Kenny, Navarro; Miss Tormey, Giles;
Miss Murphy, Lobos; Miss Garrahan, Mercedes. The in-
stitution is reported in a flourishing condition, the Fahey
testimonial having been devoted to liquidating its hospital
debts. Colleges of a satisfactory kind were scarce in Buenos
Aires at this time, Father Fahey's endeavor to establish an
Irish Catholic College having failed some years previously,
he publicly recommended the Vincentian schools, where Mr.
McNamara was teaching, to his people. Fr. Patrick J.
Dillon had been distinguishing himself for some years for
his great learning and early in '69 was made a Canon of

CHOLERA— APPEALS FROM FATHER FAHEY 341

the Cathedral of Buenos Aires, in recognition of his unusual
attainments as a scholarly priest. Some of the Irish names
then prominent in Buenos Aires were: Henry O'Gorman,
Chief of Police; John Coughlan, engineer of various public
works; McGovern, Sullivan and Quinn, builders and public
works contractors; Armstrong, O'Shea, Duggan, Donovan,
Kenny, etc., merchants and brokers. Edward O'Gorman
was Commissioner of Charities; Mr. O'Connor, Captain of
the Port; O'Gorman and Dillon were judges, also, and the
principal Irish medical man seems to have been Dr. Healy.
Mr. Geoghegan had a very serious question with the Eng-
lish Consul, Parish, about debts due him by certain British
subjects who had died in his hotel. On Geoghegan making
his claim on the estate of his deceased guests for their hotel
expenses. Parish is accused of having told him that he was
an Irishman and to go and apply to Ireland for payment.
The case attracted a good deal of attention at the time,
and, from what can be gathered from the newspapers of
the day, it would appear as if Geoghegan had been rather
badly treated. About this same Mr. Geoghegan many
comical stories used to be told by the old-time Irish who
made his hotel, the Victoria, their stopping place when in
from the camp. Here is one of the old yarns: There was
some particularly serious revolution on and the police of
the city gave orders to have all doors closed after a cer-
tain hour of the night, and that anybody that might be
found on the street, without entirely satisfactory reasons,
after that hour would be locked up for the night. A cer-
tain not very particularly law-abiding or sober-minded
Irishman was in from the camp, and although staying at
the Victoria, took a run around this particular evening
amongst the other hotels where he expected to meet some
of his countrymen on business like his own. He did not
get home exactly in accordance with the police regulations,
and knocked at Mr. Geoghegan's door somewhat after
hours. Geoghegan was in no hurry to open the door and
while doing so gave his guest a bit of his mind about the

342 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

kind of hours he, the guest, was keeping, and muttered
something about the poHce laws. As soon as he opened the
door, the campman caught him by the night clothes, pulled
him outside, stepped in and locked the door. Mine host
lost his temper, as may be imagined, beat the door with his
hands and clamored so loudly for admission that a couple
of the nearest policemen hurried, with drawn sabers, to the
scene of the midnight uproar, and in spite of all his pro-
testations marched Geoghegan off to the Police Station.
The campman made arrangement for someone else to settle
up his hotel account and was well on his way for where his
flocks were feeding before Geoghegan got free in the
morning.

Sixty-nine and Seventy were years of great depression.

CHAPTER XX

Father Fahey Dies—Fever Funds — Anti-clericalism— The Irish

Hospital

BY far the heaviest sorrow, and undoubtedly the most
serious misfortune, that had fallen on our people
in the River Plate since their first coming to this
new land of destiny overtook them in '71, when Father
Fahey died. So much has this great priest figured in the
previous chapters that there is no need to enter into any-
thing like a biographical sketch of him here. His works
remain, and his memory is fondly cherished by the people,
and their children, whom he so well served. And many of
his countrymen who came to this country long after he had
passed to his reward respect and revere his memory and tell
of the great obligations our people are under to him with
affection and pride as pure and enthusiastic as do those
who were his personal and favored friends. The memory
of Father Fahey is not failing or falling into decay. He
may not be one of the canonized saints of our race, but
to those of Gael blood in Argentina he will always hold a
place not very far below that of Saint Patrick and Saint
Brigid. And but for the disunions and jealousies that at
such frequent intervals, and for so little cause, turn our
community into warring factions or disgusted spectators of
the miserable squabble, some public recognition by the
Municipality, in the naming of some street after him, would
ere now be effected. Father Fahey was twice honored by
the highest authority in the land for his public service, and

343

344 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

if we sought in proper form to have his memory preserved,
somewhat after the manner above indicated, the City Gov-
ernment would not be less generous than Rosas and Mitre.
Father Fahey was a tall man, stately of build, with a
countenance, plain, but somewhat severe. Those who still
remain of the generation who knew him personally, and they
are now quite few, say that he rather repelled than attracted
at first sight, but once he spoke his countenance underwent
a complete change, a change which made one feel quite at
ease in conversing with him. He was always cheerful and
quite direct in his manner and words, scarcely ever jocose
and never what we would call familiar. He dressed in the
fashion of the secular priests in Ireland — in frock-coat and
tall silk hat, a garb that must have seemed very strange on
a priest sixty or seventy 3^ears ago in Buenos Aires. It
has often been stated and most people have taken it for
granted that he died of yellow fever, for that dreadful
epidemic was then raging in the city, and the last sick-call
he attended was that of a poor Italian woman stricken with
the malady, but the certificate of his death signed by two
medical men, states that he died from heart disease. He
had complained for some years previously of heart trouble.
He felt very unwell on Thursday evening, but did not take
to his bed, and when the following day a doctor was called
in he pronounced the patient suffering from a bilious at-
tack. He was still attending to his duties, but within doors,
on Saturday, and expressed himself as expecting to be out
and attending to all his duties in a few days. Sunday a
change for the worse came, and as the dawn of Monday morn-
ing was rising his great spirit passed into the light of eternal
day. Our people have never seen his like since in Argentina,
and although the same kind of labor is not any more to
be done here, or anywhere else amongst our people, there
is sore need for a great pastor in the Irish Argentine flock
of to-day. This great pastor will, of course, some day
arise, for our people are fated not to be lost to the old
ideals of the race, and our community will surely yet pro-

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 345

duce its own Fahey, not to say its own McHale or
Columcille.

Mulhall, who was a close friend of Father Fahey, says
he was born in 1804, while Connolly, in his "Weekly Tele-
graph," and who was equally intimate with him, gives 1805
as the year of his birth. These two editors in their report
of the funeral make statements, though of small importance,
strangely at variance the one with the other. The
"Standard" explains that owing to a rule of their order the
Sisters of Mercy could not attend the funeral, and the
"Telegraph" draws attention to the pathetic sight of these
sisters weeping at the grave when all the mourners had
turned away. Some French sisters attended the burial who
may have been taken for the Irish nuns. It was the desire
of the Archbishop to have the remains interred in the
Cathedral, but as the law forbids such burials the body was
borne to the vault of the clergy in the Recoleta. For many
years some uncertainty prevailed as to where the body of
Father Fahey was resting. The late William Bulfin, as
editor of the Southern Cross, made careful investigation
into the matter and in 1901 the remains were located, a
few years later they were incased in new coffins and trans-
ferred to another vault of the clergy, and in 1911 to their
present resting-place under the splendid Celtic cross near
the principal entrance to the cemetery, and but a dozen
yards or so from where the bones of the most famous Irish-
man that ever came to South America, Admiral Brown,
are moldering to ashes.

A year or so before he died Father Fahey called in,
from the Carmen de Areco district. Father John Leahy to
assist him in his ever-increasing duties. The young priest
was highly esteemed by the old Chaplain, and it was this
young priest he wished should succeed him in the chaplaincy
of Buenos Aires.

One of Father Leahy's first public acts in his new
capacity was to call attention to a little attempt to start
sectarian trouble made by certain English and Scotch rcsi-

346 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

dents who inaugurated a "British Subjects' Fever Fund"
to be distributed by the English and Scotch chaplains. He
characterized it as an effort to introduce the "No Irish
Need Apply" principle into Buenos Aires. Protests and
explanations followed in lively haste. Another fund was
opened, called the "Irish Fever Fund," and no little spirit
was evoked over the matter. It is only right to say that
most of the English and Scotch residents strongly depre-
cated anything that might disturb the good relations that
existed between the great body of the two nationalities all
through their previous life in Buenos Aires. There were
always some little bigots and mischief-makers, chiefly
amongst the English element, but their influence or oppor-
tunity up to this time had not been quite favorable to their
purpose. Messrs. Green and Bell, initiators of the fund
that started the controversy, wrote denying any intention
on their part to make such distinctions as suggested by
Father Leahy, "The Standard," and others. Both gentle-
men were generous contributors to all charitable funds in
the past, and, no doubt, had nothing of sectarianism in their
minds when they started this movement, they were, it was
said, prompted to it by others, and notwithstanding their
very ireful disclaimer it was plain to be seen that Father
Leahy and the other protestors had reason to complain as
things were. But in the light of these days of saner and
manlier patriotism is it not humiliating to us that such a
protest should be made by our leaders.? Why should the
Irish of Argentina claim a part in a "British Subjects'
Fund.?" Some say that we are losing in patriotic spirit,
but I very deeply doubt that any Irish Chaplain or re-
spectable Irish journalist would to-day think for a moment
of uttering a complaint for our people being kept sternly
outside the "British Subject" circle. Such, however, were
then the evil ways of our leading, or I should say, our
straying and crawling. We have still, unfortunately,
amongst us many who creep and crawl, and a few who
stray, but whatever these may feel in their hearts they

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 347

would hardly dare to raise a growl and whine in the public
press because our poor were discriminated against in the
doling out of charity provided for subjects of the English
monarch. There were threats that subscriptions would be
withdrawn if the restrictions complained of were not dis-
continued, and proposals to add Father Leahy and the
American Chaplain, Mr. Jackson, to the distributors were
made, but the "Irish Fever Fund" was already started and
meeting with a most encouraging response. The "Standard"
wrote March 22, 1871 :

"Fever Relief Fund.

"The humane gentlemen who undertook the task of get-
ting up a subscription on the Bolsa for the widows and
orphans of the present epidemic found everywhere a ready
response to the noble appeal. Already more than $28,000
have been handed in, and we hope to see the sum double.
We were right in saying that the English residents are
always ready to relieve their countrymen and lend a helping
hand to suffering humanity.

"We opened a list at this office, and have received some
donations, but we learn that the fund collected on the Bolsa
is to be exclusively devoted to the poor of the English and
Scotch congregations.

"Under these circumstances we have felt bound to give
the list at our office a new heading:

'Irish Fever Relief Fund/

and beg that those who have already handed us sums of
money will kindly let us know whether we are to acknowl-
edge the amounts on this understanding.

"We trust that our English and Scotch friends who
have so liberally come forward for their own congregations

348 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

will also contribute to the Irish Relief Fund. It must be
borne in mind that while the English and Scotch congre-
gations have subsidies from the British Government the
Irish residents have none. Moreover a certain class of the
Irish community is suffering heavily under the epidemic;
we allude to the servant girls, who have to wait by the sick
bedside, and many of whom have already fallen victims to
their fidelity and heroism."

The starting of the Irish Fever Fund met with very
general approval and support. That the alarm of Fr.
Leahy and the numerous protests published were timely and
justified will be seen by the many non-Irish names in the
following list of subscribers. As the occurrences occasion-
ing the fund have been indicated already no explanatory
introduction of the list can be required here. Subscribers
per "The Standard": "The Standard," An Irishman, Mr.
Webb, J. J. Revy, General Paez, J. Barrett, J. Leesmith,
A Friend, S. Haycroft, J. Aungier, J. Browne, "Stand-by
O'Gorman," C. E., G. Brown, M. Duggan, D. Duggan,
Thomas Drysdale & Co., Bessie Browne, Kate Scannell,
Zimmerman & Co., Thomas Armstrong, Thomas Duggan,
A Friend, J. Casey, Blunkhurst & Co., Two Anti-Snobs,
L. M. Brown, Con Langan, Paul Tragoni, Rusticus Fortin,
J. M'Kieman, Kenny Bros., J. Doolin, J. Walker, Drabble
Bros., Patrick Busner, M. Barron, Ter. Moore, N. L.,
Graham, Watson & Co., B. R. Kenny, S. Pecher.

Per Father J. B. Leahy: Miss Nannery, T. Ryan, L.
M. Browne, Miss Frahill, Bridget Ham, Mrs. A. Garrahan,
Mrs. M. Colligan, Mrs. M. Kenny, Mrs. G. Clarke, Mrs.
A. Ballesty, Ed. Garrahan, Pat. Manny, Ed. Kenny, J.
Garrahan, J. Donohue, D. Garrahan, Owen Manny, M.
Mallady, B. Donohue, M. Healy, Geo. Clarke, Luke Rooney,
J. Kenny, Pat Colligan, T. Murray, Peter Daly, P. Smith,
E. Eustace, F. Davis, J. Sharpies, Mr. Tippet, T. Regan,
Anne Murphy, Pat. Kelly, A Friend, F. S., W. B., Florence
Donohue, Rev. S. Reilly, F. Langan, J. Quinn, W. Quinn,

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 349

Maria Quinn, John Quinn, Andrew Quinn, Rose Murray,
Margaret Connor, J. Fagan, T. Stockdale, T. Nicholson,
E. Dillon, Pat. Moore, John Moore, A Friend, per M. J.
Moore, per Michael Hearne, Chivilcoy, $6549.

San Antonio de Areco: Michael Brennan, Mrs. J.
O'Connor, Mrs. Mooney, Miss Mooney.

The principal individual sums were : "A Friend," $£000 ;
Drysdale & Co., $1000; Kenny Bros., $1000; Terence
Moore, $1000; the other sums ranged from $500 down to

For several years Buenos Aires had been suffering from
some of the worst maladies known to the human race —
cholera, yellow fever, and small-pox had followed one after
the other in epidemics the most harrowing and destructive.
Yet the awful gloom and sorrow with which they filled
almost every family in the land were unavailing to restrain
the demoniacal passion of hate in the breasts of the anti-
clerics. While everybody, almost, was seeking to do what-
ever in each one's power lay to alleviate the general suffer-
ing these envenomed creatures came forward with charges
that the priests and nuns were shirking their responsibilities
and were false to their duties. A very pointed and un-
answerable reply to those charges was duly forthcoming,
and because it was delivered by an Irish priest, and because
it lets in a useful and interesting gleam of light on some
phases of life in the city at that moment, I present it here.
Canon Dillon, its author, had already won high distinctions
among the clergy of the Archdiocese, and was one of the
professors of the chief seminary of the country as well as
an Irish chaplain. Of all the strange manias that the mind
of man suffers from I think anti-clericalism, as one meets
it among the Latin peoples, is the one most utterly de-
structive of every worthy sentiment and manly ideal. For
the anti-cleric, of the order I refer to, there is no patriotism,
no religion, no morality, no social ideal, no political policy
but the one, and that one covers all — the unconditional

35a THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

abolition of the Catholic clergy. There may be good in
everything save only the "clerigos," the "frailes," and no
opportunity must ever be lost to say foul things of them.
It is sometimes really pathetic and frequently quite ridicu-
lous the extent to which this ugly passion dominates the
lives of its victims. The following is the letter:

48 Reconquiste, March 24, 1871.

At this calamitous epoch, when our city is plunged in mourning
under a dire epidemic it is consoling to see that some people dedicate
themselves to the care of their suffering brethren. The Comision
Popular deserves the praise of all, and will reap the reward which the
Almighty promises when he says, ** what you do for the poor you do
for me."

The Sisters of Charity and the Irish nuns are untiring in assisting
at the sick-bed and taking charge of poor orphans, giving help and
consolation wherever they go. The clergymen of the city are no less
diligent in their labors, and I regret to see that a member of the Co-
mision Popular has thought proper to deprecate the neglect of the
parochial clergy.

The clergy of Buenos Aires did their duty during the cholera, and
do it still with zeal and charity, making every sacrifice for the good
of the poor people attacked by the epidemic. They not only adminis-
ter them the sacraments, but also in many cases give them pecuniary
assistance. Meantime, wherever a priest takes a coach the fare is
double or sometimes treble, as has happened to myself. And yet some
people will say that we neglect our duty!

We call Heaven and our fellow-citizens to be our judges. I hereby
inform the Comision Popular that I am at their service at all hours
and places, whether as a clergyman or infirmarian, at the Lazaretto
or in private houses; and I am authorized to say that my fellow Canons
are as ready as myself.

In an attack on the clergy I am bound to take up the challenge.
At a moment like this we should all unite, and not waste time in
speeches, but work like men. Instead of empty projects, let us help
the poor people who are dying of want and misery.

Let the Comision Popular continue its good work, and the
recording Angel will enroll their names in the Book of Life.

P. Canon Dillon.

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 351

The question of merging the Irish and British Hospitals
in one, or of discontinuing the Irish Hospital altogether,
was mooted some years before Father Fahey's death, but
the strong will, good sense and predominating influence
amongst his countrymen of the good priest and good Irish-
man, who always felt that the Irish colony should be in-
dependent of the charity of others, and fully sufficient unto
itself in all its needs, prevailed to keep the Irish Hospital
and other Irish institutions intact while he lived. Soon after
he had passed to his reward, however, the movement against
the Irish Hospital was again revived. Father John Leahy,
who succeeded Father Fahey in the Irish Chaplaincy of
Buenos Aires, seems to have done everything in his power
to have the wishes and purpose of his predecessor and friend
fully and honorably complied with. He collected subscrip-
tions, issued appeals to the people for support, published
balances and reports and in general took the liveliest and
most intelligent interest in its well-being. Of so much im-
portance to the Irish-Argentine people do I deem this
matter of the Irish Hospital that I shall devote the re-
mainder of this chapter to giving in a collected narrative,
although it is gathered from a period of eight or nine
3^ears, all the information I have been able to collect in
connection therewith. There are, no doubt, many letters,
official documents and statements in the archives of some
Irish families here in Buenos Aires that would be very valu-
able to complete and elucidate the full history of the rise
and fall of the institution, and I hope these pages, as well
as preserving and making public property of what I have
been able to get together, will have the good effect of bring-
ing to hght the missing links and the corroborating or
correcting facts and complements of the story.

The Irish Hospital, as already shown, was founded by
Father Fahey in 1847 or 1848, and all through his life it
was the institution he felt to be most needed, most useful,
and the one, above all others, he struggled hardest to
establish and maintain. From reports, statements, criti-

352 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

cisms and balances to follow it will be seen that the in-
stitution was in as prosperous a condition as any charity
hospital in the city at the time of Father Fahey's death;
that it was fulfilling its mission nobly and to the great
benefit of our people; that soon after disagreements and
bickerings amongst its directors and managers were en-
gendered and excited, and that slowly it was neglected,
obstacles placed in the way of its usefulness and finally
reduced to such a nullity as a hospital, that the Sisters,
the best nurses and teachers the country had known, so
far, had to leave, as the Archbishop said in his efforts to
arouse interest in their behalf, "because they had little or
nothing to do here." The Trustees, Directors and Com-
mittees had managed so well that within nine years after
the demise of Father Fahey, the Irish Hospital was de-
stroyed, the Irish nuns gone out of the country and the
institutions which he labored for more than twenty years
to establish closed and abandoned, and the Irish orphans
and invalids scattered elsewhere. Here is Father John
Leahy's Statement and Balance Sheet for 1871 :

CIRCULAR

Buenos Aires, New Year's Day, 1872.
Dear Sir:

As you are aware the management of the Irish Hospital fell into my
hands at a most trying time, and it needed all the faith I had in the
generosity of my countrymen to induce me, not only to retain the
patients then in the Hospital, but also to receive the numerous cases
caused by the yellow fever. The sudden death of the lamented
Father Fahey left the Hospital without funds to support it for a week,
every thing looked gloomy and unpromising, when I appealed to the
Irish to give their immediate and generous assistance, and save our
community from the disgrace of having to close the Hospital doors,
just when they should be thrown open widely and unhesitatingly.
Thank God! the result has amply proved that my confidence was not
unfounded.

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS S5S

A sickening horror creeps over me as I remember the scenes of multi-
plied want I had to witness during the yellow fever; but if I could call
any recollection of that dreadful time happy, I may name three
memories that at least were cheering amidst the otherwise universal
gloom: I refer to the assistance by the heroic Irish Sisters of Mercy,
the invaluable services rendered by the Irish Hospital, and the spon-
taneous and practical sympathy shown by the Irish people. Many
of our community, especially of the Irish girls, who were received in
the Hospital, and under God owe their recovery to the care and kind-
ness of the Sisters would otherwise have but little chance of survive -
ing. Even those who succumbed to the insidious disease had every
care and consolation that could reconcile them to the approach of
death, while outside of the Hospital they would, in nearly every case,
linger to the end without a friend to speak to them in any language,
to render them the least kindness during life, or to close their eyes in
death. I only repeat now what I said a thousand times before: if
the self-sacrificing priest to whom we owe every charitable institution
we have, had only lived to see this, the last of his foundations a center
of salvation, as it was during the yellow fever for those whose inter-
ests and protection held, perhaps, the highest place in his anxiety,
he would have reaped a large return for all the trouble the Irish Hospi-
tal caused him; and few knew better than I did how heavily the debt
contracted in establishing the Irish Hospital weighed upon him until
the last moments of his life.

May the Hospital never again be needed for so sad a purpose, or
be called upon to meet so terrible a want as it filled up during the past
stricken months of 1871.

When I applied to you last March, to aid me in keeping the Hospital
open, I promised to give you at the termination of the year a detailed
account of donations, expenses, administration, etc. If I am not
sufficiently explicit in this, press of business must be my excuse. I
shall be glad to answer any pertinent inquiries made, no matter how
minute. At the time of Father Fahey's death there were nine patients
in the Hospital. Since then close on one hundred have been admitted.
The average number of patients daily since March has been 115.44ths.
The immediate expense as accounted for by the Sisters in charge, has
been $34,600, the average weekly expense has been $556.9. 11th.
Average weekly expense for each patient $7.539. 34.23rds, a little
less than $7.1-6th m/c.

354 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Irish Hospital Account from 1st of March, 1871, to 1st of
January, 1872
Cr.

Paid to Sisters $20,000

Paid to Sisters 5,650

Paid to Dr. Lausen 6,000

Paid to Undertaker 8,555

To Contribution from San Pedro paid to

Father Fahey 750

To publishing of 1st Circular 200

To publishing of 2nd Circular 700

To Outdoor Relief 850

To Loss by false bill 200

Total $42,905

Dr.

To Subscriptions $38,183

To Received from patients 6,100

Total $44,283

Balance $1,378

I feel confident that these figures will establish the economy with
which our Hospital has been managed, and shall be the most satis-
factory appeal to you to contribute your generous and charitable assist-
ance. You will see that nothing more than energy and union is needed
to place the Irish Hospital on an independent footing, and leave each
year a balance in its favour sufficient to raise a hope that before
many years pass over there shall be a reserve fund adequate to place
the Hospital beyond danger of such a crisis as it has past through
last March.

I am not ignorant, and I grieve to be compelled to acknowledge
it, that in quarters where, if I knew the country less, I would expect
the most strenuous support, the Irish Hospital seems to have won but
little sympathy. I would prefer to believe that the parties I refer to
seek for an excuse to cover their want of generosity, rather than sup-
pose them so slavishly anti-national as to argue that the Irish Hospital
is inferior to any other similar institution merely because it is Irish.
Would to God, in any case, that they had contented themselves with
the mite they persuade themselves into saving, and not commit the

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 355

injustice of making themselves the propagandists of an injury to the sick
poor. Some will say that if such and such a thing were to be had in
the Irish Hospital they would readily subscribe, etc. How appli-
cable the old adage, " Live horse and you'll get grass."

The outlay must be regulated by the income and keeping in view
the present state of the Hospital funds, to claim more from it than is
absolutely needed lacks even the shadow of decency and justice.

There has not been a single application for admission refused, when
the patient could, with propriety or justice to the Sisters and the sick,
be received, while the Hospital has been under my charge. For
admission nothing more has been, or shall be needed than a letter
from any of the Irish pastors, when the Hospital funds are sufficient
to warrant such a proceeding, the authority to give orders for admission
shall be proportionately increased. As you are aware the Irish
Chaplains form the present Board of Directors.

I beg to call your attention to the fact that your immediate assist-
ance is required, as the balance given shows. Despite every care I
know that many names shall appear strangely altered from the original.
To avoid mistakes I give the following districts. Subscriptions shall
be acknowledged in the papers when received and by circular at the
end of the year. Hoping the favour of your subscription, and wishing
you the blessing of a Happy New Year, I am. Yours, etc.

J. B. Leahy.

District of Mercedes: William Cleary, Michael Murray, Michael
Murray, Jr., P. Green, J. Synnott, M. Cormack, O. Cormack, W. Cor-
mack, T. Lestrange, F. Gilligan, W. Duff, M. Thornton, J. Fitzgerald,
J. Deane, W. Cormack, J. Cleary, B, Magara, J. Kelly, J. McLaughlin,
P. Farrell, M. Muckedon, J. Boyce, J. Farrell, B. Cormack, N. Duff,
Mrs. McCarthy, C. McDermott, T. Synnott, J. Gallagher, T. Gainor,
A Friend, T. White, S. Whitty, W. Ganly, J. Naughton, C. Conlon,
F. Gilligan, P. McCormac, P. Daly, J. McCormac, C. Laughery,
W. Duff. Total from Mercedes, $3380.

District of Lujan: Rev. S. O'Reilly, J. Browne, E. Slammon,
E. Slammon, Jr., John Slammon, M. Slammon, P. Slammon, A Friend,
T. Stanton, R. Whitty, J. Casey, J. Roche, P. Doyle, O. Keena, Mrs.
Murphy, George Bird, P. Murray, J. Murray, D. Bowes, Mrs. Bowes,
W. Murray, Mrs. Anne Murray, J. Nolan, J. McCrune, E. Kelly,
Mrs. Whelan, J. Keegan, O. Moran, J. Moran, E. Flanagan, J. Duff,
O. Killian, O. Keegan, M. Curry, W. Casey, J. Scally, M. Casey,
W. Murray, T. Gahan, T. McGuire, J. Philips, H. Makay, J. Deane*

356 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

M. Thornton, P. Kelly, J. Slammon, J. Atkins, D. Shanley. Total,
Lujan, $4160.

District of Lobos: Mrs. Neale, B. Fox, J. Farrell, Mrs. Killemet,
Mrs. Downey, Mrs. Furlong, Mrs. Keena, Mrs. Heylen, Mrs. Moran,
Mrs. Nolan, Mrs. E. Moore, F. Dolan, J. Gaynor, P. Conroy, B.
Hannon, J. Bryan, M. Gaynor, E. Tallon, Mrs. Dillon, Mrs. Murphy,
T. C. Philips, Mrs. Walsh, Miss F. Murphy, Miss Hannon, Miss
Conroy, Miss Lawler, N. Devereaux, J. Taylor, J. N. E. Walsh,
E. Cormac, Widow J. McGuire, T. Fitzgerald, Widow D. Dillon,
E. Rorke, J. Seery, J. Cormac. Lobos Total, $4720.

Chascomus: Mrs. Mahon, $500. San Antonio de Areco; E.
Morgan, $1000. Capilla del Senor: M. Mahon, $130.

District of San Pedro: P. McLaughlm, W. Cahill, O. Owens,
A. Geoghegan, W. Murphy, J. Curran, C. Ford, C. Ford, Jr., T. Cloug-
hessy, Mrs. E. Wynne, P. Allen, H. E. Ford, P. Doyle, P. Toole, R.
Hayes, P. Dwyer, M. Conroy, J. H. Bennet, Luke Doyle, G. Quinn,
J. Eustace, P. Eustace, G. Russell, A. Quinn, W. Quinn. (Under the
contributions from San Pedro, I take the opportunity to remark that
Mr. M. Dougherty had handed in some generous donations to the
Irish Hospital previous to Father Fahey's death. Although I only
account for the Hospital receipts and expenses since it fell under
my direction, still I would wish to publish the list of subscriptions
received per Mr. Dougherty. The list furnished has been lost, and
when its loss was discovered it was too late to seek a copy of the
amount at present acknowledged; $750 has been already handed over
to Father Fahey. J. B. Leahy.)

District of Carmen de Areco: L. M. Leahy, W. Murphy, J.
Walsh, A Friend, M. Pierce, Miss K. Roche, Miss M. J. Kehoe, Miss
K. Murphy, P. Mara, M. S. Murray, J. T. Murray, J. Garry, J. Scally,
J. Murray, M. Daly, M. MoUoy, M. Carroll, J. Dowd, J. Flynn,
P. Carrigy, P. Ward, J. J. F. Murphy, Mrs. Shoughnessy, J. W. Bryan,
J. Egan, T. Kearney, A. Fox, J. Daly, P. Clark, J. Donovan, J. Moran,
S. Crawford, T. Glennon, M. Williams, T. Council, T. Calligan,
J. Casey, P. Kerr, P. Keegan, Mrs. Allen, M. Fitzgerald, J. Burns,
Mary Farrell, M. Mullens, J. Mullens, J. Cormack, P. Killian, R. Gray,
T. Longworth, J. Cavanagh, P. Dowling, D. Murphy, T. Coleford,
P. McGuire, T. Murphy, J. Shaughnessy, R. Murphy, J. Miller,
C. Brady, T. Fallon, M. Kinsella, J. Flood, C. Merlin, W. Flood, J.
Flynn, D. Nee, P. Duffy, P. Harkin, E. Hayden, P. Codd, M. Doyle,
P. Kinsella, M. Connor, J. Murphy, A Friend, T. Scott, M. Burke,
L. Minor, M. .McDonnell, M. Scallan, Mrs. Burke, M. Connors, M.

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 357

Monks, P. Ledwitli, J. Smith, P. Dowling, J. Bowling, A. Pierce,
M. Dowd, A Friend, B. M. Cassidy, T. Cox, M. Murtagh, J. Bannon,
J. Lyons, H. Dalton, B. Rogers, D. Brennan, W. Mulligan, Mrs.
Burns, B. Gaynor, A. Finnegan, N. Daly, M. Ward, J. Duffy & Sons,
T. McGuire, M. Wade, E. Nally, J. Quinn, R. Hammond, J. Carroll,
E. Kelly, B. Hope, J. Ward, Mrs. Barry, D. McCarthy, J. Keenahan,
D. Brien, J. J. Murphy, P. Cormac, J. Pender, J. Keogh, J. McDuff,
Miss M. Roche, Miss M. Henry, Miss S. Keogh, J. Roach, M. Quinn,
Mr. Bannin, W. Savage, P. Langan, T. Collins, L. Quinn, L. Scally,
T. Kenny, Mrs. Coady, Mrs. Wheeler, P. Scally, J. Farlong, P. Brown,
J. Brown, T. Codd, R. Pierce, J. Coady, M. Clavin, J. Kenny, J.
Crowley, J. Furlong, J. Rochford, T. Keogh, H. Kern, B. Mahon,
T. Ledwith, J. Rafferty, J. Rooney, J. Macken, J. Doyle, P. Egan,
J. Ballesty, W. Grier, J. Tobin, T. Mullady, J. Cunningham, P. Bar-
rett, W. Boggin, T. Reilly, H. Ferguson, J. Jeffers, P. Roe, T. Reynolds,
P. Ballesty, M. Murray, L. Leary, M. Dernian, P. Claffey, P. Dernian,
J. Burke, T. Macombe, J. Daly, G. Tormey, P. Murphy, J. Murphy,
G. Furlong, F. Pierce, T. Pitt, Mrs. Rourke, P. Bates, F. Mason,
J. Mason, H. Anderson, S. Mason, W. Allen, M. Daly, M. Murphy, C.
Flanagan, E. Allen, Mrs. Mason, M. Brien, E. Brien, P. Lynch, J. Ryle,
M. Egan, J. Farrell, J. Cormack, M. Sheehy, J. McGuire, T. Dalton,
J. Mc Guinness, J. Tumulty, P. Cordan, J. Moran, M. Lestrange, E.
Walpole, J. Kelly, J. McLoughlin, J. Handen, J. Lennon, P. J. Regan,
P. Hogan, A Friend, J. Stuart, J. Allen, T. Hogan, Mrs. Stuart, J.
Thomson, D. Ryan, J. Boyle, B. Torres, J. Street, M. Rigney, T.
Ledwith, M. Murray, Mrs. J. Street, M. Gannon, E. Fagan, P. Fallon,
J. Bracken, P. Dougherty, Mrs. Dougherty, Mrs. T. Kenny, Mrs. P.
Scally, Mrs. Burke, P. Geoghegan, J. Grennan, G. Ledwith, J. Wilson,
T. Egan, M. Linch, M. Ledwith, J. Farrell, A. McDonald, P. Wallace,
P. Daly, J. Grennan, J. Neaster, J. Mullen, M. Lynch D. Coughlan,
P. Ham, M. GiUigan, W. Ham, E. Harford, J. Harford, C. Harford,
J. Casey, T. Farrell, M. Geoghegan, Mrs. Hyland, E. Shannahan,
O. Ward, W. Gilligan, T. J. L., P. Nally, J. Brown, W. Garrahan,
J. Kenny, J. Dinnan, J. Leonard, Hard-Up, Mrs. Gilligan, J. Gilligan,
Mr. Plant, Mrs. Plant, Mrs. McDonagh, Mrs. Kenny, M. Tormey.—
Carmen Total, $20583.

Buenos Aires: J. B. Leahy, M. Duggan, and Kenny Bros. $500
each; $1500. Making the grand total of $38,183.00.

From Father Leahy's "Circular" it can be gathered that
the Irish Hospital rendered very great services to our sick

358 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

poor during the yellow fever epidemic; that it was suffi-
ciently supported by the camp Irish to meet all its wants
and leave a small balance; that it met with strong opposi-
tion in certain quarters, "slavishly anti-national," because
it was Irish; that the Irish Chaplains were then its direct-
ors; that the subscriptions, all but a couple, were collected
outside the millionaires and others of the city, more than
half the whole amount coming from Father Michael Leahy's
parish. And also that the Hospital was very well and
economically managed, and that a satisfactory statement
and balance sheet of its workings was promptly published.
During the year Seventy-two Father Leahy's health ut-
terly broke down, and early in the year Seventy-three he
had to resign the Chaplaincy of Buenos Aires and return
to Ireland in an effort to restore his wasted vitality. At
once the trouble about the Irish Hospital was renewed,
and the Trustees (for although the Chaplains were direct-
ing the Hospital, and the Sisters carrying on the schools
and supporting the orphans on their own resources, the
whole property was held by Trustees) issued a circular
which shows that everything was not going well. I must
direct the reader's attention, just here, to the fact that
"Father Fahey's will" which has been so often mentioned
within the last twenty-five years, or so, is not a will at all,
but a deed made by him some twenty years before his death,
transferring the Irish property, which up to then was
solely in his name, to five Trustees, of which five he was
himself one. The "Circular" referred to, with a short letter
thereon, by the surviving Trustees follows, being copied
from the "Standard" of March, 1873:

To the Editor,

Dear Sir:

We beg of you to rectify the mistake that has occurred in the
notice pubHshed in to-day's paper regarding the meeting to take place
at the Irish Convent on the 25th at 11 o'clock, a. m.

It is there stated that the Trustees were nominated in the year

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 359

1861, whereas they were appointed since 1851, from which period
they have continued in the same capacity until the present day.

We beg of you also to insert the inclosed letter, which has already
been forwarded to the clergymen, but which we wish to make as
public as possible.

We have the honour to remain yours respectfully,

Patrick Bookey,
James McDonnell,
John McKiernan.

CIRCULAR
Rev. and Esteemed Sir:

We the undersigned — Trustees appointed by the Rev. Anthony
Fahey in the year 1851, to hold the property of the Irish Community
situated in Calle Tucuman and Rio Bamba — now take the liberty
of addressing you, in consequence of a duty laid upon us by His Lord-
ship, Dr. Aneiros, Governor of this Archdiocese.

His Lordship wishes the designs of the Rev. Anthony Fahey to be
carried out so as to insure to the Irish body all the beneficent results
it was intended to produce.

To secure and perpetuate these results, it will be necessary for us
to hold a meeting of fifty of the principal Irishmen in the country;
according to the conditions specified by the deceased Anthony Fahey
in his deed of transfer, (5th Article).

We are most grateful to his Lordship for the interest he thus
shows in our country people, and we trust you also will cooperate
warmly, on your own part, in this laudable design.

We propose to hold the meeting on the property itself at the Irish
Convent, in Calle Tucuman, on Tuesday the 25th day of this next
month of March.

For this purpose we beg of you to talk the matter over with the
respectable Irishmen of your district, and to get them to delegate
eight of the principal among them, as their representatives at the
meeting.

Should any of the delegates be unable to attend the meeting in
person it will be sufficient if they give authority to some one of the
eight thus delegated to act for them on the occasion.

But that this authorization may be legal, it will be necessary for
each to sign a paper, empowering the intending delegate to act and vote
in their stead; nothing more will be needed.

360 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

We beg of you in all confidence as a Clergyman, as an Irishman,
and as a friend of the Irish Convent, to assist at the meeting, and also
to favor us with a speedy reply — We have the honour to remain, etc.

Patrick Bookey,
James McDonnell,
John McKiernan.

It would appear from the above letter of the Trustees
to the Chaplains that an effort was being made not only
to suppress the Irish Hospital, but also the Irish Convent.
The urging of each Chaplain, "as a friend of the Irish
Convent," to come to the meeting is open to no other in-
terpretation. Patrick Bookey had then been for some
thirty years treasurer and a principal subscriber to every
charitable and patriotic Irish movement that had been
started in Buenos Aires, and for nearly all that time one
of Father Fahey's closest and most trusted friends. The
Sisters of Mercy had practically to support the Irish in-
stitutions— Hospital, Orphanage and free schools — by their
own endeavors, the income from their pay-school and what
they could collect from those within their reach being their
only resources. After some meetings were held new
Trustees were appointed, and the Sisters for the moment
relieved of the burden of maintaining the Hospital. In
September '73 they issued the following statement of ac-
count and of their position:

Irish Hospital Report.

Not quite six months have elapsed since we found our-
selves called upon to choose whether to close the Irish
Catholic Hospital, or to assume ourselves the responsibility
of collecting funds; we chose, without hesitation, the latter
alternative, and the confidence we thereby manifested in
the good spirit and generosity of our countrymen, has not
we are proudly happy to say, in the slightest degree been
disappointed. But as, since then, arrangements have been
made by which in future we will be saved all anxiety about
collecting funds — the new Trustees of the Hospital Ground

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 361

having taken this charge upon themselves — we consequently
wish to fulfil now, albeit prematurely, the promise we made
in our circular last Easter of publishing an account of all
monies received by us. In future this responsibility, so
far as regards the Hospital, no longer devolves on us.

Donations received by the Sisters of Mercy towards
the Irish Hospital: Rev. Patrick Lynch, $1000; Rev.
Anthony McNamara, $500; Don Fco. Torroba, $500;
Rev. E. Kavanagh, $100; Thomas Kenny, Once, $500;
Daniel Maxwell, $1000; M. Murray, Mercedes, $1000; M.
Tyrrell, Mercedes, $500; J. Dillon, Mercedes, $500; M.
Heavy, Mercedes, $100; J. Feely, $500; J. Connor, $100;
J. Ronan, Chivilcoy, $500 ; L. Browne, $100 ; John Hughes,
$500; Patrick Browne, $500; J. Anderson, $200; Thomas
Reddy, $500 ; T. Gainor, Dolores, $500 ; T. Kilmurray, 25
de Mayo, $300; J. Furlong, $50. Total, $9450.

Here are acknowledged only the donations actually re-
ceived, without any mention of the many kind promises
given of regular annual subscriptions. Special thanks are
due to the spirited individuals who by their prompt con-
tributions were the means of saving the Irish Hospital from
being even temporarily closed.

Number of patients received this year up to Aug. 30 . . . . 74j
Maximum number in Hospital, twenty-five.

Number remaining 9

Number of deaths 5

Number discharged cured 57

Number discharged incurable 3

74

Report on Five Deaths.

Internal abscess 1

Cancer of liver 1

Bronchitis 1

Diphtheria 1

Phthisis 1

362 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Two of these were in advanced state of disease when
admitted.

The remaining cases were principally fever, rheumatism,
phthisis, heart and brain diseases, cutaneous disorders,
ophthalmia, with isolated cases of broken ankle, sunstroke,
emollition of the brain, lymphangitis chronica. Operations ;
Extraction of Cataract, 1 ; Indecromia, 1 ; Extraction of
sequestered bone, 1,

' Cash Statement.

Dr.

Donations as given above $9450

Various donations to Sisters 2750

Patients 5700

$17,900

Cr.

Food $9754

Fuel and light 1521

Drugs 501

Extras 1548

Undertaker 300

Doctor (5 months) 2500

Porter do 1700

Salaries, wages, etc., discharged freely

by the Sisters 0

Balance 25

$17,900

The "new Trustees" spoken of above were a body called
the Irish Hospital Committee or Commission and were the
result of the meeting called by the old Trustees for March
25. In a few days after the statement of accounts of the
Sisters was published these new Trustees issued the follow-
ing rules and list of collectors:

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 363

Irish Hospital Code.

Rule 1. That this Hospital be called the Irish Hos-
pital of Buenos Aires.

Rule 2. That the Hospital be open to subscribers in
case of sickness.

Rule 3. That the following be considered subscribers:
Persons paying $100 currency yearly, and workmen or
"peons" in the camp in receipt of $400 or less salary, on
payment of $50.

Rule 4. That any person paying $1000 yearly shall
be considered a patron of the Hospital with privilege of
sending two free patients yearly; and those paying $500,
of sending one.

Rule 5. That no patient can be admitted without a
written order from some party duly authorized to give
same, except in urgent cases, when the Sisters of Mercy
can determine as to admission of applicants.

Rule 6. That only subscribers shall have the privilege
of voting at General Meetings.

Rule 7. That an Annual General Meeting be held on
the 15th of August, for the appointment of Committee of
Management for ensuing year, to which Meeting the out-
going Committee will submit a statement of receipts and
expenditure during their term.

Rule 8. That the internal management be under the
direction of the Sisters of Mercy, as it has been up to the
present.

Rule 9. That patients who are non-subscribers be ad-
mitted, on bringing testimony of poverty from any author-
ized person.

Rule 10. Should the Hospital accommodation so per-
mit, non-subscribers who can aiford to pay may be admitted,
on payment of $50 per day.

Rule 11. That no case of small-pox or virulent con-
tageous fevers can be received; but that arrangements shall
be made for the reception of such cases in some of the
City Hospitals.

S64 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Rule 12. That no person shall remain in the Hospital
after the Doctor decides that he is to leave.

Rule 13. Persons whose reason is disturbed cannot be
admitted.

Rule 14. All monies collected for the Hospital shall
be deposited in the Mercantile Bank of the River Plate.

Collectors Appointed.

Chascomus: Thomas Daly, Robert Wilson. Ranchos:
Michael Keena, Edward Wallace. Magdalena: John
Mahon, John Connolly. San Vicente : John Daly, Nicholas
Jordan. Guardia de Monte: William Bohan, Patrick
O'Gorman, Thos. Mahon. Lobos: Thomas Gahan, Felix
Dolan, Edward Moore, John Geoghegan. Canuelas : Wil-
liam Lambert. Las Heras: Edward Murphy, Lawrence
Casey, Ed. Ham, James Ballesty. Merlo: Owen Lynch,
Thomas Fox, Edward Dillon. Pilar and Moreno: Robert
Kelly, Pierce Whelan. Lujan: Thomas Savage, Peter
Murphy, Thomas McGuire, Michael Gardiner, Michael
Corry. Navarro: Thomas King, James Carthy, James
Dillon, Michael Fitzsimmons, James Norris, Patrick Mc-
Guire. Mercedes: Thomas Ledwith, Michael Tyrrell,
Thomas Kearney, Richard King, Edward Kenny, William
Cleary, James Kelly, Thomas Gahan, Michael Heavy.
Chivilcoy: Michael Hearne, John Ronan, Michael Kelly,
John Casey, Joseph Clavin. Chacabuco: James Casey,
Michael Allen, Patrick MulvihiU, James Kenny. Salto:
James Ham, William Murphy, John McGuire, Edward
Casey, Thomas Kenny, John Crowley. Rojas: Patrick
Murphy, Thomas Reardon, Mathew Tormey. Pergamino:
John Fox, Thomas Nicholson. Arrecifes: Patrick Martin,
William Allen, Mathew Browne. San Nicolas: Nicholas
Hogan, Michael Farrell. San Pedro: John Harrington,
Thomas Young, Edward Wynne, Denis Austin, Luke
Doyle. Baradero : Nicholas Clancy, Hubert Rurke Michael
Brennan. San Antonio de Areco: Hugh Duggan, Paul
O'Neill, Edward Morgan, Patrick Hogan. Giles: John

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 365

Cunningham, Edward Tormey, Owen Maxwell. Capilla del
Sefior: James Gaynor, Edward Culligan, Edward Lennon,
James Scully, James Fox. Carmen de Areco : John Kenny,
John Dowiling, Michael Murray, Thomas Doner, Patrick
Dougherty, Thomas McGuire. Zarate: John Carey. 25
de Mayo: Edward Dennehy, Thomas Kilmurray. Sala-
dillo : Thomas Cormack. Ensenada : Dr. Daley. For the
City: Edward Mulhall, Patrick Browne, John Feely,
Michael Barry, Thomas King. The Irish Clergymen and
Trustees are likewise Collectors.

The above-named are authorized to give orders of ad-
mission to the Hospital in conformity with the rules of
the Institution.

Edwaed Casey, Hon. Sec.

September 10, 1873.

The new organization must have commenced its opera-
tions in a most extraordinary manner, for within a few
months it is the object of public and severe censure by
almost all the Irish Chaplains, in a body, and the Trustees
are called upon to name a committee to manage the in-
stitution. Here is the next circular on the subject:

IRISH HOSPITAL.

We the undersigned Irish priests have seen with regret that the
management of the Irish Hospital has been taken out of the hands of
our respected, most worthy and self-sacrificing Sisters of Mercy.
With sorrow we have learned of the annoyance to which these have been
subjected during the last three months by some well-meaning but
misguided and thoughtless gentlemen.

Relying on the cooperation of our parishioners, we pledge ourselves
to support the Irish Hospital and to maintain it in the same spirit
in which it was founded by the much lamented Father Fahey.

Persons desirous of contributing to this Charity will please send
their subscriptions to any of the Irish Chaplains, or to Canon Dillon,
Chaplain of the Hospital.

We do not wish anyone to collect money for this or any other
charitable object connected with the Irish mission, except those

366 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

appointed by us and who have the approbation of His Grace the Arch-
bishop.

It is our wish that the Trustees of the Hospital call a General
Meeting of the people to name a Committee of Management. The
sooner this is done the better. This Committee we hope to see com-
posed of laymen and clergymen. We are proud to say that there is
not a single Irishman in any of our parishes objectionable for the post
of director; therefore, let it be distmctly understood that we object
to no person that may be named by the General Meeting. We shall
cooperate to the best of our power with the committee to support
the Hospital, for we are convmced of the necessity of maintaining an
institution which affords such advantages to our poor fellow-country-
men. We have always served the people faithfully in good and evil
report; we have made their interests ours, participating in their joys,
and sharing equally of their sorrows. We intend still to follow the same
good course, and hope by the faithful discharge of our duty to draw
still closer the chain of love that unites the Irish priests and Irish
people. Signed: Patrick Lynch, Jas. J. Curran, P. J. Dillon,
S. O'Reilly, Anthony McNamara, William Grennan, Thomas

MULLADY.

Buenos Au-es, Dec. 6, 1873.
Immediately after the foregoing was published, Edward
Casey, the secretary of the new organization, called a Gen-
eral Meeting of the Irish people at the Irish Hospital, in
the name of the Trustees, and in "compliance with the
wish of some of the Irish clergymen," as the summons had
it. For this General Meeting the following Balance and
Statement was published:

Irish Hospital Report, 1873.

Collected in Buenos Aires $4500

Collected by Felix Dolan 2320

Collected by Edward Lennon 1300

Collected by John Carey 1500

Total $9620

Expended 9267

Balance $ 353

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 367

After receiving the last-mentioned sum, November, 1873,
we found that it was more than probable that the Trustees
would resign the management and therefore decline receiv-
ing any more subscriptions. About $30,000 were returned
to subscribers, collections ceasing in the camp at the same
time.

We have no hesitation in saying that had the collections
continued, we would at the present moment have a balance
to the credit of the Hospital of not less than $100,000.

Thomas Duggan, Treasurer.
Edwaed Casey, Secretary.

The circular of the Chaplains, as a measure against the
"annoyance" to which the Sisters were being subjected by
the new management of the Irish Hospital, called on the
people not to support this order of things, but to co-
operate with them, the Chaplains, "to support the Irish
Hospital and to maintain it in the same spirit in which
it was founded by the much lamented Father Fahey."
It is forty-three years since this question arose, so
that few of the people, who took an active part in
it can now be consulted, and there being a somewhat
similar question agitating our community at the present
moment, the matter of the Irish Orphanage, it is difficult
to get the few who remember the facts of the case to give
information which they fear might be used for or against
either side in the controversy of to-day. But it is pretty
plain from the hints in the statement of the Chaplains that
it was being sought to turn the Hospital from the purpose
and principles it served in Father Fahey's time. The new
Committee took huff, returned, as shown in their statement,
$30,000 to the subscribers, and presented their resignation
collectively with the following explanation:

"The undersigned for reasons which they think unneces-
sary to explain, decline to take the management of the
Irish Hospital, and have delayed this long their resignations
in the hope that by a little patience they would be enabled

368 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

to place the institution on a footing which would make it
a credit to the Irish people.

"They return their best thanks to their countrymen for
the high honor paid them, and assure them that they will
ever preserve the greatest interest in the success and pros-
perity of the Institution. Buenos Aires, February 7, 1874.
Peter Ham, John Browne, John O'Connor, James Ballesty,
T. St. G. Armstrong, Thomas Duggan, Owen Gahan,
Edward Garahan, Edward Casey, Michael Duffy, John
Murphy."

As giving some idea of the scope and circumstances of
the Irish Hospital and other institutions under the care of
the Sisters of Mercy, and as revealing other items of in-
terest in the year 1874, I insert the following letter from
Canon DiUon to the Messrs. Mulhall:

Gentlemen: — I beg to thank sincerely the.^Buenos Aires Thespians
for their generous donation ($7454m/c) to the Irish Hospital. This
institution which is admirably managed by the Sisters of Mercy, has
rendered, during the last year, the most signal assistance to Irish,
English, Scotch and American Catholics and Protestants.

The Thespians deserve well of their countrymen; for providing
them with rational amusements and they have not been forgetful of
the poor and sick.

May God grant them that reward which is the sure fruit of the
prayers of the widow, the orphan and the destitute.

On behalf of the many poor who daily crowd my house, I appeal to
the charity of my fellow-countrymen, I appeal to their generosity to
assist me in relieving the immediate wants of many families now out
of employment.

The good Sisters of Mercy clothe and feed thirty orphan children.
How they manage to do so is a mystery to me. I sincerely hope that
some pious and charitable persons will assist the poor Sisters in this
trying time, when everything is so dear.

Poor people who require medicine will be supplied gratis by apply-
in to me,

I am. Gentlemen,

Yours sincerely,

Patrick Canon Dillon,

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 369

From about this time on we begin to hear of collec-
tions for the Irish Orphanage, and daily less and less about
the Irish Hospital. The Chaplains and the Nuns are evi-
dently losing the fight to keep it open and true to its
original purpose. By Cannon Dillon's letter we see that it
was now no longer exclusively Irish, as he mentions English,
Scotch and Americans amongst its inmates. This fact and
the divisions arising therefrom soon had their effect amongst
the subscribers and supporters of the institution, and in
a few years there was no more Irish Hospital.

The Sisters came in for some of the blame of the failure
of the Hospital; and as was quite natural when pro-Irish
Hospital and anti-Irish Hospital factions were formed they
had to appear as taking sides. We see the same to-day,
though not to such an extent as then. Some people, speak-
ing from hearsay, will tell you that they wanted to have
everything their own way. Much of the property of which
they had charge was their own, but controlled by trustees
and committees it was inevitable that there should be clash-
ing of interests and authorities. The discredit, however,
of the disruption of the Irish Hospital and School seems
to be entirely with the people who assumed to direct and
maintain these institutions and not being able to have their
own will in the running of them wrecked them. The camp
people and the Irish Chaplains sympathized with the Sisters,
so did the Archbishop, in so far as it was judicious for
him to go. The Rev. Mother writing in 1877, said:
". . . we have some steady, quiet opposers in those who
ought to help us. The Irish as a body are scattered some
fifty to a hundred miles out in the camp ; you see we cannot
deal directly with them."^ Such was the opposition to or
boycott of the Sisters of Mercy and their institutions that
in the same letter it is said: "But, and especially since
the burning of the college (that of the Jesuits), we are left
powerless for good." In '79 the Sisters announced their

370 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

intention of leaving Buenos Aires within a few months, and
Archbishop Aneiros on hearing the distressing news issued
this pastoral:

Buenos Aires, August 3, 1879.
To the Parish Priests of the city and the country of our Archdiocese.

I must call your attention to the Sisters of Mercy who have a
school and chapel in this city, in Calle Rio Bamba, and in the town
of Mercedes, opposite the Railway Station.

They came here 23 years ago from Dublin, brought out by the
Irish community, then under the direction of the late estimable chap-
lain. Father Anthony Fahey. From this circumstance an impression
gained ground that their services would be rendered exclusively to
their countrymen; and the death of Father Fahey and the fact that the
Irish being widely scattered over the country have resulted in the
Sisters being asked to leave for other countries, as they declare they
have little or nothing to do here.

These pretensions have alarmed me and remind me that the Sisters
have a charitable and special calling for the education of poor children,
visiting the sick and affording protection to unemployed young women
of good character, objects of the highest interest for immigrants and
the Irish community as well as for the whole camp and city population,
which frequently requires such good offices.

Although Buenos Aires has, fortunately, many important chari-
table institutions, how can it be said that there are more of them
than are required, or even enough of them, while the population is
increasing through immigration from all parts of the world, and the
existing institutions have such very scanty resources.

Where everything is new it is not surprising that many things are
unknown. They must be made known. The object of this circular
is to enjoin you to let your parishioners know the great services which
the Sisters of Mercy, can render, and recommend them to avail them-
selves of such charitable services. We desire that you do not simply
confine yourselves to reading this circular from the pulpit, but by every
means suitable to your holy calling endeavour to obtain for the Sisters
of Mercy as much employment as they can wish.

Heaven will reward your charity, and on our part we lovingly
bless your.

Frederick, Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

^ Leaves from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy.

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS 371

But the efforts of the good Archbishop came too late;
the Sisters had their arrangements made, and were glad to
get away from a scene where useless suffering and disap-
pointment were their lot through nearly all their nine years
since Father Fahey's death. Lest any suppose that I may
be prejudiced in what I write on this matter I shall make
a few quotations from articles which the incident called
forth at the time. Said the "Standard," September 28,
1879: "but the departure of such a useful community re-
flects on the nationality which these ladies are supposed to
represent, and points to defects which no patriotism can
screen from the most merited criticism." Two days later
the same paper said: "The causes which have brought
about the departure of the Sisters of Mercy reflect a stern
and abiding reproach. . . . The subject is so grave that
it must be dealt with notwithstanding the many considera-
tions which to the present has imposed silence." In the
following April it had a long and vigorous editorial on
the same subject, a few paragraphs of which I give here:
"The Irish college was attempted by the late lamented
Father Fahey, and whether for the want of support, or
other cause, it was found not to succeed. The property
was transferred for a small sum, and upon conditions re-
serving certain privileges to the Irish people, for the edu-
cation of their boys. The college that has risen upon that
Irish property in the Calle Callao is the stateliest to-day
in the whole of this Republic.

"The Irish Hospital flourished for a few years, and
whether for want of patients or of support, or through
defective management, its doors were closed and it became
a thing of the past.

"The Irish Convent in the Calle Riobamba, which for
23 years was the most thriving of all Irish institutions,
is to-day shut up, the nuns gone to Australia, and the
trustees eagerly publishing notices calling meetings in order
to discover what to do with the concern."

Father Martin Byrne, the Dublin priest who founded

372 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the Passionist Order in Buenos Aires, contributed two
lengthy articles to the newspaper just quoted from, on the
21st and 22nd of April, on this question, which was the
chief topic of discussion among our community at the time.
The letters are too long to quote in full, but a few sentences
from them will be to the point as showing what he thought
of the trustees and committees under whose management and
direction the Irish Hospital and Irish Convent of Father
Fahey collapsed. He has no hesitation in saying that the
trustees of the Convent drove the Irish Nuns out on the
pretext of getting in better teachers, and he goes on to
say: "I have met the girls taught by the Irish Sisters as
mothers, wives and sisters throughout the camp, and where
on earth can better women in any of these orders be
found? Their not having taught fast dancing is the only
defects he heard complained of." He denounces the
Trustees as dishonest in their dealing with the Irish people
and with the new Order of nuns that was then being
brought from Chili, as the meeting he is criticizing was
called to decide the question of employing these nuns, al-
though the matter was already arranged and the Com-
munity on its way from Chili. He also draws attention
to the fact that the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul were
besought to take in and care the Irish Orphan Girls when
the Sisters of Mercy were leaving, but are not good enough
to get the Irish Convent. One of his most interesting ob-
servations is that the Trustees and Committees would make
life impossible for the new Order of nuns as they did for
the Sisters of Mercy, and this forecast, as will be seen was
quite correct. He mentions having been given the Irish
Convent for the establishment of his own Order but with so
much opposition and so many restrictions that he gave it
back to the Trustees and would not accept it from them,
"with all the debts paid off if they gave him three million
dollars for doing so." He further states that the same
gentlemen were then making war on him and trying to
make his mission a failure — they succeeded, too.

FATHER FAHEY DIES— FEVER FUNDS S73

From what I have been able to gather from the sources
of information at my disposal, I incline to the belief that
the wealthy amongst the Irish community of those days,
especially in the city, were so desirous to have themselves
considered a part of the British element in the population,
that they felt it a duty to discourage and suppress, in so
far as they could, any and every institution or organization
with anything like a pretension to being exclusively Irish,
and that tended to keep the Irish a separate and distinct
nationality. The Irish Hospital was an "all creeds all
races" aifair in its dying years. When the Sacred Heart
Sisters reopened the Irish Orphanage under the direction
of these wealthy men it became an "all creeds all races"
institution, too, and very soon began to fail. Several of
the wealthy men who were of the Irish Hospital Commis-
sion, after the institution had failed, became enthusiastic
collectors for, donators to, and directors of the British
Hospital. In fairness and truth I must record that when
they could have things as they wanted them they were
generous and friendly towards the Irish charitable institu-
tions, but their tendency was always to de-Irishize them.
They desired to be themselves, and to make the Irish-
Argentine people, something very different from what God
had intended, they left only failure and discord in their
track. The very wealthy Irish of Buenos Aires brought
to ruin the Hospital which Father Fahey and the com-
paratively poor Irish founded thirty years before. "Be
what you ought to be or you'll be nothing," was the great'
Argentine's, San Martin's, motto. These wealthy Irishmen
who ought to have been their people's leaders and friends
have been to them nothing, and their sons, born in Argentina,
call themselves "Britanicos."

CHAPTER XXI

Fahey Memorial Fund — Dr. Sarsfield's Insults — ^The Saint Patrick's
Society — The Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society — First Subscriptions
TO the Irish Orphanage — The General Brown Club — Miscellaneous
Items — Founding of the Southern Cross — Thomas Armstrong — Dr.
GiBBiNGs — Collection for Patagonian Schools — Collection for
Canon Dillon — Various Items — Meeting to Form Permanent Irish
Catholic Organization — Other Items.

IN the many lists of subscribers and collectors of Irish
charitable and patriotic funds figuring in this work
it is somewhat noticeable how comparatively few
names of women are to be found. This can only be ac-
counted for by the married women leaving such matters
almost wholly to their husbands, and by the unmarried
women having been left uncanvassed. My personal expe-
rience is that our Irish women are always more ready and
generous in works of charity and patriotism than their
brothers, and I was very happy to find that when the
zealous and patriotic Father John Leahy was Chaplain
of Buenos Aires he remembered them and gave them an
opportunity to show the spirit and faith that was in them.
The following contributions to the Fahey Memorial Fund,
amounting to $38,370.m/c. was, as will be seen from the list
of subscribers, to a great extent the patriotic tribute of
the Irish girls and Irish women of Buenos Aires. I do
not say that the list is absolutely complete, but I give the
names as I found them:

Mary Casey, Winifred Ward, Margaret Hughes, Ellen
Dolan, Bridget Colclough, Bridget Corcoran, Mary Duffy,
Mary McDonnell, Mary Bobbins, Ellen Egan, Kate Ennis,
F. P., Anne Egan, Mary Hughes, Margaret Farrell, Mar-
garet Sharry, Bridget Ledwith, Mary Sommers, Kate

374

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 375

Murray, Margaret Frahill, Mary Griffin, Mary Carmody,
Mary Fox, Anne Fox, Catherine Bohan, Catherine Casey,
Bridget Daly, Anne Macken, Mary Hickey, Mary Gilligan,
Bridget Ham, Mary Lynn, Bridget Kenny, Mary Farrell,
Catherine Freeman, Margaret Sheen, Catherine Dillon,
Margaret Dillon, Mrs. Flood, Mrs. Cullen, Mrs. Griffin,
Julia Glennon, Julia Garry, Ellen Ganly, Mary Gillen, Mrs.
Cullen (2nd donation), Mrs. Butler (2nd donation), Mrs.
Griffin (2nd donation), Michael Kelly, John Duffy, Michael
Murray, Michael Farrell, John Harrington, John Butler,
Edward Murphy, T. Acheval, P. Muntilli, Thomas Arm-
strong, John Hughes, M. G. and E. T. Mulhall, H. Quinn,

E. Ford, J. Fagan, D. Cranwell, Kenny Bros., P. Browne,

F. Donovan, J. Hennessy, S. Haycroft, M. Barry, J. Feely,
F. Dennehy, C. Connolly.

In 1871 Sarmiento was president of the Republic, and
immigration, colonization, education and general advance-
ment were the topics of discussion with every man who
thought himself a statesman or political economist. It ap-
pears the President asked his minister, Dr. Velez Sarsfield,
said to be descended from the same family as the hero of
Limerick, for an opinion as to the merits of English and
Irish immigrants as compared with those of other coun-
tries, or something to that effect. Sarsfield, then a rather
sour and choleric old man, surprised everyone who heard
or read what he had to say by indulging in a wild and
quite ill-tempered outbreak of abuse and misrepresentation
of all immigrants. He paid special attention to the Irish,
his own race, declaring that they were retarding the prog-
ress of the country, by their idleness, want of cleanliness
and general backwardness, and that they brought dirt and
misery with them everywhere they went. The outburst
called forth a storm of protest and refutation and the fol-
lowing from one of the articles replying to the old man
is very interesting as showing what the Irish colony in rural
Buenos Aires was at the time: "The Irish population in
the campana of Buenos Aires is from fifteen to twenty

376 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

thousand, almost exclusively occupied in sheep-farming.
There are 135 Irish estancias containing 125 leagues of
land, the very cream of the Province. These 135 estancias
with their improvements and stock represent a capital of
at least two hundred million dollars. The Irishmen who
have flocks on rented camps, or in partnership with men
of other nationalities, possess about three million sheep.
The wool sold this year in Buenos Aires belonging to Irish-
men ascends to 900,000 arrobas, what the value of this
crop is Dr. Velez can easily calculate, the price averages
about $85 per arroba." (About $1,610,000 gold.) "The
Nacion" criticized the old man very sharply and appealed
to the President to remove him from office as he was al-
ready in his dotage. Sarmiento being himself something
of a Hibernophobe, as he proved some dozen years later,
of course, did nothing to reprove or disown his Minister's
miserable calumnies.

In the latter part of 1872 some of the leading Irishmen
of Buenos Aires commenced to agitate the founding of a
strong Irish society on the lines, more or less, of the Friendly
Sons of St. Patrick in the United States, and on March
16th of the following year the first public organizing meet-
ing was to be held. The objects of this new society were
all excellent, and in its time it did some very good work.
Here is a paragraph from its first manifesto : "No political
or sectarian importance should be given to this scheme,
since it aims at neither; the sole and principal object being
to bring the Irish colony in the River Plate more together;
to give shape to their influence; to see that the require-
ments of the city parish of Buenos Aires are properly at-
tended to, to help the Irish Sisters of Mercy in their
divine mission of teaching the poor, caring the sick and
making due provision for orphans and destitute country-
men; to found in Buenos Aires, as soon as the funds will
admit, a clubroom with lecture hall where Irishmen can
meet. These are the objects of this Society; nothing
higher or grander is aimed at." The officers elected at

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 377

the first meeting, March 16, 1873, were: Thomas Arm-
strong, President; Michael Duggan and E. T. Mulhall,
Vice-Presidents; Hon. Vice-Presidents, Dalmacio Velez-
Sarsfield, WilHam Rawson, Daniel Maxwell; Rev. William
M. Walsh, Irish Chaplain, Buenos Aires, Secretary, with
James Browne for Assistant-Secretary, Thomas Duggan
being Treasurer. Edward Mulhall seems to have been the
moving spirit in this patriotic and charitable effort. One
of the humors of the enterprise was, that while its purpose,
amongst others, was to "foment emigration from Ireland
to the Plate" it invited, among the very first. Dr. Velez
Sarsfield, who had just been saying that the Irish were
most undesirable immigrants, to become a member of the
club, and the good Don Dalmacio replied with "much
pleasure," that he might be counted upon as one to help
in bringing out the "dirty, lazy people who were retarding
the progress of his country." Buenos Aires was always
hard to understand; it was with reason Rivadavia once said
that the Portenos were a race of Napolitans. What they
enthusiastically applauded or vituperated one day they were
quite capable of doing the opposite with in a day or two
after, and with all earnestness and sincerity in both cases.
But the Portenos of to-day are seemingly much less fickle;
like all the world they have set their minds on making
money, and the dollar cult makes men conservative. The
Prospectus of the society ran:

"The St. Patrick's Society is a charitable and benevolent
Society. Its object is to aid and forward the Irish chari-
ties of Buenos Aires, to foment emigration from Ireland
to the Plate, and to bring the whole Irish community of this
Country to unity of action for the furtherance of Irish
interests.

"It is, therefore, essentially an Irish Benevolent Society.
It freely admits to the right of membership persons of
other nationalities who sincerely sympathize with the cause,

378 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

and gratefully acknowledge their assistance in carrying out
its charitable intentions.

"The Society is, therefore, Irish in its institution, chari-
table in its object, and Catholic in its scope and aspira-
tions, its motto being those beautiful words of our Saviour
Jesus Christ.

" 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat ; I was thirsty
and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you took
me in; naked and you clothed me; sick and you visited

Although the Society so clearly declares itself Irish and
Catholic it had many non-Irish and non-Catholic members,
which conditions appear rather contradictory. The
furthering of Irish interests was its all-including object, yet
the largest benevolent work it did was the helping to bring
down from Paraguay to Buenos Aires the sick and starving
remnant of the "Lincolnshire Farmers" colony, sought to
be established in the Republic up north by some English-
men. It, however, looked after Irish immigrants and did
a great many very useful services. The fundamental
declaration of its charter members, with the names of said
members are deserving of a place in such a work as this,
but for fuller particulars as to workings and continuance
in existence, see "Standard" for years 1873-4. Here is its
declaration of purpose:

"Know all men by these presents that we, the under-
signed have agreed to found in the city of Buenos Aires,
a mutual benevolent Society, to be called the 'Saint Pat-
rick's Society,' for the purpose and objects laid down in
the by-laws of said Society, this day approved at a general
meeting of members, and which said by-laws are here an-
nexed; and we mutually pledge ourselves to conform to all
the rules and regulations therein expressed, and to afford
to said Society our best support and assistance. In witness
whereof we have signed our names hereto, this 16th day
of March, in the year of our Lord 1873. — Thomas Arm-

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 379

strong, Richard Lett, Joseph Rodgers, Peter Ham, Edward
Morgan, George Morgan, Michael Lowe, R. H. Murray,
John Feely, James Barrett, Patricio Moore, James Kenny,
Arthur Cowan, Patrick Browne, T. B. Geoghegan, Patrick
Ham, John Kiernan, Henry Quinn, F. J. Hore, James
Weston, T. St. G. Armstrong, Louis B. Brennan, F. X.
Pippet, Patrick Gannon, M. J. Barry, L. M. Brown, John
Leavy, John Fulsan, Thomas Duggan, J. B. Leahy, J. N.
Larkin, P. T. Creagh, F. H. Mulhall, J. S. W. Leary, P.
D. Lynch, Joseph Creagh, Ant. G. Taffe, M. Duggan,
James Casey, Michael Crawford, M. G. Mulhall, E. T.
Mulhall, John Power, T. B. Coffin, John Kiernan, William
Rawson, Dalmacio Velez Sarsfield, Hugh Duggan, Dan
Duggan, John Duggan, James Nicholson, J. B. Browne,
Michael Hearne, Owen Gahan, J. P. Browne, Dr. Carhart,
Patrick Daly, Martin Shine, Edward Caceras, F. Donovan,
J. F. Kelly, T. Sheil, M. Murphy, J. B. Gahan, Wm.
O'Dwyer, J. A. Fay, Stephen Whitty, J. C. Murtagh, J.
T. Murphy, John Feenan, E. D. Tallon, Michael Ryan,
Hugh Rourke, John J. Huggard, J. G. Manning, J. Cas-
sidy, E. Moran, Timothy Sullivan, Wm. M. Walsh, James
Gaynor, Frederick Dennehy, Samuel O'Reilly, John Moore,
Thomas Mullady, Edward Dillon, John Campbell, D. C.
Kelly, R. Gibbings, Ed. Hearne, James Cunningham,
Thomas Nicholson, E. G. Gahan, Jacob Walsh, William
Mackern, Jervaice Carney, Mgr. Curley, L. M. Leahy,
Chris. Walsh, E. Flannery, John Murray, John Fox, James
Fox, Thomas Dooner, Joseph McAllister, M. Murtagh,
Richard Gamble." These were all wealthy and influential
men, they all pledged support and assistance, yet the Society
broke down in less than two years for want of "support
and assistance." Amongst the names of the members of
this "Irish Society" it is somewhat curious to find the
following: Mitre, Costa, Riverola, Heinrichs, Ollendorff,
Plaza, Montero, Haulstaat, Billinghurst, Krietish and some
others.

In Seventy-four the Society brought to the notice of the

380 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Government the lawless state of affairs in the camp dis-
tricts, the continual murders and robberies of the industrious
and law-abiding, and petitioned the Governor to take im-
mediate and effective measures to put down this veritable
reign of terror. The petition was signed by almost all the
influential and prominent men of the city and province,
and did much towards bringing about reforms in the man-
ner of executing the laws in the rural departments. In
November, when Father Walsh, who was a Franciscan
priest, was transferred by his superiors to Australia, the
Society marked its appreciation of his services as secretary
by presenting him with a gold watch, a free ticket home
and about forty sovereigns. It got into debt the next year,
and there were disagreements and huffs and quick abandon-
ment, and plenty of the old cry, "the Irish can agree upon
nothing," just as if the Society was Irish in anything but
name. Its library and other belongings had to be sold
to meet its debts, and after a splendid start and a year
or so of most useful work it went under. Wherefore I
am not able to say. If it tried to do less it would prob-
ably have been able to weather the storm longer, for the
storm is one of the things that surely awaits every Irish
enterprise that is started in Buenos Aires. If it depended
less on the outsider, too, and stuck more to being what it
purported to be it would, I think, have done better, it surely
would not have done worse. Its failure disgusted many
and was often thrown in the face of people who dared at-
tempt any kind of an Irish organization in Buenos Aires
for years after. Miss Colclough tells in her history of the
Ladies' Irish Benevolent Society, that when her sister and
herself were organizing the next attempt at an Irish so-
ciety, "people told us that if they had millions they would
not give one farthing to, or become members of, any Irish
society because of St. Patrick's Society having been put
down." And again, "Mrs. Brennan (her sister), in ignor-
ance of the excited feeling that existed on the subject of
St. Patrick's Society had named ours, the 'Ladies' Irish

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 381

Benevolent Society,' but Canon Dillon requested her to
change Benevolent into Beneficent." Thus it may be seen
that the St. Patrick's Benevolent Society did not die a
natural death and that its last days were anything but
happy and edifying.

"What you don't see won't trouble you," is a cute old
saying, but it sometimes happens that it would be better
for one to see^ for thus might be avoided a worse trouble,
later on, than the one the seeing might entail. Mrs. Col-
clough Brennan when she commenced the founding of the
"Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society," had not seen, or had
no knowledge, of what had just happened the St. Patrick's
Benevolent Society; if she had it might have troubled her
a little but it would probably have saved herself and her
friends from a prolonged and much heavier trouble. She
was a Wexford woman, had conducted a college in Man-
chester, England, for some time, came to Buenos Aires in
1869, and opened a young ladies' college at the corner of
Maipu and what is now Lavelle. In 1875 she got sud-
denly possessed of the idea of establishing an Irish ladies'
society. From the fact that her husband had died a couple
of years after her arrival in the country and that her busi-
ness lay mostly with Argentine families she had little in-
tercourse with her own country people, and knew hardly
anything about the questions and controversies they had
been trying to solve and settle for many years before. Her
idea was the forming of a society to build an Irish Church,
establish a boys' Orphanage, an English school, a hall,
reading rooms, a home for poor Irish women, and in short
do everything, and a little more, that the St. Patrick's
Society proposed doing, with all its millionaire members and
backers, but which it so signally and suddenly failed in.
Both societies sprang into power and prominence with a
rapidity and enthusiasm which their founders in the begin-
ning had not dared to hope for, and the inevitable reaction
met the two at about the same stage of their existence.
The ladies' organization, whether because of feminine

382 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

tenacity, or the fact that they had not disbursed their
funds, and had no debts to meet, held out, after a manner,
much longer than the masculine creation had succeeded in
doing, but its latter years were years of struggle, dreary
and hopeless. Troubles about funds, accusations and divi-
sions made such headway in the Society and got so talked
of publicly that Miss Colclough felt it a duty in '79 to
write a history of the Society, and publish a very complete
Balance Sheet. The little book is now very scarce. Here
is how it opens :

LADIES' IRISH BENEFICENT SOCIETY

The Society now so favourably known as the Ladies' Irish Bene-
ficent Society sprung into existence on the 25th of March, 1875, the
Feast of the Incarnation.

The first members of this Society had been for some time con-
templating organising efforts for obtaining the universally desired
spiritual consolation of having a Catholic Church, the Priests of which
would all speak English, the special devotions, sermons, catechetical
instructions and customs would all be English, and the very edifice
belong to the Priests and to the congregation.

The difficulties experienced by their Priest, Archdeacon Dillon,
on the St. Patrick's Day preceding, regarding a Church in which to
celebrate the Commeration Mass of Ireland's Patron, decided them on
immediately taking steps to accomplish the desired object. The
necessity of an Orphanage for Boys, and of English Catholic Schools
for Boys — rich and poor — was looked upon by Archdeacon Dillon as
no less necessary, and, with the hopefulness of ladies, it was not
doubted that funds would pour in for such laudable objects. The
members, therefore, foreseeing that in a short time the Church and
Boys' Schools would be fully established, added to the programme of
their Society the institution of a Home for Married Women with (or
without) children. The works of the institution of the Sisters of
Mercy are most admirable and most necessary boons to the Irish —
to have a Catholic home for poor orphan girls, an hospital for men and
women, a house of mercy for respectable unmarried women and
servants, and a Catholic boarding and day school for those who can pay;
but a poor married woman, with two or three small children depending
on her, is no less an object of sympathy, and the ladies of the Ladies'

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 383

Irish Beneficent Society, being all in more or less independent cir-
cumstances and having many relations, can materially assist those
poor women.

The above named objects having become dear to the hearts of the
originators, the Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society was instituted by
them, to aid and assist the Irish Mission in this city. The Very
Rev. Archdeacon Dillon lent it his earnest support and council. The
programme was laid before the Archbishop, and fully explained to
him: he gave it his sanction and entire approbation. The Very Rev.
Archdeacon Dillon, as Irish Parish Priest, is its patron and protector.
The ladies of the Society propose devoting themselves to aid in supply-
ing the most pressing exigencies of the English-speaking Catholic com-
munity in Buenos Aires, by every means in Ladies' power, and beyond
the reach and beneath the dignity of a priest. Some have thought
that it has been by mistake that the Society has been named the
Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society, instead of the Irish Ladies' Beneficent
Society. It has not been so. The majority of those who will benefit
by the accomplishment of the objects of the Society is undoubtedly
Irish; but English, Scotch and North American Catholics are equally
anxious for an English Catholic Church, and have united together with
the Irish ladies. The Argentine and foreign ladies have also warmly
sympathised with the Society's efforts. It would, therefore, be
neither just nor grateful to call the society the Irish Ladies' Beneficent
Society.

The programme of the Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society was publicly
read by Cuthbert Shoolbred, Esq., at the First Annual Conference of
the Society, held by kind permission in the palace of Don Juan An-
chorena, 68 Calle Corrientes, May 27, 1875, in the presence of a
large and important assembly, and under the protection of the Very
Rev. Archdeacon Dillon.

The name of the reader of the programme is not very
Irish looking, nor is that of the owner of "the palace" in
which the reading and the "important assembly" took place.
One of the notions which our society makers then and for
many a year after could never get away from was, that it
was absolutely necessary to have as many as possible who
were not Irish in these Irish societies. The result was al-
ways failure.

The first officers of the Society were Mrs. Brennan,

384 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

President; Miss Justa Armstrong, Treasurer; and Miss
Margaret Colclough, Secretary. The Society held a concert
in the Coliseum in August and a Grand Bazaar in Sep-
tember. Both were unprecedented successes, President
Avellaneda and Mrs. Avellaneda taking part in the latter.
The Bazaar brought jealousies among the ladies, as such
things usually do. Some people being said to have been
made too much of while others were neglected. There were
difficulties, too, about the accounts, and objections were
raised to closing the Bazaar with a dance. Dean Dillon
refused, for some reason or other, to turn over to the
Society, or lodge in bank in its name, a large sum of money
subscribed, and as a result of the Bazaar, and duly pro-
ceeded to dissolve the Society. Mrs. Avellaneda and her
friend, Mrs. Blanco, invited some dozen or so of the ladies
to the house of the latter on a Sunday afternoon Canon
Dillon also came. Mrs. Avellaneda announced that she had
a proposition of Canon Dillon's to make, and it was to this
effect, that the money of the Irish Society be divided on
the Irish Nuns, the newly arrived Irish immigrants, and the
Irish poor of the city. Mrs. Brennan, President and
Founder of the Society, invoked the statutes as an im-
passable barrier to Mrs. Avellaneda's motion, and Canon
Dillon replied that the Society should be dissolved on that
very moment. He demanded a vote on the question, not-
withstanding Mrs. Brennan's protest, and as he asked the
ladies separately for their vote, Mrs. Bent answered him
that he wanted to auction this Society as he did the St.
Patrick's Society. There was a Spanish Friar at the meet-
ing, representing Father Burke, O. P., and who took the
part of the Ladies strengthening them so against the attacks
of the Canon that the meeting had to break up without
anything being resolved. Next issue of the "Southern
Cross," Canon Dillon's paper, had the following editorial
announcement :

*' The Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society, in compliance with the
wish of their priest, the Irish, as well as native ladies, who formed the

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 385

Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society, have come to the conchision to dis-
solve the Society for the present. The times are bad and unfavour-
able. The clergyman in charge of the mission here returns his sincere
thanks to all the ladies who kindly assisted him when called upon to
do so, and who have again expressed themselves to be, what they
always were, obedient to the voice of their pastor.

The articles which remained in charge of Canon Dillon, since the
last Bazaar held by the Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society, will be sold,
and the proceeds given to the Irish Sisters of Mercy to help to support
the many orphans under their care. (Aug. 24, 1876.)

The "Standard" of the next Sunday had the following
notice :

Ladies' Irish Beneficent Society — The Ladies of the above Society
beg to correct an error made in the Southern Cross of Thursday, last,
which was, that they had come to the conclusion of dissolving the
Society for the present. This rumour is likely to cause the Society
much inconvenience, as it may give rise to the idea that the Society's
Bazaar is postponed, which is impossible, although there be a crisis,
as the articles on their hands would become valueless by lying by.

The Ladies conclude by assuring their patrons that the Society
has neither dissolved itself nor had any idea of doing so.

From this on was fought a bitter war between the So-
ciety and its opponents. Some people took sides to such
an unreasonable extent, and said such hard and uncharitable
things as would be scarcely believable if we had not the
experience of the recent and unfinished Irish Catholic Asso-
ciation quarrel to convince us of the possibilities of such
controversies. Notwithstanding all, the Society struggled
on and held a Bazaar which Canon Dillon and his friends
opposed with more spirit than good taste and Christian
charity. It was something of a success, everything con-
sidered, but, of course, nothing to be compared to the one
of the previous year. Of that one, September, 1875, the
"Tribune" wrote: "We believe that not a single family
of position in this city will refuse to assist at this charitable
reunion. The Irish from the day they land in the country

386 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

make themselves liked for their industry and honorable
conduct. The Irishman does not come to exploit, he makes
himself of the country, marries and settles down for good.
Rarely does a rich Irishman leave the country; there is a
mutual regard between Irishmen and Argentines. And how
could it be otherwise? South America can never forget the
Irish heroes who contributed to conquer its rights, con-
solidate peace, and further constitutional and republican
interests. Honor then to the noble and generous country-
men and descendants of O'Brien, Devereux, O'Higgins,
MacKenna, and Brown! Prosperity to the Ladies' Irish
Beneficent Society!"

Dean Dillon when about to leave for Ireland, on Gov-
ernment business, in 1881, made up his differences with
the Ladies and handed them over the bank book which had
been such a prolific source of scandal, bitterness and enmity
among the Irish community for the previous five or six
years. The whole deposit amounted to less than one thou-
sand dollars, gold. The Ladies had won out after a miser-
able wrangle that did more harm, and created more scandal
and disgust amongst our people than even the case of the
Irish Hospital. No doubt there was a good deal of fault
on both sides of the quarrel, and it is not for me to say
which one had the greater share. The Archbishop was
friendly to the Ladies and it is strange that he did not see
to having Canon Dillon come to something like a working
agreement with them.

In all the fine talk and notions about Churches, Schools,
Orphanages, Homes, etc., there was not a thought or ex-
pression of true Irish national principle. It was just one
more of those unnatural creations of the "all creeds, all
classes" order, honestly enough conceived, perhaps, but al-
ways impossible of achieving any lasting and real success,
especially in religious and social affairs. The following little
paragraph, descriptive of the Bazaar-hall decorations, will
let in all the light that will be necessary to the taking of
the measure of this Irish Society and its friends, in so far

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 387

as Irish principle went. The date is before it split up in
factions :

"The view presented in the interior of the Coliseum on
some of the busier evenings of the Bazaar was extremely
striking and animated. The ladies had shown a refined and
artistic taste in the decoration; there was an harmonious
blending of colors on all sides, with the absence of anything
to offend the eye with gaud and glitter. The harp of Erin
mingled in amicable folds with the Argentine blue and white,
and the Union Jack of old England, hung in graceful
festoons at either extremities of the Hall." Imagine the
"refined artistic taste," the "harmonious blending," and the
"amicable blending!" The English flag in such a place is
nothing less than an unpardonable insult to every intelligent
and self-respecting Irishman invited there, while to English-
men of the same order, and similarly invited, the Irish flag
ought to be no less an affront, unless they take it, as they
usually do, as a toleration, on their part, of a silly play-
toy to keep "Paddy" in humor.

Here is a list of the ladies who formed the Society at
its inception: Councillors, Mesdames Avellaneda, Fernan-
des Blanco, Bowers, Patrick Browne, Coverton, Cranwell,
Davis, G. Dillon, E. Dillon, Latham, Maxwell and Miss
O'Mara Brennan. Active and honorary members : Msdmes.
Anderson, Bent, Boneo, Brennan, Cambaceres, Caneva,
Cardenas, M. O'Connor, Cullen, Cunningham, Dos, Deckle-
man, Douthat, Delemere, E. Daly, Dundson, Doynel, Fast-
rich, Fay, Flood, Furlong, Gomez, Gowland, Hovel, Howard,
Hyde, Hansen, Hansen, Harelaos, Hines, Joseph Kiernan,
T. Kenny, Lascombs, Moore, McBrittain, S. T. D. Murphy,
Naughten, O'Curry, Porter, Quintana, Quirk, Shine, Suffern
de Smith, Tregent, Terries. Misses Azabala, L. E. Ball,
Brennan, Bent, F. Brown, M. Brown, A. Browne, A. Butler,
L. Butler, K. Butler, Christiane, M. O'Connor, Conyngham,
M. E. Dillon, Conyngham, Douthat, Conyngham, H. Er-
hart, M. Erhart, M. Griffin, M. Graham, B. Gannon, M.
Griffin (San Pedro), E. Hayes, F. Hayes, K. Hines, Killeen,

388 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Kavanagh, K. A. Kelly, Kavanagh, Latham, Kavanagh,
Lennon, Mahon, Lennon, Murphy, Murray, Middleton,
McBrittain, A. McComb, F. McComb, E. McLoughlin, M.
M'Guire, B. M'Guire, K. Murray, S. M'Goey, Pilloca, M.
Ryan, D. Ryan, A. Rourke, M. Rourke, Kate Whelan.
Lady subscribers of various sums: Mesdames Dillon,
Monte, Dheil, Devereux, Murphy, Delemere. Misses B.
Leavy, E. Boswell, Mary Bowes, Julia Ivers, Deleany, J.
Castro, M. Smith, N. Naughten, K. Ennis, C. Scally, K. A.
Tormey, A. Farrell, K. Leavy, M. Martin, M. Malone,
Cleary, M. SpaUen, C. Ward, J. Leavy, A. Taaffe, W.
Dillon, Mary Griffin, M'Cue, E. Tippin, R. Ronan, B.
O'Neill. Collectors: Mesdames O'Curry, D. Murphy,
McBrittain, Douthat, Conroy, Bowers, Misses Anchorena,
E. Killeen, A. Rourke, M. Rourke, K. Hayes, E. Hayes,
A. Fantana, S. Huergo, M. Mullady, M. Pico, P. Pico, T.
Esteves, R. Mamery, O'M. Renan, A. Renan, S. Iturrios.

While it may be noticed that many of the names in the
foregoing list are not Irish, it is to be borne in mind that
many of the wealthy Irish and Irish- Argentine ladies of
the time married into families other than of their own people.

The years Sixty-nine and Seventy were years of great
depression, and things were unusually bad with camp people.
In the latter year the Sisters of Mercy began to receive
subscriptions for the Irish Orphanage; previous to then
they supported it out of their own resources. I do not
mean by this that thenceforward it was maintained by sub-
scriptions, but simply that the Nuns were helped in that
work by subscriptions. Owen Lynch subscribed $950.m/c.
that year, and his is the first subscription, reported expressly
for that purpose that has come within my knowledge. The
Sisters were then collecting also for their Irish Girls' Home,
but in Seventy-seven they announced that they did not seek
any more subscriptions for that institution, as it was then
almost self-supporting, and the httle it lacked in that direc-
tion was supplied by voluntary contributions, chiefly from
Argentines and from English Protestants, In the following

PAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 889

year they opened a school on their own account at Calle Solis
112. Same year they acknowledged receipt of $2745.m/c.,
for the Irish Orphanage handed to them by Father John
Leahy, and collected by Patrick Maxwell, from the following :
Patrick Mara, Ed. Casey, M. Sarterana, Patrick Ward, M.
M'Cormack, Owen M'Cormack, Mrs. Kenny, James Browne,
Thomas Wallace, Michael Gannon, Patrick Deane, P. Bates,
Patrick Wade, Peter Burke, Thomas Mara, Michael Kean,
Ed. Bobbins, Bernard Daly, John Killeen, Patrick Kenny,
Patrick Wallace, Ed. Gallagher, William Gilligan, Ed.
Moran, John Cleary, John Mahon, John Tippin, Margaret
Maxwell, M. Dunne, Bernard Dignan, William Barry, John
Keenahan, James Egan, John Slavin, John Lynn, Alex Gil-
ligan, M. Ann Rurke, D. M'Carthy, John Wallace, John
Scally, Patrick Maxwell. In Seventy-nine there were various
small collections acknowledged by the Sisters, that of Miss
A. Gardiner, $3545. m/c. being the largest. With this year
closed the first mission of the Irish Sisters of Mercy in
Argentina. The orphan children in their charge at the
time they left for Australia were placed with the French
Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul. The sale of some property
they held realized about $3000, gold, and they empowered
two gentlemen to liquidate their other affairs. On February
8, 1880, they sailed away, and the Irish Convent, after
twenty-four years of inestimable service to the Irish people
of Buenos Aires, was closed. The author of the "Leaves
from the Annals of the Sisters of Mercy" seems to think
the authorities of the country in some way responsible for
this untimely termination of their mission, but in this she
is altogether at variance with Father Martin Byrne, the
press of Buenos Aires, the Archbishop, and tradition.

The Irish are a race of optimists. In the old land our
people have lived, so to speak, on faith and hope for many
ages. Ten generations of savage assault on their religious
faith cannot be said, in truth, to have had any effect on
their feelings towards that faith save to inspire them to
cling more steadfastly to it. Twice that number of genera-

390 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

tions, and more, of war and every known order of persecu-
tion and penalization against their national creed and
aspirations have not in the least changed their belief and
hope that their country will yet "take her place among the
nations of the world." So that Pearse last year, Emmet
a hundred years before, Phelim O'Neill a century-and-a-
half earlier still, and all the others who like them proclaimed
their faith and hope with their life-blood were but fulfilling
the inspired pledge made to Rome by Donal O'Neill six
hundred years ago. Our nation has lost much, but it has
saved much, and it never willingly gave up anything that
it was to the honor of the race to hold. Despair and sur-
render are not of our way, whatever other faults we may
have. But this is a somewhat high and far-fetched in-
troduction to a very small matter, and my excuse for in-
dulging in these reflections, which may seem not altogether
relevant, is that they help to vary the narrative, that it is
a holy and a wholesome practice to keep in mind some of
the principal articles of our political faith, with the names
of its saints, and that one of the best of our character-
istics, as a people, should not alone be asserted, but also
proved, and having said this much, to the past be the past,
and back to the men and events of our own day and our
local surroundings.

The failure of the Irish Hospital with its trustees and
committees, the sudden disruption of the St. Patrick's So-
ciety, the divisions and bitter strife that obtained in the
Ladies' Society do not seem to have in the least discouraged
those who believed that the Irish of Buenos Aires ought to
be united, and ought to have a strong organization to assert
their rights and safeguard and defend all their interests.
With this end in view a meeting was called at Larroudet's
Hotel, Plaza Once, on March 1, 1879. Here is the purpose
of the meeting as published: "To organize the Irish citizens
into a body to secure representation in the Legislature of
the Province, and fuller representation on local boards and
commissions." There were present, Ed. Casey, M. Hearne,

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. S91

John Moore, L. Garraghan, Patrick Ham, J. Murphy, Ed.
Murphy, J. B. Gahan, J. P. Browne, Mr. Dillon, W. D.
Lowe (Herald), F. H. Mulhall (S. Cross), W. Cook, J.
Cowes, Mr. Ramsay, C. Davis, J. Dowling, Mr. Kelly, F.
Dennehy, and many others. Edward Casey presided and
Canon Dillon acted as secretary. There were many speeches.
Father Dillon dwelt on the great wealth and importance of
the Irish in Buenos Aires Province, and how little power
they had even in things that were so much to their interest.
Mr. Lowe approved the proposition strongly, saying he had
been advocating in his paper for years such a movement
on the part of the Irish. Letters of approval and ad-
hesion were read from Dr. Nelson, Ed. Tormey, James
McGuire, J. Dick, P. Wallace, M. Tyrrell, P. Lawler, James
Martin, James Reardon, Joseph Fox, and H. N. Thompson.
David Suffern moved and J. Murphy seconded: "That a
club be formed to carry out the ideas expressed in the
circular, to push the registration of the voters and to treat
with other political centers about putting forward one can-
didate or more at the next election." A committee was
then formed to carry out this proposal, made up thus:
Ed. Casey, President, Ed. Murphy, V.P. ; Archdeacon Dil-
lon, Sec. ; Charles Davis, Second Sec. ; P. Ham, Treasurer.
Committee: E. Ham, L. Garraghan, D. Suffern, J.
Murphy, W. Cook, Owen Gahan, John Moore, J. B. Gahan,
Ed. Tormey, J. P. Browne. These officers and committee
lost no time in going into action, and in April, under the
name of the General Brown Club, issued a manifesto pro-
claiming the objects they aimed at, which were all round
reform, and in an especial manner reform of the criminal
tribunals and their mode of procedure; also protection and
encouragement for immigrants; and the moral and material
uplift of the "paisano." It further called for a general
meeting to ratify the Club and its objects, this meeting to
be held on April 26 at the Hotel Anchorena, in Calle Cor-
rientes. The meeting called came off duly ; there were some
three hundred members present; the Committee's proposals

392 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

were ratified, and its members, with a few additions, named
to direct the organization for the year entered upon. In
December, preparing for the elections to take place in the
following year, it published a platform to be worked for
by its members and their friends. Its scope was national
and provincial. Let me name some of the reforms it sought
to bring about, as given in its programme: 1st. Reform
of Commercial Code; 2nd. Reduction of export duties; 3rd.
Reform of navigation laws, light-houses and lazerettos;
4th. Fostering of immigration; 5th. Public economy. The
foregoing had to do with national affairs, here are some
of its proposals for the Province: 1st. Promulgation of
Municipal regime in camp and city, without prejudice to
the reforms required by the latter; 2nd. Completion of
City Improvements; 3rd. Trial by jury in criminal cases;
4th. More public roads; 5th. Provincial Bank reform; 6th.
Security for life and property in the camp; 7th. Reform
of tax on consumers; 8th. Economy in public expenditure.
Whatever, if any, may have been the shortcomings of the
General Brown Club, a want of ambition was not any of
them. The high and worthy ends it set before it to accom-
plish were entirely in keeping with the honored name it
chose for itself.

Some of the minor events of the Seventy-Eighty decade
which may be worth recording in condensed form are:
Canon Dillon made a trip home in '70 ; O'Brien was Super-
intendent of the building of the first tramways in Buenos
Aires in '71 ; Engineer Coughlan was appointed head of the
Department of Bridges and Highways of the Province same
year; John Butler and John Mooney, pioneer Irish sheep-
farmers, died in '71 and '73, respectively. Mooney was
among the first comers and was a saladerista, he is said
to be the man who started the big emigration from West-
meath to Buenos Aires. The pupils at the Irish Convent
gave a dramatic performance in Seventy-three and chose
a play with the very "respectable" and "classy" title of
"Gwendoline and King Alfred." I do not know just what

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 393

the play may have been like, but I take it that it appealed
strongly to the young ladies who acted and audienced it
and that it is responsible almost wholly for the numerous
Alfreds and "Alfreditos" which we find in Irish Argentine
families to-day. The lady in the case cannot have appealed
to their fancy so touchingly for I have no recollection of
having met an Irish- Argentine Gwendoline so far. What-
ever our troubles at present may be, with our "Soldier's-
Funds" people and our wealthy "Britanicos," with Bally-
nacarrigy names, we have got on something in our schools,
at least, from the "English Constitution" and "King
Alfred." In March, 1874, the Archbishop made the follow-
ing appointments and confirmations of previous appoint-
ments among the Irish Chaplains : Canon Dillon to be Irish
Chaplain of Buenos Aires City; James Curran to that of
Navarro, Monte and Saladillo; Patrick Lynch to that of
Mercedes and Chivilcoy; M. L. Leahy and J. B. Leahy
to that of Carmen de Areco, Salto, Rojas and Chacabuco;
William Grennon to that of Capilla del Senor and Zarate;
Thomas Mullady to that of San Antonio de Areco, Giles
and Baradero; Edmund Flannery to that of San Pedro,
Arrecifes, Pergamino and San Nicolas ; John J. Curley to
that of Chascomus, Ranchos and southern parishes; Samuel
O'Reilly to that of Luj an. Pilar, Moreno and Merlo.

On the "Feast of All Saints" Canon Dillon issued a
circular stating that he was about to found a "Weekly
Catholic Newspaper in the English language." The follow-
ing is a paragraph from the circular : "To supply the want
of an Irish and Catholic organ in the country *The South-
em Cross' will appear on the 1st of January. I hope the
paper will be found on the table of every Irish and English
house in the Argentine Confederation. I have already ex-
perienced the love you bear to your Religion and the Land
of your Fathers, and, consequently, count upon you for
support. The tone of the paper will be liberal (like the
Freeman of Dublin). The paper will not adhere to any
particular party in this country. The events of the week
will be narrated with those comments which proceed from

394 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a strictly impartial pen. The paper will contain general
Irish, English and North American news, and the Catholic
news of the world, as well as the news of the country in
which we live. To be enabled to do this, I have already
appointed correspondents in Dublin, Rome and New York."
The paper was to cost twenty dollars a month, about two
dollars, present currency. It came duly as promised in
the circular. Mr. Barry assisted the Canon at first in get-
ting out the paper, and later Frank H. Mulhall became
its editor and manager, under Father Dillon. It appears
to have found it pretty hard to get on, and there were
many complaints of its lack of enterprise and usefulness
as a newspaper, in its first years. Mr. Mulhall retired
from its service in October '79. I should mention that in
the year 1870, Mr. W. Connolly started an Irish paper
called the "Weekly Telegraph." It lasted only about two
years. For some time the "Southern Cross" was published
in the office of "The Standard" and at its inception the
Mulhalls were very friendly towards it and gave it every
encouragement. In the middle Seventies there was a strong
revival of Irish emigration to Argentina, especially from
Westmeath.

After a residence of nearly sixty years, Thomas Arm-
strong, the famous Irish merchant, banker, estanciero and
manufacturer, died, June 10, 1875. Armstrong was one of
the most successful business men that ever came to Buenos
Aires. He was a trusted friend and counsellor of almost
every Argentine governmental administration from the
Directorship of Rodriguez to the Presidency of Avellaneda.
He lived and died a Protestant, but no man ever did more
to help and advance his Catholic fellow-countrymen than
he, and the Irish charitable and other institutions of the
city had no friend, through all his life, so generous as he
was. It may be said with all confidence, that without
Thomas Armstrong, Father Fahey could not have estab-
lished and maintained the Irish charitable institutions of
his time. He was of the family of "Shears Armstrong,"

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. Sd5

although not a descendant of the betrayer of the patriot
brothers. His daughters who were half Argentine in blood,
and wholly so in birth and associations, married into some
of the leading families of their country. His son, T. St.
George Armstrong, married in Portugal and became a noble
of that Kingdom. I suppose, now that Portugal is a Re-
public, he has become plain Mr. Armstrong. Like their
father, the Armstrong family took a warm interest in all
local Irish affairs.

Dr. Gibbings, another of the early Irish settlers died
a year after Armstrong. He commenced sheep-farming in
Ranchos in the days of Sheridan and Harrat and like these
acquired fame as a breeder of sheep. When President Mitre
went to Ranchos to found the Parish Church there he was
entertained at Gibbings' estancia. Gibbings was a Cork-
man and a Protestant he served the Argentine Government
in various capacities, and a good story is told of his trying
one time to serve a writ on Bishop Medrano. It appears
there was some difficulty in finding an Argentine to serve
the document on the Bishop. Gibbings had no scruples in
the matter. He was told that he would find the prelate
at the Catalanes restaurant at lunchtime every day, and
that he would know him as the ugliest man in the place.
Gibbings looked around and selected Thomas Armstrong.
The rich merchant protested that he was not a bishop nor
in any way liable before the courts. It was no use, the
writ was for the ugliest man in the place, and Gibbings
swore that he was not only the ugliest man in the place
but the ugliest in all Buenos Aires.

In Seventy-seven Father Savino published the following
report which goes to show that our people in the camp were
expected to do more than support their own clergy : "Hav-
ing been instructed by His Grace the Archbishop of this
Diocese to collect from the Irish estancieros of this Province
subscriptions towards the building of two schools which
are about to be founded in Patagonia for the conversion
and civilization of the Indians, I will now beg you to publish

396 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the list of subscribers, thanking in the name of His Grace,
the Archbishop, as well as on my own part, the Irish com-
munity which themselves above all others by their spirit
of piety and charity and who render this mission ever grate-
ful to them, calling down upon themselves, at the same time,
more abundantly the blessings of Almighty God. I also
sincerely thank the Irish Chaplains who by their charity
and zeal have helped so much in a work which is so greatly
to the glory of God and so beneficent to the country." Then
follow the names of two hundred and twenty-eight sub-
scribers from the partidos of Giles, San Antonio, Baradero
and Bragado who contributed $20,193.m/c. At this time the
Irish Hospital was dying for want of support, and the fact
reminds me that while certain Irish charitable institutions
which we have to-day are languishing for want of support,
and while the Salvation Army are picking up and proselytiz-
ing Irish- Argentine children on the streets of Buenos Aires
and Rosario, tens of thousands of dollars are collected
amongst us for the propagation of the Faith among black,
brown and yellow tribes beyond the seas, as also for the
support and comfort of mighty England's plundering
armies. Here in Argentina we seem to have always had
some queer notions as to duty, charity and patriotism. It
is hard to place the responsibility for these peculiar notions ;
in such matters we have for long been more or less divided
and straying. Since the death of Father Fahey we have had
no such thing as a leader of any great influence, but an
abundance of small caliber, would-be chieftains who each
grinds his own ax as best he can, hence we do little of real
good for ourselves as a community and are victimized by
many.

Canon Dillon, at this time, went to Paraguay to recover
his health, and on his return an appeal had to be made by
some of his friends to the people of the camp to help in
his support, as the Irish in the city were not contributing
sufficient to keep him. (See newspapers of September, '77.)
This seems a very strange case, for Canon Dillon, in so

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 397

far as I have been able to discover, was always much more
popular with the rich than with the poor among his coun-
trymen, and at that time there was a very considerable
number of the two classes of our people in the Capital.
With the Irish, unlike other nationalities here, it would
appear that the poor and people of medium circumstances
are a much better dependence for the support of a Chaplain
than the very wealthy. The necessity of such an appeal
as this one would lead one to believe that the Canon did
not measure up to the type of priest to whom the term
Sagairt aruin is sincerely applied by the Irish. He was
too much in politics for a city Chaplain.

One of the Franciscan Missionaries made public at this
time a strange story of a little Irish-Argentine boy whom
he found captive with the Indians. The boy had been car-
ried away in a raid on the neighboring settlement by the
Tandil tribes, and in his three years of captivity had lost
nearly all of the Spanish he knew, and to add to his diffi-
culty in telling about himself to the Friar, he had a bad
stammer. He was only seven or eight years of age when
carried away by the wild men, and as well as the priest
could make out his name was Peter O'Hara. His captors
would give him up for a price, and Father Donati appealed
for the amount to the Irish people. On St. Patrick's Day,
1879, Father John Purcell celebrated his first Mass at the
Merced Church. He was ordained in Buenos Aires, and
afterwards served as Irish Chaplain in Capilla del Seiior.
In Seventy-nine the fencing in of estancia lands by their
proprietors was a question before the legislature, and was,
strange as it may seem, sturdily opposed by the estancieros,
who felt that the proposed enactment, if past, and en-
forced, would be ruinous to many of them. It had its
origin, probably, in some little attempt at political job-
bery. The General Brown Club made the defeat of the
scheme one of its principal objects; it may, consequently,
be taken as a proposal that would, if carried into effect,

398 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

be particularly harmful to the Irish sheep-farmers. The
project failed.

In June the Archbishop called a meeting of Irish
Catholics to take into consideration the religious and edu-
cational wants of the Irish people in the rural districts.
The meeting appointed a committee to report on the matter
and adjourned to the 16th of the following month. Michael
Carroll and James Browne were president and secretary,
respectively, of the committee. When the meeting in July
assembled it resolved as follows:

"1st. That in the opinion of this meeting it is desir-
able to form some permanent organization representing the
Irish Catholic community of the city and province of Buenos
Aires, with a view to make better provision for the religious
and educational wants of said community.

"£nd. That the Committee hereafter to be named, be, and
is hereby, authorized to appeal for subscriptions to the
Irish people in town and camp with a view to a guarantee
fund for the purposes aimed at in the first resolution.

"3rd. That the first duty of the Committee acting in
conjunction with His Grace the Archbishop, be to endeavor
to introduce a community of Irish priests, to aid those
already here in the religious and secular education of the
Irish population, and if possible to provide also a more
adequate system of education for the daughters of Irish
residents.

"4th. That the Committee to be named at this meeting
be appointed from year to year, one-third of the number
retiring each year by rotation, but being eligible for re-
election, and that proper steps be taken to obtain legal
status for the Committee in representation of the Irish
Community, and with a view to holding properties or monies
in trust for same, and that the number of town members
be limited to six.

"5th. That the Archbishop of Buenos Aires for the time
being be honorary president of the Committee, and that

FAHEY MEMORIAL FUND, ETC. 399

several Irish Chaplains, now resident here and in the camp,
be honorary members of the same.

"6th. That the Committee be empowered to elect a
President, Vice-President and Secretary from their own
numbers.

"7th. That the following persons be named members of
the first Committee hereby appointed to carry out the ob-
jects indicated in the preceding resolutions, with power to
add to their numbers, viz.:

"For Buenos Aires: M. Duggan, M. Carroll, E. Casey,
E. T. Mulhall, Thomas Duggan, and J. P. Browne. For the
Camp — Suipacha: L. King, T. Kenny. Salto: Wm.
Murphy, Peter Hyland. Navarro: Owen Gahan, James
Carthy. Chascomus: Thomas Mahon, Robert Wilson.
Baradero: Nicolas Clancy, Michael Brennan. Ramallo:
John Connor. Chacabuco: Michael Allen, James Casey.
Lujan: John Browne, William Casey. Mercedes: M. Tyr-
rell, Wm. Cleary. San Antonio : P. O'Neill, John Duggan.
Giles: Edward Morgan, John Cunningham. Capilla del
Senor: Edward Tormey, Edward Culligan, Edward Len-
non. San Pedro : John Harrington, L. Doyle. Carmen de
Areco: John Dowling, T. Maguire. Rojas: P. Murphy,
Michael Tormey. Pergamino: J. Fox, Michael Farrell.
Pavon: Richard Hammond, Nicholas Hogan. Mar Chi-
quita: David Fahey, Michael Reddy. 25 de Mayo: Ed.
Dennehy, James Kavanagh. 9 de Julio: A. Kilmurray,
Eugene Keenan. Saladillo: Michael Elliff, Wm. Leyden,
Pila: T. Daly. Arrecifes: James Cunningham, P. Martin.
Ranchos : R. Slammon. Ensenada : D. Daly. Chivilcoy :
M. Hearne, Patrick Ronan, Patrick Green. Moreno: James
Reilly. Marcos Paz: John Murphy. This Committee to
immediately commence organizing a general subscription
throughout the districts in which there were Irish settle-
ments." The meeting discussed the expected retirement of
the Sisters of Mercy from the country and expressed a wish
that they would reconsider their decision, many present
promising, on this contingency, more generous support of

400 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

their efforts than in the past; a resolution of thanks to
them was also voted. The foregoing list of district repre-
sentatives is a pretty safe index of the localities wherein
Irish settlers were plentiful, and of who were the most
prominent amongst them at the end of the Seventies. In
'71, J. S. O'Farrell, previously head of the Gas Company
and President of the Irish National Society, went to
Rosario to establish a whisky distillery. Dr. Pecan, the
old and popular Irish physician of Buenos Aires, came
here from London in 1875. Dr. Daniel Donovan, son of
Dr. Cornelius Donovan of the Irish Hospital of the Famine
period, was called to the bar this year. The old house at
the corner of Reconquista and Cangallo where Father
Fahey lived for more than a quarter of a century was sold
by a mortgage bank same year. It used to be called
"Father Fahey's Corner." Many a wealthy Irishman's
career of good fortune started in a bit of plain fatherly
advice in that old house, or rather in its modest upstairs
apartments. In 1878 Edward Mulhall visited Ireland and
wrote a very interesting series of articles of travel for his
paper, some of which he headed "Rambles in Ireland."
Thirty years later another Irish editor in Buenos Aires,
William Bulfin, followed pretty much the same course and
called his work "Rambles in Erin." The latter was probably
quite unconscious that he was in many places following
in the footsteps of the former and sometimes almost copy-
ing him. Fathers McDonnell and Southwell of the Carmelite
Order and Father Martin Byrne of the Passionist Order
came to Buenos Aires in '79. They were, I believe, the first
priests who came from Ireland on a collecting mission.
The latter in addition to collecting founded the Passionist
Order in this country, and his efforts, sojourn, recall, per-
secution and vindication will be dealt with in my next
chapter.

CHAPTER XXII

Founding of the Passionist Order in Buenos Aires — Pamphlet Thereon
BY Leading Irish-Argentines — Comments, etc.

DR. ANEIROS, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was
a man truly zealous for the forwarding and secur-
ing of the religious interests of all his flock, and
he had a very special care for that part of it made up by
the Irish immigrants and their children. It. was this
solicitude which impelled him, in the year 1877, to write
an urgent and detailed request to the Archbishop of Dublin
for a community of Irish priests who would establish them-
selves in Buenos Aires, and devote themselves to the re-
ligious and secular education of the Irish settlers and their
descendants in Argentina, and which again, in 1879, urged
him to call the meeting of Irish Catholics to which reference
is made towards the conclusion of the last chapter. A
letter he wrote to Rome about the time of the meeting in
Buenos Aires, which he called, is important as showing his
interest in our people, and for other reasons, and I give it
here following:

Letter to Cardinal Nina, Papal Secretary of State

Buenos Aires, 25th June, 1879.
Most Eminent Lord Cardinal:

My great and special predilection for the Irish people resident in
this Archdiocese induces me to write this letter, which, I hope, will
merit your consideration and approval.

The number of Irish in this Province is about 28,000 and they are
scattered over a superficies of about 7,400 leagues; by reason of the
pastoral life which they lead, the families live at a considerable distance
from one another. This is a great difficulty in the way of their spirit-
ual assistance, although ten Irish priests are engaged in it. It is a

401

402 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

well-known fact that the Irish population is undergoing a great change
in their customs and ideas, and this change, particularly among the
young of both sexes, is causing serious alarm for their spiritual good.

The position of the Irish is rendered more critical by the fact that
they have accumulated immense wealth by their industry.

The future of the Irish is sad if a timely remedy be not brought to
them. Missions are most necessary in the camp, in order that the
people may be instructed in the faith, and taught to practice its most
holy precepts.

It is necessary also to provide for the education of the rising gen-
eration of both sexes. If there can be found in Ireland a religious com-
munity of men who dedicate themselves to missions and education, by
sending three or four of them here at once, we can immediately begin
the holy work.

In case it should be diflficult to find a Congregation who dedicate
themselves to missions and education, it would be well to procure mem-
bers of two different communities: the one specially for missions, the
other for schools.

These are my wishes, and if I should be so happy as to be in a posi-
tion to realize them, I am convinced that an incomparable good would
be effected for this most deserving population. In order that a per-
manent good may result from the work of missions among this people,
the presence of a religious community is necessary, because no matter
how zealously the secular clergy may labour individually, no matter
what sacrifices they may make, each one cannot attend to all, nor do
all they might desire to do.

The Irish people are deserving of all possible care. If your emi-
nence will kindly take into consideration what I have written, and inter-
est yourself in favor of this work, you will do a great act of charity,
and leave to posterity a monument of your zeal in the purity of the
life of this people.

The necessary funds to pay the passages and establish the religious
Orders of both sexes in this Archdiocese will be ready whenever Your
Eminence will favour me with an answer.

With profound respect,
Frederick, Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

As mentioned already, Father Martin Byrne, a young
Passionist from Dublin, was already in the country on a
collecting mission. The permanent committee appointed at
the aforesaid July meeting, presided over by Edward Casey,

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 403

commenced negotiating with him on the matter of estab-
lishing a branch of his order in Buenos Aires. The Irish
Convent, then about to be vacated, was given to him for
that purpose, but there were oppositions and conditions
connected with the transaction which made his retaining of
the establishment impossible, and the arrangement was
broken off. Father Byrne was a very spirited Irish Na-
tionalist; he inaugurated and agitated the Irish Relief Fund
in 1880, and although something had been done, in a quiet
way, in the latter part of the previous year to this end,
it was only when he took the matter up and wrote upon
it and preached about it that a great patriotic effort was
made amongst the Irish all over the country. He gave
Missions in many of the districts where the Irish were
numerous, and visited all of them, everywhere preaching and
practicing the true religious and political spirit, and prin-
ciple for Irish and Irish-Argentine Catholics to feel and
follow. His popularity with the mass of the people in-
creased accordingly. In the question between the Irish
Nuns and the Trustees and Committee in charge of the
Irish property, he took the side of the Sisters and wrote
and said some very severe things of the men who were re-
sponsible for depriving the Irish people of a community
which had rendered them such invaluable services in the
past, who were still ready to continue those services, and
who were then so immensely needed by our poor people.
This action on his part aroused the opposition, not to say
enmity, of some very influential people and he was anything
but a persona grata in certain circles. However, arrange-
ments were arrived at between the Committee and Father
Martin as to the establishment of the Passionist Order in
Buenos Aires, and these arrangements were in every way
approved of by the Archbishop. The terms were in brief
these: The Committee, on behalf of the Irish people, agreed
to pay the Passionist Order in Dublin a large sum of
money in exchange for a certain number of Irish priests, of
their Community, who were to come to Buenos Aires and

404 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

establish a branch of their Order in the city, and who would
attend to the spiritual wants of the Irish Catholics. The
money was paid, but the General of the Order, in Rome,
began at once putting in conditions contrary to the terms
and spirit of the agreement entered into between the Irish
Committee of Buenos Aires and Father Martin, represent-
ing his Provincial in Dublin. Father Byrne would stand
by his bargain, the General at once ordered him home and
sent other priests from the United States and Italy in
his stead. The Irish community protested that their want
and their arrangement were for Irish priests and they
would support no others. Then commenced a campaign of
intriguing, double-dealing and deceit on the part of the
Passionist authorities that would be a disgrace to any body
of men professing to be Christians, much less an order of
priests. The deceit succeeded; the Order was founded on
Irish money but turned out to be for Italian and other
purposes as much as, or more than, for any Irish end or
aim. As years went by this condition of affairs grew worse
until the Italianization of the Province, and the turning of
the Irish property from its original purpose became such
a public scandal that protests, loud and unmeasured, arose
from various Irish sections and parties. A number of the
leading Irishmen and Irish-Argentines compiled a pamphlet
called "The Passionist Order in Argentina" — "A statement
of the question pending between its Superiors and the
Irish Community," and from this pamphlet I will quote
as to the founding of the Order here and to the deceits and
double-dealings referred to.

As the following well-known gentlemen, lay and clerical,
of Buenos Aires were responsible for the pamphlet there can
be no suspicion of the production being anti-Passionist :
Thomas Duggan, Santiago G. O'Farrell, Patricio Dowling,
Edward Morgan (Colon), Rev. L. E. McDonnell, James E.
Bowen, John Nelson, Julian Duggan, John Moore, Santiago
Ballesty, Santiago Feeney, Rev. James M. Ussher, Edward

FOUNDING OF THEi PASSIONIST ORDER 405

Duggan, Charles Duggan, etc., etc. The introduction to
the pamphlet says:

The Committee, who are studying the best means to arrive at a
final settlement of the difficulty pending between the Passionist Order
and the Irish-Argentine community, have decided to publish this pam-
phlet in order that our people may have an exact knowledge of the
question, and be in a position to form a well-founded opinion for them-
selves.

What we ask has been very clearly condensed by Dr. O'Farrell
in the following paragraph which we quote from the letter signed by a
number of gentlemen and handed to the Rev. Superior-General of
the Passionist Order two years ago: " Nuestra solicitud puede con-
cretarse en esta proposicion: entendemos que la Orden tiene la obliga-
cion de hacer derigir las iglesias y casas que tiene establecidas en esta
Capital Federal y en la Provincia de Buenos Aires por sacerdotes irlan-
deses, y como unico medio eficaz de que se llene ese proposito, debe
establecerse definitivamente que dichas casas dependan de la provincia
irlandesa." (Translation: Our demand may be reduced to this
proposition: we believe that it is an obligation on the Order to have
the churches and houses which it has established in this Federal
Capital and in the Province of Buenos Aires governed by Irish
priests, and as the only sure means whereby this end can be fulfilled,
it must be established definitely that said houses be dependants of
the Irish province.)

In other words, we insist that the Passionist houses in this country,
should be Irish, that is, that their atmosphere, so to say, should be
Irish; that their Superiors and most of the priests in them should be
Irish or Irish- Argentine; and that these priests should have as a special
mission in this country the spiritual welfare of the Irish people, to whom
they should act as chaplains in this city and in the localities not
attended by other Irish Chaplains. As a means to this end, we
request that these houses be placed under the Hibernian province of
the Passionist Order. This was the original understanding, and it is
the only practical way we see to settle the difficulty. If the Passionist
Superiors see any other reasonable way of satisfying our just request
and propose an agreement, we are willing to take it into consideration,
provided that our rights are duly respected.

As can be easily seen, we are not asking for anything extraordinary.
We do not ask that the Passionist Fathers give up their Churches and
Monasteries; but that we receive a guarantee that these will always

406 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

be destined to the object for which the Irish people contributed to
build them and for which they have always supported them, that is,
that the Churches be in charge of Irish or Irish-Argentine priests,
whose special mission it would be to attend to the Irish people, and
that the houses be the residences of these priests.

We do not want these houses to be converted into Italian missions,
and we do not consider it fair to the young Irish-Argentine novices and
students in the Order in this country that they should be Italianizedy
as is now being done, or is about to be done, in what is called the
Italian house in Jesus Maria, and by the incorporation of Italian
Passionists from Europe.

We consider that the Italian Passionists are as good as the Passion-
ists of any other nationality; but we are strongly of opinion that they
or their Superiors should apply to their own countrymen for the means
to build houses and churches for themselves and their Italian people
to whom they wish to minister. We would not offend them by think-
ing that they are not intelligent enough to understand that it could
not be expected that our small Irish community should be expected to
build and support the Passionist houses for the benefit of the immensely
numerous and immensely wealthy Italian population in Argentina.

We do not for one moment pretend that the Passionist Fathers,
Irish or Irish-Argentine, should not extend their spiritual ministrations
to people of other nationalities, if they think well to do so; nor do we
pretend that in their houses Passionists of other nationalities must not
reside. Nothing could be farther from our minds, provided that we
are attended to in all that to which we consider we have a just claim.

Neither do we pretend that the Passionist Order should leave the
country; on the contrary we should be very sorry if it did so; but if
the Superiors find no other alternative, in order to guarantee to us that
we shall not lose what we have a right to, then, by all means, let them
go, it being of course understood that in this case, they should be ex-
pected to leave the properties. We think this alternative would be
very unfair to the Irish-Argentine priests of the Order, and to some
of the other members, who are in no way responsible for what has
happened, and who, we feel certain would never, and could never, be
parties to the injustice that has been and is being done, and we have
reason to presume that none will be more astonished then themselves
at the facts that we are now publishing.

Since the Rev. Father General of the Order could not see his way to
answer the note which he received from us two years ago, and to which
he promised a reply within six months, the Committee have decided

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 407

with the approval of His Grace, Mons. Espinosa, Archbishop of this
city, and of his Lordship Mons. Terrero, Bishop of La Plata, and after
consultation with His Grace Mgr. Locatelli, Papal Internuncio here,
to lay the whole case before the Ecclesiastical Courts of Rome for a
final settlement. We are now preparing the documents, antecedents,
data, etc., and expect to have all ready in a few weeks.

In the meantime we have decided to publish this statement. In
it we are taking special care to make no assertion which we cannot
prove. We will quote copiously from private correspondence dealing
with the question at issue, principally from letters past between the
Superiors of the Passionist Order in Europe and the Fathers out here.
And as the public may be astonished at this fact, and ask how we came
by such correspondence, we answer that we got it from the Ecclesiasti-
cal Courts in Rome. When Father Martin Byrne returned to Europe
from this country, he got into difficulties with the General, and was
expelled from the Order. But he appealed to the Holy See, and in
discussing the case, the question of the Passionist Mission in Argentina
was studied. For this discussion nearly three hundred documents,
mostly the private correspondence above mentioned were presented
as proofs on both sides. The judges decided against the General, and
Fr. Martin was readmitted to his Order. We now have authentic
copies of all that correspondence as well as of the other documents
quoted.

Since Fr. Martin left here over thirty years ago down to very
lately, many of us had serious misgivings regarding the relations
between the Passionist Community and ourselves. We felt that
everything was not correct; that there was a misunderstanding some-
where, but it was difficult to affirm anything definite.

Now we see the whole situation in a new light, and we know exactly
where we stand. The object of this publication is to enlighten our
people on the matter and to ask them to second the action of the
Committee, who have taken up the question with the object of obtain-
ing a final settlement. We intended publishing this statement a couple
of months ago; but His Grace Mons. Espinosa, at the request of the
Passionist Superiors and hoping to find some amicable solution, inter-
vened. After some delay he informed the Committee that it was im-
possible to do anything here, and that the only course was to take the
matter on to Rome for a final solution.

At one of its numerous meetings, the Committee were unanimously
of opinion that until this question is satisfactorily settled, all relations
with the members of the Passionist Community as such, should be

408 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

suspended and that all support should be withdrawn from it. And
now we ask all the Irish-Argentine Community to act on these lines.
It will be easily understood that we do not advise this step out of any
personal animosity against the individual members of the Order here,
whose responsibility in what has been done, we are not in a position
to exactly determine.

The reason for this proceeding is obvious. Since the Passionist
Superiors maintain that the mission of their community in this coun-
try is not to attend specially to the Irish people, it is evident that the
Irish people are under no obligation whatever towards them. The
sooner all concerned know that we are in earnest, the sooner our dif-
ficulty will be solved, either one way or another. Buenos Aires,
October, 1913.

Following the foregoing introduction are a couple of
pages recapitulating some of the events which led up to the
founding of the Community here, which events have been
touched on in dealing with other matters in chapters previous
to the present, and also taking up the denial of the Passionist
Superiors that any agreement was entered into as to the new
foundation being established for the special benefit of the
Irish- Argentine people, and then is inserted tliis letter as evi-
dence of the groundlessness of said denial :

Buenos Aires, 20th July, 1879.
Dear Father Martin:

I suppose you have heard how the meeting went off. A Committee
has been named to provide means to bring out a number of Irish
priests for religious and educational purposes.

Before the Committee does anything, I hope to see you again. I
doubt if it would be wise to bring priests of any Order existing here, as
Irish interests would soon become subservient to others. Do you'
think there would be a fair probability of your Order establishing a
house here? The present is an important time for the Irish Community
here.

A false step will throw us back for years.

Edward Casey,
President of the Permanent Committee.

And this further interesting data follow: "As can be
seen, negotiations were commenced with the object of bring-

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 409

ing out Irish priests for religious and educational purposes,
on the lines laid down in the document above quoted. The
result was that the Passionist Community was established
in this country. The conditions under which this was done,
are given by Fr. Martin himself in a document addressed
to His Holiness Leo XIII, in which he declares, referring to
the Passionist Mission in Argentina, the following which
we quote verbatim:

I established it upon the following conditions, (a) That the Mis-
sion should be for the benefit of the Irish Colonists, and be possessed
and worked by priests of the same nationality from our British Pro-
vince. (6) That this province should receive the private donations
which the Colonists gave definitely for the Province and in exchange
for priests. These donations are elsewhere called the surplus funds
of the Mission, (c) That all funds and foundations should be sup-
plied by the Irish, as, in fact, they were supplied by the Irish, (d)
That no foreign Passionist, and nominatim no Italian, could possess
any of the foundations or its revenues.

Besides the above clear statement, we reproduce the following
letter sent four months later by Fr. Martin to his Provincial, Father
Alphonsus O'Neill: "Presentation B. V. M., 2l/ll, 1879. Dear
Rev. Father Provincial: If the £405 (four hundred and five pounds)
drawn by Edward Casey on the Bank of Ireland and sent three weeks
ago, is not to hand, advise Bank. I lost or mislaid the duplicate cheque.
The enclosed £1000 (one thousand pounds), was subscribed by 7 or 8
friends in the last eight days — . This money has nothing to do with
the ordinary collection, but is destined to compensate you for a journey
to Rome and for taking two priests from home work to help me here — .
When the men arrive another cheque for an equal or greater amount
will be forthcoming — . In conclusion, I have to remind your Paternity
that if the men be not sent, my honour and yours and the Order's is
at stake that the cheque will be returned uncashed — . Your affec-
tionate son in J. C, F. Martin, C. P.

A few more pages are occupied in showing that the Gen-
eral in Rome and the Provincial in Dublin were not in agree-
ment as to the principles on which the foundation could
be made, but that both gave Fr. Martin, Mr. Casey and
the Archbishop to understand that the agreement entered

410 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

into between the representatives of the Irish community
and the Passionist delegate would be respected, and the
authors proceed: "One of the first steps of the Superior-
General was not to allow the Irish Provincial to send the
priests promised; another was to send other members of the
Order to take the Mission completely out of the hands of
the Irish Passionists. But this was not so easy, and sus-
pecting that Fr. Martin was in the way, on June 30, 1880,
he wrote to him ordering him back to his province within
three months. Mgr. Aneiros thought this was not reason-
able and wrote to the General explaining matters and ask-
ing him to send out the priests promised. Fr. Martin wrote
also to all the Consultors of the Order in Rome, giving
details regarding the situation. As a result of this cor-
respondence the General did not insist on Fr. Martin's with-
drawal, and wrote to him saying that he would send out
two religious as his delegates to study the whole question
and report to him, and that afterwards he would take a final
decision. The delegates were Father Timothy Pacita, an
Italian, and Father Clement Finigan, an American, both
from the Province of the United States. They arrived in
Buenos Aires on the 14th of December, 1880."

It is stated on page 17 that everybody from the Arch-
bishop down understood that the original agreement was
being carried out. Father Timothy, for the General, named
Fr. Martin Superior, got him to procure from Mr. Casey
£400 to bring home with him, and in February, 1881, left
for Rome. Mr. Casey then gave the Fathers left in Buenos
Aires, Martin and Clement, a house of his, rent free, at 1316
Calle Victoria, and this was the first Passionist establishment
in Argentina.

Every paragraph in the little pamphlet is interesting,
but the following few especially so, as affording useful his-
torical data, and as giving an idea of how strangely men's
consciences may be at variance as to what is right and just,
in regard to things seen from different points of view of
interest and race influence:

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 411

In the first days of June, 1881, Fr. Nilus Matrojanni, Italian, Fr.
Fedelis Kent-Stone, North American, and Brother Ubaldo, Italian,
arrived. Acting under instructions from his Superior-General, Fr.
Nilus immediately assumed the Superiorship of the Mission, and took
possession of the retreat in this city and of the furniture in San Roque
Chapel, then called the Irish Chapel. This furniture consisted of
benches of polished cedar wood, confessional, etc., acquired by Fr.
Martin and paid for by subscription among the Irish people, and was of
course Irish property. At this juncture Fr. Martin left the country
and returned to Ireland. But. Fr. Nilus, as Fr. Timothy before him,
had come out completely ignorant of the real state of affairs. In a
few weeks he understood the whole situation, and also arrived at the
conclusion that it would be wrong to take the mission out of the hands
of the Irish Province and refused to contmue acting. He immediately
wrote several letters to his Superior-General in Rome explaining
matters. Here are a few extracts from these letters. On June 6th,
1881, a few days after arriving, he wrote. " Fr. Clement still laments
that your Paternity has treated Fr. Martin in a manner which he has
not deserved. It grieves me that your Most Rev. Paternity said
nothing to me about all this imbroglio — . Things look rather turbid.
Both (Fr. Martin and Fr. Clement) seem to think that the 30,000
Irish in this republic, are a burden on their shoulders and that it is
our obligation to work for them, as their way of thinking is that if we
do not work for. them, we shall lose our prestige with them, and that in
consequence the foundation must perish. This is equivalent to saying
that without their help we cannot live in this country." He goes on
to say that he foresees "immense obstacles " to the carrying out of
his instructions. And one week later, on June 14th, Fr. Nilus wrote
again mentioning that he suspected Fr. Martin's intention in going to
Europe was to insist that Irish priests be sent out, and he adds: " His
(Fr. Martin's) whole strength is in the first letter written by your
Paternity accepting the foundation to be made by Fathers from
England. Now that we are left in a strange place, depending on a
strange people, it is necessary for us to follow and labour for these
blessed Irish, and to have something to subsist upon . . . Father
Clement continues to lament. He says that we have come to ruin all
that Fr. Martin has done in two years ... he knows that the people
have already commenced to grumble because we do not as Fr. Martin
did, and I believe they think we have been the cause of his departure.
. . . And moreover, how reconcile so many promises made by him
to those persons who have given so much to have Irish priests among

412 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

them? How remedy the promises made by him publicly from the
altar, that the Fathers should be all for those who speak English?

And again as he was about to leave for Europe:

Never in my life have I taken the pen in hand with such trepida-
tion of heart, and with so much sorrow and repugnance, as in this
moment to write to your Most Rev. Paternity. After such days
and nights of martyrdom, both of mind and body, at last the step is
made . . . Fr. Martin has left us, so to speak, in a net from which
we cannot extricate ourselves unless he returns. This is the same
as to say that, compelled by necessity, we must do everything to make
him return. . . . His departure has caused such an impression that
not only have the best benefactors withdrawn from us, regarding
us with suspicious eyes, but also the Irish Priests who have in a meet-
ing declared that they will not have Missions. And the worst of it
is that none of us has the manner of acquiring the goodwill of those
who could help us."

Father Nilus was, like Fr. Timothy, thoroughly con-
vinced, as the extracts from his letters show, of the unfair
treatment meted out to Fr. Martin, that the General was
trying to depart from the terms of the original agreement,
and that by persisting in this course he was seriously dam-
aging the honor of his Order and making almost certain
the failure of the attempt to found the Commimity in Buenos
Aires. He left the Plate in July, 1881, in fear and trembling,
on a mission to meet Fr. Martin in Paris and with him to
proceed to Rome to discuss matters with the General, but
that dignitary would not allow him to even come near the
Eternal City. Poor Fr. Nilus' letters are one long wail
of despair and sorrow for the scandalous obstinacy, if not
worse, of the General. The pamphlet summarizes the ex-
tracts to which I have referred, and partially quoted, thus:

The above quotations give us a fair idea of the results of the Gen-
eral's really extraordinary conduct. The Archbishop displeased,
because the Passionists he got established in the country for the Irish,
were not going to act up to their promises; Fr. Nilus, the General's

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 413

confidential envoy and local Superior on the brink of despair, after
getting into disgrace with the General who refused to receive him and
all because he reported truthfully and would not consent to do what he
thought was wrong, that is: break the agreement that had been
publicly made and publicly accepted by all parties.

The oldest priest now remaining was Fr. Clement Fini-
gan, a North American, a zealous man, a good preacher and
Very popular with the Irish people. He entirely approved
Fr. Martin's plans for founding the Community in Argen-
tina, and would be no party to the General's plans of getting
the Irish to sow the seeds and of turning the harvest over
to the Italians. The authors I am quoting from say:

After Fathers Martin, Timothy and Nilus left the country, Fr.
Clement remained as Superior, with Fr. Fidelis and the Italian lay
brother, Ubaldo. Fr. Clement was of the same opinion as Fathers
Timothy and Nilus regarding the agreement made by Fr. Martin
with the Irish people. In Fr. Nilus' letter to the General, we find
several references proving that he considered that Fr. Martin's agree-
ment should be carried out. Here are a few quotations : *' Fr. Clement
still laments that your Paternity has treated Fr. Martin in a manner
which he has not deserved. Fr. Clement . . . considers Fr. Martin
a martyr, and hopes in a great triumph for him . . . Being unum et
idem with Fr. Martin, he (Fr. Clement) will only give his reasons
justifying their mode of working."

And so on through many extracts too lengthy to quote,
but I must make place for the short comment which the
authors pass on them, and which pretty well sums them up :

Evidently from the foregoing, Fr. Clement was not of the same
opinion as the Superior-General, and could not see his way to break
the agreement, notwithstanding his instructions; so after being
Superior for three short months, he was replaced by Fr. Fidelis who was
designated to take his place and to carry out the General's plan, which
Fathers Martin, Timothy, Nilus and Clement considered impossible,
because they saw it was unjust and should be wronging the Irish
people. The plan was to make the Passionist mission in this country
an Italian or international one, and the difficulty consisted in doing

414 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

so without losing the support of the Irish people. The four Passionist
Fathers who proceeded Fr. Fidelis as Superiors, saw that this was not
possible and withdrew. Father Fidelis then took the work in hands.

The gentlemen who compiled the pamphlet I am draw-
ing on for these facts all knew the Rev. Father Fidelis Kent-
Stone intimately, most of them, if not all of them, were
close personal friends of his, and I cannot do better than
give this little biographical sketch of him by them:

We must now speak about Fr. Fidelis Kent-Stone, the actual Pro-
vincial Superior of the Passionist Community in this country. To
explain what has passed and what is actually passing, it is necessary
to tell the plain truth. Not to do so now, that we know the facts, would
be an injustice to ourselves and to posterity.

We find ourselves involved in the present question, and in our
opinion treated very wrongly, because our people thirty years ago,
placed implicit faith in him as a priest, never suspecting that he could
be acting as he then did, and is now doing. So we must deal with Fr.
Fidelis as he appears to us in the light of the facts of which we now
have knowledge.

We are willing to recognize that Fr. Fidelis was specially suited for
the work that had been committed to him. He was a man of the world,
learned and diplomatic; he had occupied important positions in the
religious denominations to which he belonged, before he became a
convert from Protestantism; he had been a secular priest, and was
now a member of the Passionist Order. His attainments and varied
experience enabled him to take the Irish-Argentine community in
hands and notwithstanding the difficulties of the situation, to success-
fully carry out the plans of the Superior-General. We do not for a
moment suppose that he would ever act contrary to the dictates of
his own conscience; but we do think that the line of conduct he fol-
lowed when dealing with our community was wrong.

When a delegation of Irishmen two years ago spoke to the actual
Superior-General, Fr. Jeremias, not the same Superior who sent Fr.
Fidelis down thirty years ago, he said he needed to consult a person
who could inform him exactly on the question raised. The person
referred to is Fr. Fidelis, whom he called down by cablegram from the
United States and named Provincial of the Passionists in this country.
Consequently it cannot be said that we are mistaken when we

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 415

affirm that it is he who is principally responsible for the existing
difficulty. It is he who is acting against the interests of the Irish
people here; carrying out the General's plan now as he did thirty years
ago. And we must deduct that it is due to his advice and information
that we have received from the actual General of the Order no answer
to our petition. It is he who is carrying out at this moment the
Italianization of the Passionist Mission according to the intention of
the Italian Superiors of the Order in Rome, pretending at the same time
that he is acting in the best interests of the Irish people and safe-
guarding their rights in every way.

The first act of Fr. Fidelis in Buenos Aires, so far as we know,
was one of very doubtful loyalty to his Superior, Fr. Clement. In
a report to the General in June, 1881, he said amongst other things:
** From the day of our arrival here he (Fr. Clement) has done all he
could to oppose any change of the programme, and he has said to us
and to outsiders . . . that his intention was to ask to be recalled if Fr.
Martin did not return." On page 27 of the pamphlet I find: ** He
mentions how Fr. Martin's departure was a great relief to his mind
because his presence was the principal obstacle to the carrying out
of the General's plan of establishing an Italian or international mission
with the pecuniary support of the Irish. And he tells how he is deter-
mined to carry it out. And thirty years later, when another Passionist
General finds himself in difficulties over the same issue, the same
Fr. Fidelis, called down from the United States by cablegram to con-
tinue his work of carrying out the original plan, has the courage to
tell the Irish people, assembled in Holy Cross on St. Patrick's Day
in 1911, that the Passionist Mission in this country is a Hiberno-
Argentine Province. " It is yours," he said, ** your own Province,
keep it." On August 11, 1881, he gives the Rev. Superior-General
his opinion of the different Passionist Fathers who had already been in
Buenos Aires. He says amongst other things: ** Fr. Martin is a zeal-
ous and amiable young man, and writing against him I feel like a traitor.
. . . About Fr. Timothy what can I say? He was prudens in genera-
tione sua, venit, vidit, fugit. (He was prudent in his generation, he
came, he saw, and ran away.) The sole act of his administration was
a blunder . . . For Fr. Nilus I feel only compassion. He had very
good intentions, but not having the necessary strength to execute
them, he nearly went out of his mind . . . Fr. Clement is good and
innocent. I love him, I respect him, but most Rev. Father, it seems
too clear to me that he has suffered loss here . . . lost much of the spirit
of recollection. He is much devoted to Fr. Martin, co-operated with

416 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

him in everything, and now he does all in his power to continue all
the undertakings of the same Father . . . From our arrival here,
there has been an opposition of opinion between us in regard to our
duties. What can I do? The instructions of our Superiors are for
me the will of God ... I recognize Fr. Clement as my Superior ad
interim; I obey him in all that is not opposed to the obedience due to
your Paternity . . . Notwithstanding the scandal passed, it seems to
me that it would be possible to collect here in a little time sufficient
money to build a Monastery of moderate size in the vicinity of this
city. The Irish are generous, and when they understand well the
alternative that we must either do this or go away, I hope that we shall
be in a position to establish ourselves according to our rule. It would
be necessary to commence with the Irish; there is nothing to hope
from the others at present. I have suggested that perhaps we might
get this money by subscription, none to be received until a certain
amount be subscribed. I do not see any other way of establishing
our good name in this country.

The General had at last hit upon what must have seemed
to him the right man to carry out his designs. Fr. Kent-
Stone had no scruples about agreements entered into, and
more than complied with by the parties who were to finance
the arrangement. We have seen what he thought of the four
previous Superiors who felt that the bargain made between
their Order and the Irish-Argentine community ought to be
respected. He now announced that the Church to be built
was not to be Irish, and also delivered his "alternative,"
and the pamphlet states:

This information coupled with Fr. Martin's departure and the
non-arrival of the Irish priests promised, disgusted the gentlemen
of the Committee of which Mr. Casey was president, and culminated,
in what was already looked upon by many as a public scandal ! Things
came to a crisis. The Passionists had to abandon San Roque Chapel.
The Archbishop, who was already displeased with the preceding events,
it appears, ordered them to close a small chapel they had opened in
their private residence; and from the time Fr. Fidelis was named
Superior down to the middle of 1882, that is during six or eight months,
the Passionist Fathers were practically isolated, and did nothing pub-
licly excepting to attend some sick calls. It was evident that the

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 417

Irish people in general were leaving them strictly alone, proving thereby
that they would have nothing to do with them unless on the condi-
tions stipulated with Fr. Martin.

But although boycotted to a great extent, Fr. Fidelis
managed to maintain himself and his small community. It
is not easy to understand how he did this unless there were
funds from the time when the Passionists were regarded
as wishful to stand by their bargain, but he soon began to
prevail upon some of the humbler class of our people,
especially the servant girls, that his mission was one of love
and charity and that it was a religious obligation to sup-
port him. He knew the Irish well from his experience in
the United States. Then was circulated the report that Fr.
Martin had left the Order in disgrace. Soon after this he,
Fr. Martin, wrote to some of his former friends in Buenos
Aires urging them to support the Passionist Mission, for
the sake of the good work it was doing and because of the
great necessity our people had in the city for priests who
could instruct and help them; and these things, to be per-
fectly fair, the Passionists then did, and always do, with a
zeal and constancy worthy of all praise. The Irish girls
were got to form some sort of a committee who waited on
many wealthy Irish people in the city, with a view of making
a collection for the Passionists. They contributed them-
selves, as has ever been their wont in such cases, with the
greatest generosity and succeeded in winning some people
to their cause, amongst the most important of whom was
Dean Dillon, whose paper, the "Southern Cross," was there-
after at the service of the Passionist Mission. San Roque
being closed against him, Fr. Fidelis somehow managed to
get permission to say 1 o'clock mass in the Balvanera
Church and to preach a sermon in English there every Sun-
day ; he was thus gaining ground. The Irish girls, two hun-
dred and fifty in number, had already issued an appeal as
"Catholic Irish girls resident in Buenos Aires and earning
our own subsistence." The "Appeal," a very politic and
well thought-out document, was, of course, written by Fr.

418 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Fidelis and scarcely one of the girls whose names were to
it ever saw it until it appeared in the "Southern Cross" or the
"Standard." It had the desired effect, and both these news-
papers commented on it in friendly and encouraging terms;
thus many people began to forget the cause of the trouble
and lend their assistance to the good work. In September,
1882, the Superior purchased the ground on which now
stands Holy Cross Church, and at once set about construct-
ing a little temporary chapel with zinc and other materials
purchased from the Managers, the Exhibition at Plaza Once,
then recently closed. With such energy did he push on this
work that within a few months after he had got possession of
the ground he had service in the little zinc edifice, and on
January 6, 1883, formally inaugurated Holy Cross Church.
Whatever may be said of the methods and aims of Fr.
Fidelis it must be admitted that he worked with great in-
dustry, perseverence and diplomacy. It is recorded that
none of the dozen or so Irish priests then in the country
attended the opening ceremony of the new church. There
was still such a feeling amongst the subscribers of the money
paid the Passionists on the agreement with Fr. Martin that
Fr. Fidelis thought it good policy to make this declaration
on the day of the inauguration : "People might say what they
please, but this was the fact — it was an Irish Church, it
was their Church and nobody could deny it," and the authors
of the pamplilet follow with this very pointed comment and
question: "We referred before to the fact that Fr. Fidelis
was not dealing openly with our people. We understand
that he announced in Balvanera on a certain occasion to a
limited congregation that the proposed Church would not
be an Irish Church, and now only a few months later, he
tells us that it is an Irish Church and that nobody can
deny it. On which occasion did he speak sincerely.'*"

About this time the leading subscribers and parties to
the agreement with Fr. Martin demanded that he comply
with his part of the contract, that of sending out Irish
priests, or else return the money paid to the Order on this

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 419

condition. Neither was done, and law proceedings were
started against the Community in Dublin. There was some
more passing of notes between the General in Rome and the
Branches of the Order in Dublin and Buenos Aires, and
early in 1884 Fathers Victor Carolan and John MacMullen
reached Buenos Aires from Dublin. There was a new Gen-
eral, Fr. Bernard Silvestrelli, who seems to have satisfied
in some way the Irish representatives in Buenos Aires, for
the law proceedings were discontinued as was also anything
in the way of serious opposition to Fr. Fidelis and his
associates.

As I have mentioned some pages back that Fr. Martin
had retired from the Passionist Order, I must, in justice
to him, and for the interesting information they contain in-
clude here a few paragraphs from the authors who have
taken so much pains to establish the facts in this, for long,
so very vext question. Here they are :

In the first months of 1884 Fr. Fidelis went to Rome, probably
called by the General, who needed direct information regarding Fr.
Martin's connection with the Passionist Mission. For, as we said
before, Fr. Martin had been expelled from his Community, because he
kept on insisting that the original agreement should be respected, and
appealed to the Pope on this point against the Superior-General.

Before his expulsion he could not go to Rome because his General
persistently refused his permission during all these years. But the
moment he found himself free, he proceeded thither, and insisted in his
first appeal, that justice be done to the Irish people, and presented a
new appeal against his own expulsion, claiming readmittance.

Fr. Fidelis went to Rome as principal witness against Fr. Martin.
It was a very important case in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and Leo
Xm commissioned five Cardinals to study the question and draw up
the decision.

The second point was gained completely by Fr. Martin. The
special Court decided in his favour, he was readmitted to the Order
and the Superior-General was condemned in costs.

But the first point was not decided. The Court resolved: '* Non
constare de jure actoris; " that is, it did not appear that Fr. Martin
was authorized by, or had the necessary powers from, the Irish people

420 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

in Argentina or the Irish Passionist Province to ask for a solution to
this question. So it remains pending down to the present day. And
the Committee who are pubUshing this statement, are going to lay it,
with others, before the Ecclesiastical Courts in Rome.

We draw attention to these things here, for they are another proof
of the trouble and annoyance the Passionist foundation in Buenos
Aires has given, and will probably yet give, the higher authorities
of the Order, because their dealings with our people have not been
fair nor sincere, and we do not think we can be contradicted when we
say that it all looks as if their plan had always been to get our money
and our support under false pretenses.

And we also mention the above facts to prove that Fr. Fidelis has
been constantly opposed to the interests of our people. On that
account he was named local superior over thirty years ago; for that he
was over in Rome giving evidence against Fr. Martin; and now again,
with that same object another Superior-General has called him down
by cable from North America and got him named Provincial Superior
over this Province to which he does not belong, for he is a member of
the United States Province of the Passionist Order.

With the foregoing quotation I take my leave of this
very timely and useful little work. The authors mention
that they have hundreds more of documents and reports bear-
ing on this question which they have not published and that
they are stUl collecting such material. I hope they will
soon see their way to give to the public the fruits of their
labors in this matter of such deep historical interest to the
Irish-Argentine people. Only a limited number of copies
of this their first publication was issued, and these for dis-
tribution amongst carefully selected individuals. I think
this exclusiveness on the part of the authors was a mistake.
There is nothing in the pamphlet to damage the reputation
of the Passionist Fathers, as a body; on the contrary, it
proves that the majority of the priests from the beginning
were anxious to act in good faith with the Irish people.
Why then not send it broadcast and enable everyone to see
and judge openly for themselves.? What the public would
learn is that all the harm came from the authorities at Rome
being, to put it very mildly, inordinately zealous for the

FOUNDING OF THE PASSIONIST ORDER 421

welfare of their own people; and from the fact that a very
tactful and rather unscrupulous Anglo-American, who had
no sympathy with anything Irish, had wielded a controlling
influence over the foundation almost from its start, and
who, when he was not the actual head of the Community,
always contrived to have men of his own stamp, and who
would do his bidding, in its posts of influence. The open
agitation to which the exposures in Mr. Padraic MacManus'
review, Fianna, in the early part of 1911, brought the years
of grumblings and discontent of the people, were the real
driving power of the Committee, as they opened the eyes
of the public to the wrong that had been and was being
done, and those of the Passionist authorities to the danger
that lay before their Order in Argentina if they persisted
in their disregard of the rights of the Irish-Argentine com-
munity. The Committee were the medium of the settlement
but Fianna was the compelling force.^ An agreement was
arrived at, and the announcement made at the lunch in Holy
Cross Monastery on St. Patrick's Day, 1914, in presence of
Archbishop Espinosa, Fr. Fidelis and a gathering of some
two hundred Irish and Irish- Argentine men, lay and clerical,
that a new Province, the Argentine Province, of the Pas-
sionist Order had been formed, and that from that on the
Passionist Community in this country would be under no
foreign control, except in so far, of course, as the rules of
the Order permitted the General to exercise a certain juris-
diction. This arrangement, although far from what the
people contended for, was accepted by the Committee, as it
was believed it would prevent all further Italianization, and
Anglicization from North America, of the Order. The Pas-
sionists, notwithstanding their zealous labors in the dis-
charge of their ministerial duties, became objectionable to
many, chiefly from their pro-English leanings, especially in

^The authors err in thinking, as they state on page 30, that the Father
Fidelis-Clement Mission given at the San Francisco Church was the first of
its kind in Buenos Aires. In May, '79, Father Martin gave a very successful
Mission at San Roque.

42^ THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the days of the Boer War, their cringing lack of Irish prin-
ciple and their constant tendency towards Anglicizing the
Irish-Argentine community. The new arrangement made
possible the absolute abandonment of these hateful and de-
moralizing dispositions. Irish-Argentine priests will, it is
expected, be soon in full control of the Province. They will
be able to put the right spirit into their Community if they
have the desire. The men of the Order in Ireland are among
the most patriotic and uncompromising nationalists in the
Irish priesthood. There is now no reason why Irish- Argen-
tine priests should not be equally faithful to their people
and the traditions of their race. I believe they will be; and
more, I am sure they will be, if the Irish- Argentine people
want them so to be.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Gen. Brown Club Active — Another Irish Colony Scheme — The
Irish Convent Property — Sacred Heart Nuns Come to Buenos Aires
— Irish Relief Fund — Another Irish Society — Irish Immigrants
Wanted — Departure of Father Martin Byrne — ^The Irish Orphan-
age— ^Thb Dresden — Miscellaneous Items.

THE year 1880 was one of great activity and of some
important events among the Irish of Argentina.
Just at its dawn the General Brown Club came out
with its list of candidates for election to the Legislature.
John Dillon and Charles Davis were the only Irish names in
their list. The Club had scarcely named its candidates and
published its platform when it split to pieces. It was com-
posed of all creeds and all races. One of the planks in its
platform proposed compulsory curing of scab in sheep. A
very proper measure to seek to realize.

Father Martin, travelling in camp, started the "Relief
of Distress in Ireland Fund."

A committee of prominent Irlandeses waited on Governor
Tejedor with a request for a grant of twenty leagues of land
on which to found an Irish colony. The Governor was
friendly to the scheme, but explained that to dispose of so
large an area of public lands he would have to have a special
law made, and he recommended the committee to have some
Senator take the matter up for them with a view of getting
a special law passed, or on the other hand to ask for a
smaller area. Some Senators were seen, but would not agree
to the Committee's proposition unless the English Govern-
ment paid the passage of five hundred or one thousand fam-
ilies out as colonists, or failing that that the Irish at home
or in Buenos Aires pay the passages. Messrs. Michael Dug-
gan and E. T. Mulhall then wrote to Mr. John Lentaigne,

423

424 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Inspector of Convent Schools in Ireland, asking him to put
this proposition before the English Government: "That if
the Government would defray the passages, about £10,000,
of five hundred families, the Irish of Buenos Aires would raise
as much money as would support the five hundred families
for one year, and that the Argentine Government would give
the immigrants twenty leagues of land." The English Gov-
ernment would be very glad to get so many Irish families
out of Ireland just then — it was, indeed, the stated policy
of England's "great statesman," Gladstone, to reduce the
Irish population — but had no notion to help to lose them to
the British Empire. Get them to Australia or Canada, by
all means, but to an independent state was another thing,
and the scheme fell through.

The Irish Convent property was now lying idle, and
Archbishop Aneiros called another meeting of the Irish resi-
dents at his house, to consult as to what was best to do
with it. The meeting was a rather small one as another
meeting had already been called, by some leading Irishmen,
for the same purpose to meet a few days later. Those
present, however, were of the opinion that it was not de-
sirable to change the purpose for which Father Fahey had
intended the institution and agreed that an effort should
be made to bring out another Community of Sisters to re-
place those gone away. The meeting just referred to was
called by the Trustees of the Convent and other properties
and came off on April 22, 1880. The following report of
the proceedings thereat is from the editorial columns of
"The Standard:" "The meeting at the Irish Convent called
by the Trustees, was largely attended yesterday. Nearly
all the Irish Chaplains and most of our representative Irish
estancieros were present. Mr. E. T. Mulhall was voted to
the chair with Mr. James Browne as Secretary. The Chair-
man read the notice convening the meeting, and the deed
of Transfer by the late Canon Fahey to the Trustees, and
in a few short remarks explained the object of the meeting
and its necessity. Mr. Patrick Bookey, on behalf of the

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 425

Trustees, fully explained the history of their trust and the
present position of affairs. The Rev. John Leahy spoke
to the necessity of preserving the institution for an Irish
Orphanage. The Rev. Largo M. Leahy also spoke to the
question. Mr. Carroll concisely defined the position of the
Trustees of the Convent and Hospital, and dwelt on the
necessity of at once taking steps. The Rev. Father O'Reilly
addressed the meeting on the necessity of keeping the Con-
vent for Irish uses, and adhering to our traditions. Many
other gentlemen spoke, and the best harmony of opinion
and friendly feeling prevailed, all expressing a wish to main-
tain intact the Irish institutions in the city; finally the
following resolution was moved by Mr. Thomas Duggan,
and seconded by Mr. Dillon and passed unanimously: Re-
solved, that the Trustees be requested to call on the Arch-
bishop, and explain that the Irish people require of the
Community to whom the Convent is passed: 1st. That they
teach a superior school. 2d. That they keep an Irish
Orphanage, and that the sense of the meeting is, that the
use of the Convent be only given on these conditions. The
Secretary read a letter from Dean Dillon regretting his
inability to attend the meeting; owing to the Archbishop's
absence he was obliged to officiate in the Cathedral. . . .
Mr. Armstrong moved a vote of thanks to the chairman,
and the meeting, which held for about three hours, dissolved."
A movement had been for some time on foot to establish
a branch of the Community of Sisters of the Sacred Heart
in the place of the Sisters of Mercy, and the meeting at
the Archbishop's house and the one at the Irish Convent,
the report of which I have just given, were both called to
consider, or ratify, although not ostensibly so, this propo-
sition. These meetings are the beginning of the history of
the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Buenos Aires, and
although it was from Chili the first Company of these Nuns
came, the Rev. Mother and some of her companions were
Irish born. The Committee of Trustees appointed by the
meeting of April 22, had various interviews with the Arch-

426 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

bishop, and finally agreed to an arrangement. At this very
time Father Martin Byrne and another Committee, partly
composed of the same gentlemen who had control of the
Irish Convent, were trying to make arrangements for the
establishing of the Passionist Order, so that the good Arch-
bishop must have felt very pleased to see his "great and
special predilection for the Irish people resident in this arch-
diocese" being so happily satisfied. When the Committee had
completed their arrangements with Dr. Aneiros they called
another meeting of the Irish people for the 18th of May,
1880, and as this is the starting point of a new era in the
history of the Irish Convent and Orphanage, I cannot do
better than give the whole account of what took place at
the meeting, as reported in the papers. The meeting was
held in the Convent building. Mr. Patrick Bookey moved
and Mr. Michael Duggan seconded, that Mr. E. T. Mul-
hall take the chair and Mr. J. P. Browne act as secretary.
This was agreed to and the chairman opened the proceed-
ings by ordering the minutes of the last meeting, held the
22d of April, to be read. These were read and approved.
The secretary then read a memorandum drawn up by the
Archbishop's Secretary to be signed by the Trustees of the
Convent. This paper the Trustees placed before the meet-
ing before signing, as it contained a clause by which the
Trustees would have held themselves responsible for all pre-
vious debts which might be due by the Convent; it was not
approved of. The Secretary then read a letter from the
Archbishop's Secretary to the Superioress of the Sisters
of the Sacred Heart and the reply given to same. This
was deemed satisfactory, as it contained a clear acceptance
of the conditions under which the Convent would be given
to the said Sisters, viz. : 1st, the establishment of a superior
school; 2nd, teaching a poor school; 3rd, keeping an
Orphanage. Mr. Bookey stated that with this favorable
reply the mission of the Trustees to the Archbishop ended
and it only remains to hand over the Convent to the Sisters
of the Sacred Heart and so comply with the resolutions

GEN, BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 427

adopted at the last meeting. Mr. Carroll stated that it
was desirable to ascertain what claims the Sisters of Mercy
had on the Convent as so far no specific statement of ac-
counts had been presented by the Sisters or their attorneys.
This was generally approved of and after some further dis-
cussion in which Father Martin and others took part, Mr.
Carroll moved and Mr. Farrell seconded the following reso-
lution: That the Trustees be and are hereby authorized to
leave the Convent to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart for a
term of five years, renewable at the Trustees' option, at a
nominal rent of $50 m/c. a year, subject to the conditions
submitted to the Archbishop and accepted by the Sisters,
and that these conditions form part of the deed or lease.
This was unanimously agreed to. In answer to inquiries
about the furniture of the Convent it was stated that part
of it was donated and consequently belonged to the Con-
vent. The furniture of the poor schools likewise belonged
to the Convent. The furniture of the Convent and schools
belonged to the Sisters of Mercy and an inventory was
shown; it was understood that the Sisters of the Sacred
Heart could buy this if they desired from the representa-
tives of the Sisters of Mercy. Mr. Bookey stated that the
repairs to the building, whitewashing, painting, would
amount to about $25,000 m/c, accounts of which he held
for inspection and publication. The Trustees were author-
ized to collect subscriptions for the repairs of the Convent.
The meeting then adjourned.

In a few days after the meeting called to consider the
giving of the Irish Convent to the Sisters of the Sacred
Heart, to be exact, on the Slst of May, the said Sisters
took possession of the institution. Thus the meeting was,
as Father Martin had already pointed out, not called to
decide on the matter, but to accept what had already been
decided for it. The Sisters of Mercy, however, being now
gone from the country no better choice of a Community
could be made than the one ratified by the meeting of the
18th of May. Rev. Mother Fitzgerald took over the Irish

428 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

orphans, temporarily being cared for by the St. Vincent
de Paul Sisters. From the Irish Relief Fund, started
chiefly by Father Martin, now closed, and about which more
presently, she was handed over a balance of $1230 m/c,
and Mr. John Moore soon after placed at her disposal a
sum of $26,416 m/c, which he received from the Sisters of
Mercy, at their leaving, as funds of the Irish Orphanage.
Father Mullady, E. T. Mulhall, Mgr. Curley, Father John
Leahy, Father Purcell and many other prominent men
busied themselves to raise funds for the reopened Orphan-
age, and its first Report, published September, 1881, showed
the encouraging items of $138,537, income, and a balance on
hand of $42,543. The Report further stated that there
were seventy-five orphans in the institution, that the free
school had an attendance of one hundred and fifty children
and that there were fifty-four paying pupils. Dr. Lausen
attended the institution free ; and Drs. Colbourne and Pecan
had offered their services, also free.

Rev. Mother Fitzgerald and her devoted company seemed
to be giving every possible satisfaction and were receiving
unstinted praise.

The most important event in these years, from an Irish
patriotic point of view, was the collection for the Irish Relief
Fund. In the latter part of 1879, the great distress in Ire-
land, owing to the partial failure of the crops and the
tyrannical exactions of the landlords, was a question of the
deepest concern for the Irish people at home and abroad.
It was the occasion of Pamell's first public mission to the
United States, and the response made to his appeal by the
Irish in North America and their friends saved a large pro-
portion of the people in the old land from a repetition of
the horrors of Forty-seven. In every country where the
Irish had settled, the appeal of the leaders at home was
heard and generously barkened to. About November, '79,
some start was made in Buenos Aires towards organizing a
collection, but it was not until Father Martin, then visiting
the northern camp districts of Buenos Aires, wrote some stir-

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 429

ring letters on the subject that a real effort was made. A
meeting was held at the end of January, '80, in Buenos
Aires, at which a sum of $55,000, old money, was subscribed
by twenty-seven contributors. Messrs. M. Duggan, W.
Murphy, Moore, Casey, Gahan and Ham contributed about
four-fifths of that total. Contributions then began to pour
in with great rapidity and generosity. Hardly a parish in
the country where there were any Irish but was heard from
in quick haste. On May 23rd, four months after the inau-
guration of the movement, the Committee closed the fund
and published their balance thus: $571,318 had been col-
lected; $41,780 had been subscribed by Argentines and
others, apart from Irish, English and Scotch. The sum of
£3,802-9-8 had been remitted to the Lord Mayor of Dublin,
the remainder of the $571,318, as mentioned some pages
back, was handed over to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart
to help them in their newly opened Orphanage and Schools.
The contribution was a quite creditable one for the Irish
Argentine community of nearly forty years ago, and all
the more so as there were no very large subscriptions, two
hundred dollars, gold, and but few of them, being the high
water mark of individual generosity. It was by far the
largest sum raised since or before by the Irish of Argentina
for any one purpose.

In the spring of 1881, Father Martin, ever diligent in
the interests of his people, called together, at the then Pas-
sionist retreat, a number of Irishmen for the purpose of
taking measures to organize an Irish society. The project
never got beyond the initial stages, for Father Martin was
soon after ordered home by his Superiors. But the proposal
is interesting for the points of view from which it was advo-
cated and from which it was discouraged, and from the fact
that the new organization was to be called the Irish Catholic
Association — ^the first mention I have met of that title.
The new association was to be for the "literary and moral
development of young Irishmen and the sons of Irish
parents." Dean Dillon expressed himself as strongly in

430 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

favor of the proposed society and hoped it would be started,
if at all possible. Dr. Grace, fresh from the United States,
dwelt on the great benefits derived from such clubs in his
country and their usefulness in improving the education of
young men. Mr. Davis opposed the project, and stated that
it would not succeed, that young Irishmen in the country
would benefit themselves more by learning Spanish and enter-
ing, earnestly, into the political life of the country, if born
here, than by remaining secluded and limited to the tradi-
tions, customs and language of the old country. Father
Martin could not agree with Mr. Davis, but on the contrary
expected the best results from such a club as that under
discussion. Dean Dillon feelingly lamented the utter in-
difference of young Hibemo-Arg^tines towards the land of
their parents, their lukewarm religious spirit and general
departure from the old ways. Mr. Feely believed a society
like the one proposed had a better prospect of success in
the camp than in the city, for in the city Irishmen were
comparatively few and rarely came together. Mr. James
Gahan was doubtful of the future of such a society. Mr.
King made several comparisons to show the possibilities of
a strong society on the lines stated. There was much dis-
cussion after this fashion and Mr. Michael Duggan advised
the inscribing of the names of those in favor of the pro-
posal, to find out whether or not it was popular. Mr.
Edward Casey was not in favor of a literary society as
there was one already in the city embracing all persuasions
and classes. There was some more expressions of opinion and
suggestions, and Father Byrne, still optimistic, after review-
ing the pros and cons in the proceedings stated that he
would canvass his friends and acquaintances on the subject
and see if he would find adherents enough to enable him to
launch the enterprise. The intrigues against him, by mem-
bers of his own household, were already well under way; he
received the cold shoulder from many of his friends and
there was no more heard of that particular Irish Catholic
Association.

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 431

The event of greatest public interest to our people in
1881, the purpose of Father Martin's recall was not then
fully understood, was the appointment of Dean Dillon, by
the President of the Republic, as a commissioner to go to
Ireland to promote emigration from there to this country.
The Dean was already a Provincial Deputy and stood high
in Argentine public regard. It speaks well for the esteem
in which Irish emigrants were held by the National Govern-
ment that they sent a special mission to Ireland to entice
more of those people to come to Argentina. The scope and
purpose of Father Dillon's commission is best explained in
the official document advising him of his appointment and I
give it following.

Ministry of the Interior,

Buenos Aires, April 16, 1881.
Rev. Dean Dillon,
Present.

I beg to inform you that by decree of the 13th instant, His Excel-
lency, the President of the Republic, ha thought proper to send you
on a mission to foment Irish emigration to the Argentine Republic.
You will leave for Europe, for this purpose, as soon as possible. Your
mission for the present is limited to making known the advantages the
Argentine Republic offers to honest and industrious emigrants, the
natural wealth, beautiful climate, the customs of its inhabitants and
the free principles of its Government. You will also announce that
the Executive will petition Congress in the next Sessions for pecuniary
support to help the agricultural emigrants who wish to emigrate to
this country. You may, therefore, assure those families that wish
to come to this Republic that they will obtain from this Government;
free of charge, board and lodging on their arrival, and railway passages
to any part of the Republic until they are finally settled; they may also
reckon on a concession of land sufficient to meet all their agricultural
requirements.

You will transmit to this Ministry a full detailed account of your
proceedings in this respect through the medium of the Immigration
Department and acting in accordance with the Commissary General
in Europe, Don Carlos Calvo.

During your mission you will obey these provisional instructions

432 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

until you receive more ample ones. At the same time you are at liberty
to submit to the Government, the agents, or sub-agents, what you deem
necessary for the success of your mission in Ireland. God guard you!

A Del Viso.

There was a great banquet given in honor of the Dean
as he was about to leave on his mission to Ireland. All
the leading Irish and Irish-Argentines of the city were
present, and many toasts were drunk and eloquent speeches
spoken. David Sulfern toasted the health of the Irishmen
and Irish- Argentines then holding public office, and said
amongst other things: "Around this table are Deputies,
Judges, Commandants and Bank Directors — ^worthy proof
of the services of Dean Dillon who in the Southern Cross
always stands up for his country." His mission to Ireland,
however, was not a success, but through no fault of his. In
his report presented to his Government in January, 1882,
he explains his failure by saying he had nothing to offer
compared with the free passages and free lands offered by
the British Colonies, and the pre-paid passages of friends in
the United States. He mentions Bishop Ireland's plantation
scheme in Minnesota, where he bought a large tract of land
and brought out families giving each family one hundred
acres. He suggests the paying of the passages of suitable
families, giving them support and sixty-acre farms of good
land not too far out, the settlers to pay back the outlay in
eight years. He calls the Land League, "a just and semi-
revolutionary movement," and says that Ireland will never
be well governed till she has her own parliament in Dublin.
The report mentions, also, that three million of the Irish
population has disappeared from the country because of
starvation and emigration in the space of thirty years. The
Land League, he tells, is against emigration, but believes that
if the Government would give proper inducements a number
of families would come out and that such action on the part
of the Government "whilst benefiting this country, would be
a great service to the unfortunate but honorable people of
Ireland?"

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 433

Large banqueting rooms must have been very scarce
thirty-five years ago in Buenos Aires, for it is reported that
the inevitable banquet which was given for the Dean's return
was spread in Michael Duggan's barraca, or store-house, in
Calle Victoria, and here the Governor and many of the Gov-
ernment officials and all the principal Irish of the city
gathered to eat and drink and do the Dean honor.

So much has been said in previous chapters on Father
Byrne and his mission to Argentina that I am loath to dwell
on his departure at any length, but as containing informa-
tion that ought to be preserved to our community I will
have to give the following couple of extracts from an edi-
torial in the "Standard" of June 12, 1881 : "The Irish com-
munity in the River Plate will hear with regret of the de-
parture of Rev. Father Martin Byrne for Europe on
Wednesday, next, a clergyman who in the discharge of his
sacerdotal duties gained the esteem and respect not only of
his countrymen but also of all foreigners, irrespective of
their religious persuasions, who had the pleasure of his
acquaintance. During his two years' residence in the Plate
he visited most of the Partidos in the camp, holding missions
in the various country towns, called on most of the farmers
at thein houses ; whilst in town reopened San Roque Church,
which for the last quarter of a century was known as the
Irish Catholic Church of this city; he founded a house of
his order, opened a school for boys, organized a society of
Benefisencia amongst the Irish Catholics in the city, took
charge of poor orphan boys, who he placed in the industrial
school of San Carlos ; in one word his career in this country
has been one continuous list of good deeds, and we cannot
allow this Rev. gentleman, who has proved so useful to our
community to leave us without some expression of thanks
for his valued services." The article continues in this strain
for considerable length and ends in these words: "If it is
permitted to us to offer a remark to the superior of his
order we must say that his field of action is infinitely wider

434 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

and better amongst his countrymen in the River Plate than
narrowed up in his monastery at Harolds Cross."

From the calming down of the little storm raised by
Father Fidelis and his General in Rome through their cajol-
ing the Irish people here, as recounted in Chapter XXII,
till the coming of the Dresden immigrants in 1889, the Irish
Orphanage and its affairs hold, by far, the largest place in
Irish public matters in Buenos Aires. The prosperous and
promising start made under the management of the Sisters
of the Sacred Heart, notwithstanding all the best efforts of
these good ladies, began to lag about the middle of the
decade, and inside of a couple of years more deficits: and
debts have to be recorded in every report of the Institution.
Large and unexpected outlays have to be made, increased
numbers of children claim help and subscriptions are not as
generous and numerous as they used 'to be. The new
association, into whose care the institution has passed from
the old Trustees, are no better able to solve its problems
than were these. There are plans and projects in plenty to
this end; new buildings, new means of raising revenue, sales,
purchases of new grounds, etc., but the great difficulty re-
mains unsolved. And here we are, thirty years later, with,
if not the same difficulties, others just as unsolvable, seem-
ingly. I shall list the principal happenings as they took
place, briefly, of course, but with sufficient detail for a mere
record of not very important events.

Collections were common in the city and in the camp,
although not well responded to at all times, which fact goes
without saying, as there was frequently a shortage of funds.
At a Committee meeting, in May, '82, it was agreed to
change the name of the Orphanage to that of the "Father
Fahey Orphanage," and to build a new wing to the insti-
tution, the cost of which would be about $170,000. There
were then 92 orphan children in it. Hot foot on top of
the meeting just referred to another one was held by the
Committee, in Mr. Edward Casey's office, at which it was
resolved to build a spick and span new orphanage at a cost

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 435

of $250,000. Mr. Casey presided at this meeting, Mr. T.
St. George Armstrong acting as secretary, and there were
present. Committeemen, Dean Dillon, Patrick Bookey, T.
Duggan, John Murphy, Laurence Garraghan and E. T. Mul-
hall. There was some discussion as to how the necessary
funds would be raised and a committee was named to collect
in town and camp for the purpose. These gentlemen com-
posed the new Committeee : for the city, Messrs. Bookey and
Armstrong; Dean Dillon, E. Casey, Garraghan, Ham, T.
Duggan, J. J. Murphy and M. Duggan for the camp, with
power to add to their number. This meeting also resolved
to secure legal standing for the organization. A couple of
weeks later another meeting changed the decisions arrived
at as recorded, the city collectors being increased and the
camp Chaplains being left to form their own local collect-
ing committees. In August the Nuns issued their second
annual Report, which was to this effect: Children in the
Orphanage — Commencing year, 70; entered since last Re-
port, 50; went out to service, 19; returned to their families,
12 ; in the institution at end of June, 89. Collected, $86,076 ;
donations, $55,115; given for certain children, $30,330;
total receipts, $214,114; expenses, $194,578; balance,
$19,536. A quantity of old clothes, remnants and various
kinds of wearables were also acknowledged as received.
Father O'Reilly wrote a very spirited letter on the parsi-
mony with which the Irish were supporting their Orphanage,
soon after the Balance Sheet appeared, saying that they
might very reasonably feel ashamed of themselves in this
matter. In response to his letter there were many subscrip-
tions, five Garraghans and Miss H. Kenny, together, con-
tributing $10,100; Father O'Reilly, himself, sent in $2500.
A list of subscriptions toward the building of the new
Orphanage, estimated at $250,000, had these as the first
sums contributed: M. Duggan Bros., $20,000; E. Casey,
$10,000; J. J. Murphy, $5000; L. Garraghan, $5000; E.
T. Mulliall, $2500; T. St. George Armstrong, $3000; J. B.
Gahan, $2500; P. Ham, $10,000; J. B. Dowling, $5000;

436 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

E. R. Murphy, $3000; T. Drysdale, per E. T. Mulhall,
$5000 ; John Duggan, $2000. There is a very pleasant item
to be recorded just as the year '82 ends. The Mayor of
the city visited the Orphanage and expressed himself as more
than pleased at the work of this splendid institution. And
further said it was a question that should be taken up for
solution, what to do with these girls when they left the
Orphanage — girls that would make such good wives should
not have to go out as servants. No educated Argentine girl
should have to go to service, he said, and as a token of
his sympathy with the institution that was doing such great
work for the Municipality he would exonerate the institution
from the payment of pavement taxes due of the amount of
$29',000. In the following May a general meeting was called
to establish a society to take over the Irish property from
the old Trustees and to decide on procuring legal standing
for the new society, but as only forty persons assembled
nothing could be done. The next Report by the Sisters
shows some progress ; an income of $255,788, and a balance
on hand of $28,450. Building Fund receipts, $204,961,
expended on building ; cost of new building, $270,000. It is
noticeable that the estimate fell $20,000 short of the real
cost.

Notwithstanding contributions, donations and a theatri-
cal benefit, given by Mr. Latham, which netted seven hundred
pesos, an appeal had to be issued for funds for the support
of the Orphanage in the middle of '84. The appeal was
directed to "Englishmen and Scots" as well as to the Irish
community, and it stated that the want of funds was "be-
coming of regular periodical occurrence." The Report of
the Sisters for the year gave 44 children as entering, 13
as going out to service and 14 as returning to their families,
leaving 113 in the Orphanage. It gave the further inter-
esting information that three of the orphans were baptized,
26 confirmed, 35 made their first confession and 27 their
first communion. In '85 there were two lotteries of $20,000
each drawn for the benefit of the Orphanage, yet the Com-

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 437

mittee, presided over by Michael Duggan, had to say: "We
regret to have again to call the attention of our rich coun-
trymen in the camp to the heavy deficit which the balance
for this month shows, and we trust that when acquainted
with the figures they will come forward and subscribe liber-
ally to the support of the most essential of our institutions.
Nothing can be better or more economical than the present
administration of the Orphanage, but the support and main-
tenance of 116 orphans cost money, and we must all be pre-
pared to give a little more than hitherto in view of the large
number of orphans in the establishment." The Annual Re-
port gave 41 children as entering, 14 as going out to service,
28 returning to their families and two deaths, leaving 110
in the Orphanage. The story of the year '86 is almost a
repetition of that of the previous year. In June of the next
year a meeting was held at Mr. Casey's oflSce, Mr. Carroll
presiding, at which it was decided to sell the Orphanage, and
a deputation was named to consult with the Rev. Mother
on the proposal. After due consultation and consideration
another meeting of the Committee was held, in October,
whereat it was agreed to sell all the property to the Nuns,
then in possession, for the sum of $225,000. Messrs. Car-
roll and Casey were president and secretary, respectively,
of this meeting. The annual report, after the usual census
of the orphans, etc., records a deficit of $2438, and gives
the following few interesting details: Expenses, food, $8070
— per orphan, $71.40; clothing, blankets, etc., $1734 — per
orphan, $15.35; carpenters, $1466 — per orphan, $13; fuel,
medicine, etc., $971— per orphan, $8.60. Total, $12,241—
per orphan, $108.35. Average, $9 monthly per orphan.
This little complaint was also published: "We cannot too
often regret the fact that several of our countrymen have
died recently leaving large fortunes, forgetful of the Irish
Orphanage."

As soon as it was announced that the Committee had
decided to sell the property there was a quite lively outburst
of protest against the proposal, and, indeed, from very varied

438 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

points of view; the insufficiency of the reasons for the sale
given by the Committee, the suspiciously low price proposed
to be accepted and the associations and traditions connected
with the old place being amongst the principal grounds of
objection. Some argued that the sale was advisable from
the point of view of getting a large piece of ground to start
a creamery and industrial schools on, for both sexes, and
for the taking of the institution altogether out of town.
Fruit and vegetable growing were also amongst the proposals
for the new order of things to be established. But one of
the very strange arguments put forward in favor of the
selling of the place was that the institution was too large;
and this, too, by some of the gentlemen who a few years
before had been parties to the spending of $270,000 in mak-
ing the enlargements. Because of this largeness, it was fur-
ther argued, the place in the future would be "an enormous
tax" on the public charity. But the opposition to selling
was so great that the Committee let the matter lie in abey-
ance all through '88, and a general meeting was called for
September of next year to elect a new Committee, or "Trus-
tees," as they used then be called. It was in this agitation
against the sale of the Hospital and Convent property that
the point was raised, that according to Father Fahey's
"will," fifty Irelandeses should agree to the sale before it
could be legally carried out, and so far no such number had
attended any of the meetings held for this purpose. Just
before the holding of the September, '89, meeting it was
announced that Michael Duggan had bequeathed to the in-
stitution $50,000, and as the debt, at the time, was only
some $4000, this stroke of good luck strengthened the anti-
sellers very greatly. The meeting came off on the 10th of
the month, and was attended by some one hundred persons,
eighty of whom voted against the sale, ten declining to vote
for or against. On the meeting refusing to ratify the bar-
gain entered into by the Committee, Dr. Lamarca proposed
advancing his offer, in behalf of the Nuns, by the sum of
$112,000, but the meeting took the matter very seriously

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 439

and would agree to nothing on that day save to empower
the new Committee to take the matter up and report their
progress at a new general meeting. The following gentlemen
composed the new Committee: Fathers O'Reilly and Flan-
nery, Messrs. Carthy, Casey, Kenny, T. Duggan, Ham, J.
Moore, O'Farrell, Suffern, Dinneen, Tormey, Dowling,
O'Curry, Browne and Gahan.

There were some very sharp criticisms of the outgoing
Committee for their having so disappointed the Sisters of
the Sacred Heart in selling what they had no authority to
sell, and after two years' delay and uncertainty retiring
from office and breaking up the bargain altogether. The
Committee, however, acted in good faith, but made the mis-
take of thinking that the general meeting would see things
with their eyes. At this meeting all those who voted had
to sign the minutes of the proceedings. Dr. O'Farrell was
chosen President of the new Committee, and his term started
with a deficit of nearly eleven thousand dollars. His Com-
mittee seem to have made a very good beginning, for in
the following June they were able to announce that they
had cleared off almost all the eleven thousand dollars debt.
They added, too, that the Sacred Heart nuns had purchased
a place for themselves and were about to retire from the
Orphanage and that the Committee was then looking for
a teaching community of nuns to take over the institution,
and that a general meeting would be held in August to con-
sider this matter. The sale of the old Orphanage and the
building of a new one was also to be considered, but as the
crisis and revolution of that year had brought land value
down to a very low level everybody was an anti-seller for
the moment. The Report of the new Committee, published
in September, while giving a greatly reduced number of
orphans in the institution, was generally satisfactory,
especially as regards the liquidating of the debt. The fol-
lowing statement was made by the President, Dr. O'Farrell :
"It is likewise our pleasing duty to state that the Committee
has had constantly in view the necessity of reforming the

440 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

internal management of the Orphanage, in order that the
children may, on leaving, be in every respect fitted to hold
useful and honorable positions in life, and lay the founda-
tions of thrifty, virtuous families. That it may be so we
hold three things necessary; 1st. That the Community of
ladies having charge of the establishment shall act under
the supervision of the Committee, thereby securing the due
carrying out of the wishes of the public who support the
house; 2nd. To make of the Orphanage, as far as possible,
an industrial school, attaining thereby a double object — a
diminution, however trifling, of the expenses of the estab-
lishment— and the instilling into the youthful breast love of
work and confidence in the happy fruits of the noble prin-
ciples of "Self Help"; 3rd. To devote, if not all, at least
the greater part of the premises to the use of the orphans.
This is necessary on sanitary grounds as well as to secure
full scope for the development of the industrial school; in
a word, to have the institution what it ought to be; first
and foremost an Orphanage, a fact we must constantly bear
in mind." It was also stated at this meeting that the Sisters
of Mercy were about to return to the Orphanage, that they
would arrive at the end of the year, and that their manage-
ment of the institution would be on the lines indicated in
the statement just quoted.

The Dresden, About the middle of the year '87, Mr.
Buckley O'Meara went to Ireland, in the name of the Argen-
tine Government, to foment emigration to this country; Mr.
John Dillon, a brother of the Dean, had also a similar com-
mission, and the two gentlemen operated conjointly. Their
progress in convincing Irish families that Argentina was the
real promised land for emigrants, however, was slow, but
by the end of the year 1888 they had enticed a considerable
number of the humbler class, chiefly from the cities and large
towns, to take the risk and try if there was anything in
all the great promises. So in the month of January, '89,
the famous "City of Dresden" sailed from Cork for Buenos
Aires with some eighteen hundred passengers. The Irish

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 441

leaders and newspapers in Buenos Aires were opposed to
this enterprise from the first, for they knew that the Gov-
ernment was not willing to make suitable provision for immi-
grants of the class the agents were likely to induce to accept
their proposals, and many articles and letters were written
to this effect. The scheme was also discouraged in Ireland,
and to the opposition here and in the old country may be
attributed the delay in getting the required number of fam-
ilies. I have often heard it said that some of the emigrants
were convicts undergoing terms of imprisonment in Limerick
and Cork Jails, who were released, on condition that they
would join O'Meara's emigrants, and not return to Ireland.
Be this as it may, it is well known that a small number of
the immigrants were utterly unfit for the life they were
expected to turn to on their arrival in Buenos Aires. These
immigrants are often spoken of in very deprecatory terms
by people who themselves, or their parents, came to Argen-
tina under circumstances differing very little from those of
the passengers by the "Dresden." It is hardly necessary
to say that very few of our people came to this country
seeking a field for the investment of their surplus cash; and
it is nothing to be ashamed of that the founders of some
of our wealthiest and most respected Irish-Argentine fam-
ilies of to-day when they came in '47 and the years imme-
diately following that black epoch were very glad to avail
of the charitable helps provided for such wants as theirs
by the loving and noble souled Father Fahey. The great
majority of the passengers by the "Dresden" were honest,
industrious, respectable families, and many of them have
proved the mettle that was in them by the success they
have achieved in different walks of life in this land. The
treatment they received on their arrival here was, if not
actually criminal, on the part of the Argentine Government,
most disgraceful, and it has turned the steps of many an
emigrating Irish family to other shores than these of La
Plata since then.

When the emigrants were about to sail, O'Meara wrote

442 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

as follows as to their number, character and future useful-
ness : "About two hundred and fifty Irish families composed
of the best of the agricultural, laboring and artizan classes.
Amongst these families the estanciero will find what has been
a long-felt want — good, steady, honest and hard-working
men, who will till his land, turning over a furrow in good old
English style, mind his sheep after a few months' experi-
ence of the country's ways, with far more care and intelli-
gence than has hitherto been shown; and, above all, those
fortunate enough to secure one or two of these families can
safely look forward to being well served for a number of
years, and dispense with the worry of continually looking
out for suitable servants. The wives and daughters of these
families are cooks, parlor, house, and dairy maids, laun-
dresses and well up to other female country work. Respect-
ing the artizans, the heads of the families and sons are skilled
carpenters, blacksmiths, joiners, fitters, etc., etc., and not to
be surpassed in their trades. They have all been chosen
with great care regarding character and suitability to emi-
grate to the Republic. To a colony each family would be a
cheap acquisition at a hundred pounds."

Dineen in the "Southern Cross" and the Mulhalls in the
"Standard," when their opposition to the enterprise proved
unavailing, did all they could to arouse the interest of the
Irish community for the decent providing of the immigrants
on their arrival. Edward Mulhall, once more, tried to estab-
lish a society composed of English, Irish and Scotch, as
there were people of the three nationalities amongst the
immigrants, and to "unite the races who were losing caste
for want of united effort." Samuel B. Hale lent his office
for the purpose of holding a meeting in February, a few
days before the arrival of the "Dresden," to make arrange-
ments whereby the immigrants would be attended to. The
meeting was a large one, "made up of the principal mer-
chants, bankers and estancieros of the Province," so said
Mr. John Drysdale, who presided thereat. Mr. Gartland,
an Irish-American, announced through Father Gaughran

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 443

that he would take fifty famOies, giving each forty squares
of land, about a hundred Irish acres, and means of subsist-
ence for at least a year. The British Minister wrote to say
that he was informed that accommodation would be provided
at the Immigrants Hotel for the expected passengers, and
that the food there was good and plentiful, as he had seen.
But the Minister seems to have been very easily satisfied or
wholly deceived by his informants, for here is what Father
S. M. Gaughran, O. M. S., wrote of the "accommodation
and food": "Allow me, an eye-witness, to give your readers
some idea of the treatment which the new-arrived immigrants
have received at the Hotel de Imigr antes. Anything more
scandalous could not well be imagined. The 1800 passengers
from the 'Dresden' were allowed to land on Saturday when
the authorities well knew there was no accommodation for
them. Many hundreds of these poor people had not received
orders for the hotel before leaving the ship, and weary hours
were spent in the struggle to get to the table where these
orders were issued. Then, the orders obtained, strong men
could fight their way through the throng of Italians into the
dining hall, but the weak, the women and children were left
supperless. It was soon evident that unless some special
arrangements were made even the shelter of a roof could not
be obtained. At the instance of Mr. Johnston, the Director
promised to clear out the dining hall after supper and to
allow the women and children to sleep there for the night.
The promise was not kept. Men, women and children,
hungry and exhausted after the fatigues of the day, had
to sleep as best they might on the flags of the court-yard.
To say they were treated like cattle would not be true, for
the owner of cattle would at least provide them with food
and drink, but these poor people were left to live or die
unaided by the ofiicials who are paid to look after them, and
without the slightest sign of sympathy from these officials.
I am told that as a result a child died during the night of
exhaustion. In England those responsible would be prose-
cuted for manslaughter, but in this land of liberty no one

444 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

minds. On Sunday things were nearly as bad, and were it
not for the generosity of Mr. Duggan and Mr. Johnston
and other gentlemen, who themselves provided food and
helped to serve it out, other deaths might have had to be re-
corded. No one who witnessed these scenes of helpless, hope-
less despairing misery can forget them until his dying day;
and aU must pray that, until the arrangements which hu-
manity and decency would prompt have been made, no more
immigrants from the British Isles may arrive in Buenos
Aires. As many of these poor people are badly clad and
in want of bed-clothes, the Superioress of the Irish Convent,
Calle Tucuman, 1905, kindly consents to receive clothes,
blankets, etc., for the immigrants."

The "Dresden," somehow, has left an ugly memory
amongst our people, although the smallest bit of fault does
not attach, in connection with it, to any one but the Gov-
ernment and their agents, Messrs. O'Meara and Dillon. The
Immigration Department of those days was, like most other
Government Departments, mostly an institution for the up-
keep and maintenance of a group of party hangers-on who
had no more thought of honestly earning the salaries they
drew, and seeking to advance the interests and raise the honor
of their country than they had of believing that "gringos"
(foreigners) could be anything but an injury and a menace
to the country. The wealthy Irish of the city, and, indeed,
all who were appealed to, did everything possible to help and
relieve the immigrants, and in addition to those already
referred to, the nuns of the Irish Convent, Dr. Newberry,
Mr. Mullaly and Mrs. Lace earned the special gratitude of
the immigrants and of all who had a sympathetic interest
in them.

Running over some of the names and events worth notic-
ing in the decade '80-'90 I may mention that Father John
Peter Gormley, nephew of Mgr. Curley and native of Ire-
land, was ordained priest in Buenos Aires in December, '80,
and died of smallpox in May, '82. In '80 there was a British
American Relief Committee in Buenos Aires, on which were

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 445

Messrs. M. Duggan, M. Carroll, E. T. Mulhall, Forrester
and Dean Dillon. This Mr. Carroll was the promoter of
the Father Fahey Testimonial in 1865, and he took a leading
part in the Irish Relief Fund movement in '80. He was a
Galway man and came to Buenos Aires in the year 1860,
from Manchester, as a clerk in the firm of Bates & Stokes,
rising afterwards to be manager of a house of that company
in Mexico and later in Lima. He seems to have been a man
of considerable oratorical power, a great worker, and an
organizer of more than ordinary ability; he was very pro-
nouncedly what we now call a shoneen. He kept very for-
ward in the Irish affairs of his day, such as they were, and
made himself particularly busy getting up some sort of a
reception to the chips of British royalty who visited this
city in '81, thereby gaining the public thanks of the English
Minister. He got his children educated in England, and
died in Montevidio in 1896. Being employed in English con-
cerns he, of course, had no alternative, when he took part
in public affairs, to being more loyally English than the
English themselves. Like many of our present-day Irish-
men, he was as Irish as was good for his business. The
Irish Hospital now being suppressed, Mr. John Browne col-
lected from sixty persons of Irish name, $4850 for the
British Hospital.

In 1881 Father M. L. Leahy collected among the Irish
Chaplains and forwarded to Archbishop Croke, "to express
their sympathy for the Irish farmers," the sum of $6500
from the following : M. L. Leahy, Edmund Flannery, Samuel
O'Reilly, Mgr. Curley, Thomas Mullady, Fr. Gray, $1000
each, and J. J. Purcell $500. The Holy Cross College
(Irish) in December, '81, at its examinations had its hall
decorated with United States and Argentine flags, a select
company invited, and closed its proceedings with "Auld Lang
Syne!" Father Fidelis Kent-Stone presided. There was
something of a movement in '82, largely the work of Michael
Dinncen, to establish a kind of local Land League for the
good of the landless Irish sheep farmers in Argentina. He

446 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

was then new as Editor of the "Southern Cross," sole con-
trol of which he held for about ten years, the late William
Bulfin joining him as associate Editor in 1892. He retired
altogether from the paper a few years later and died in his
native Bandon in October, '96. Dinneen had been some time
previously a professor in the University of Chili and was
about to open a college in San Pedro when the editorship
of the paper was offered to him. He was a highly educated
man, a decidedly able writer, and he is said to have trans-
lated some of the Classics into Gaelic. It was under liis con-
trol that the "Southern Cross" first began to show anything
like sturdy Irish national spirit. In 1883 Dinneen reviewed
Sarmiento's book, "The Conflict of Races in America," and
was a little severe on the old Argentine statesman. Sarmi-
ento was a very dogmatic kind of man and as full of the
well-known native amor propio as any old man could be;
he flew into a wild passion and abused and vihfied the whole
Irish race. With him Tammany Hall, the famous New York
political party organization, and the Catholic Church in that
city were all one, and all Irish; Father Fahey was a domi-
neering boss who kept the Irish in ignorance under him, the
Irish Nuns were not fit to be teachers of Argentines, and at
home would be only servant girls, etc., etc. This outburst
of the old Mason made something of an incident, for nearly
all the papers took him up for the bitterness and injustice
of his attack on so respected and deserving a portion of the
community. There were numerous letters and articles in the
press replying to him, and the "Standard," recommending
that the matter be dropped, as not worth bothering so much
about, very neatly remarking that the old man was only liv-
ing on a worn out fame, and was now like a fallen lamp-post
whose light was out and which was itself only an obstacle
on the way. Don Domingo, or "Don Yo," as he used to be
called, in allusion to his egotism, who was a good patriot,
a generally wise statesman, and a delightful writer, was
probably sorry afterwards for this unseemly fit of temper
for he publicly renounced Masonry and wrote a rather seii-

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 447

sible letter advising people to cease setting Masons and
clerics, natives and foreigners against each other.

The St. Patrick's Day Banquet in '84 was attended by
Mayor Alvear, and ladies were present at the feast, Dinneen
seems to have been the organizer of the celebration and pre-
sided. The General Brown Club was reorganized this year
and changed its name to that of the Almirante Brown Club.
It was Argentine, political, and open to everybody, but
specially bent on "making the voices of the English-speaking
Portenos heard in the Senate." It was organized and kept
up by Irish, but that was all that was Irish about it — Dean
Dillon was its new president. The year following another
Irish club was founded, this time non-political. Dean Dillon
was prominent in helping and encouraging this one too,
and it soon had premises at 233 Reconquista, with a piano
and billiard table of its own. Like so many other Irish clubs
and societies it made a very promising start and then fell
into decay and disappeared as suddenly as it had come into
existence. It commenced the year '86 with a cash balance
on hand and 120 town and camp members in good standing.
Eight or ten of its leaders paid in a guarantee fund of
$100 each, Dinneen made an offer of 200 books to start
a library with. Dr. O'Farrell, Deputy Murphy, the Sufferns,
the Dean, the Editor and many other men of influence were
in the club, but it went the way of all the others of its long
family in Buenos Aires, in due course.

I must introduce a matter here which, as it was one of
the wonders of its time among our people and for long a
topic of interested conversation, may be worth keeping ac-
count of. It was the floating of the famous Curumalan
Company by Edward Casey, its capitalization being four
million dollars, gold, and the following being its chief assets :
100 leagues of land at $25,000 per league, $2,500,000;
53,400 mares at $3 per head, $160,200; 110 thoroughbred
stalhons at $5000 each, $55,000; 40 thoroughbred stallions
at $200 each, $8000; 110 mares at $200 each, $22,000; 50
thoroughbred mares and stallions at $1000 each, $50,000;

448 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

22,000 cows, including a herd of fine bred animals, at $7
each, $154,000; 95,000 sheep, including imported rams and
a fine bred flock, at $1.50 each, $137,500; 160 leagues of
land at $1500 per league, $195,000; settlement estancia
house, sheds, etc., $105,000; Pigue and Arroyo Corto lands,
$107,300. The Company failed.

In '86 the Passionists opened their monastery. Holy
Cross, and the Pallotine Fathers, B. Feeney, J. P. Banning
and W. Whitmee, arrived and founded their Order in Mer-
cedes. They at once set to collecting funds to fit up and
repair the old Convent of the Sisters of Mercy and suc-
ceeded rapidly. In '82 the General Brown Club began
agitating the question of a statue to the old Admiral from
Mayo, to be cast from cannon taken by him at the battle
of Pozos. Four years later the monument was unveiled at
— the little camp town of Adrogue ! Among the well-
known Irishmen who died in the Eighties were Michael Mur-
ray, "Big Mickey," who came out at the age of 22, in
1835, and was one of the very early and very successful
sheep-farmers. Three years later, Patrick Bookey, after
half a century's residence in the country, passed away at
the age of 73. Bookey took a prominent part in all Irish
charitable and patriotic affairs serving as treasurer and
trustee for nearly all the early Irish funds and property.
Michael Duggan, the richest Irishman in Argentina, if not
the richest Irishman in the world, followed the other two
wealthy Westmeathmen to the better land, five years after
the latter, in '88. He was forty years in the country and
came when but a boy of twenty. He began, undoubtedly, at
the bottom rung, and, in so far as the acquiring of wealth
went, got several steps above the highest of his countrymen.
He was a simple living man, charitable and generous, and
always was ready to help his own people. Unlike too many
of our wealthy Irish of to-day he always preferred his own
countrymen in every branch of his vast business, nor thought
it lent him any importance or advantage to fill the better
paid posts in his coiicerns with men pf other breed, John

GEN. BROWN CLUB ACTIVE, ETC. 449

Browne, another pioneer Irish settler, went home on a visit
to his native Wexford and died a few weeks after his arrival.
He had been nearly fifty years in Argentina. This decade
was a decidedly severe one on the Irish Chaplains and priests
connected with the Irish mission here, as it carried away no
fewer than ten of them.

CHAPTER XXIV

Return of the Sisters of Mercy — Sale of the Old Irish Orphanage —
Building of the New One — The Founding op the Boys' Orphanage
—Items fron 1890 to 1900.

THE last decade of the nineteenth century commences
with the Sisters of Mercy back in the old Convent
they founded a full generation previously, and from
which they had been absent for ten years. One of their first
acts on resuming their activities was to open an Irish Girls'
Home. The Orphanage, which had been in financial diffi-
culties for some years immediately before, once more made
a very encouraging start. New interest was aroused and
the next Report of the managing committee declared the
institution out of debt, for the first time. It received nearly
$20,000 that year and had on hand at the end of the term
somewhat more than $2000; the number of orphans, how-
ever, was but slightly over sixty. The movement to sell the
old property was again renewed in the following year and
the Central Committee and the Passionist Fathers were nego-
tiating a deal by which the unfinished building, now the
Monastery, at Arroyo Luna, was to become the new Irish
Orphanage. The majority of the Committee were in favor
of the transaction — the notion of a self-supporting agri-
cultural and industrial school being still a favorite hobby
with them. So far had the arrangements in this matter gone
that a great meeting was held at the new building in June,
'91, to popularize the idea, and a special train was char-
tered to bring a contingent from Buenos Aires to see the
advantages of the new place, and be convinced of the sound-
ness of the transaction. The buUding up to date had cost
$73,000, owed about $23,000, and would still need some

450

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 451

$15,000 or $20,000 to finish it. Dr. O'Farrell, President of
the Central Committee, Messrs. O'Curry and Suffern and
several of the Irish Chaplains were present. The feeling of
the meeting was undoubtedly, in so far as it was expressed,
in favor of the deal. A lively newspaper correspondence,
however, was started following the meeting and a strong
opposition to the arrangement developed; some holding that
the meeting was utterly unrepresentative of the real sup-
porters of the Irish Orphanage, whilst others insisted that
it was quite the other way. It was then reported that sick-
ness had broken out in the old Orphanage, smallpox and
measles, which was alleged as something of a reason for the
selling of the place. Dr. Gannon was then giving his at-
tendance free to the institution and received the thanks of
the Committee for his services. At this same meeting of the
Committee the President explained the position in which the
negotiations with the Passionist Fathers stood, urging at
the same time that the bargain be closed. Mr. Moore op-
posed the arrangement on many grounds, but chiefly because
the place was so much out of the way. Dinneen would over-
come this objection by placing the institution under the
control of a local committee who could attend to its affairs
without much inconvenience. Father O'Reilly was fully in
agreement with Mr. Moore, and in addition, strongly ob-
jected to taking over a concern unfinished and in debt; his
remarks were very pointed and convincing. Mr. Kenny pro-
posed closing the bargain on condition of the building being
finished and all debts paid off by the Passionist Fathers.
There was a long discussion in which it was stated that
Father Gray would bring out a Community of Brothers from
Ireland to conduct the institution, and this further, though
little known, historical fact also came to light. Mr. Moore
stated that out of all the chapels and institutions the Irish
people had built they had nothing they could now call their
own except the Irish Orphanage, and that had gone very near
slipping out of their hands like the San Salvador property
which was taken over by the Jesuits on condition of always

452 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

having two Irish priests in their institution to attend to the
Irish people. Dr. O'Farrell replying to this statement said,
he examined the title-deeds of that property and he found
not one word about any such condition in them. Mr. Suf-
fern liked the idea of the transaction, but thought it was
too important a matter to be settled by a committee meet-
ing only, and proposed that a general meeting be called to
pass on it. On a vote the bargain was decided upon by
six to three, pending the sanction of a general meeting. On
the news of these proceedings getting abroad, so strong
became the opposition to the proposed arrangement that the
Passionists withdrew their proposals, and the question was
dropped. For the next couple of years the affairs of the
Orphanage were prosperous, there being a balance on hand
at the end of each term, while the number of children taken
care of rose to above 130. But in June, 1893, at a general
meeting composed of sixty-four persons it was once more
decided to sell the property of the Irish Catholic Associa-
tion, and another contest was inaugurated. The validity of
the general meeting just held was questioned by the anti-
sellers, and how strong their case was may be seen by the
following letter of Mr. David Suffern. This letter is of
interest here, as is obvious, for other reasons than the argu-
ments it puts forward: "Father Fahey's will stipulates that
for the sale of the grounds, etc., on which the old Convent
stands, the written consent of fifty Irishmen must be ob-
tained. At a meeting held on the 10th of September, 1889,
at which nearly 100 Irishmen were present, the then elected
Committee was empowered to sell, so far as talk went, but
in reality, during the four years that the Committee held
ofBce, only 32 Irishmen signed the authorization. On the
18th instant, another general meeting was held at which the
advisability of selling was again discussed. The newly-
elected Committee was authorized to sell, and 64 signatures
were attached to the authorization, but they were not signa-
tures of 64 Irishmen. The following is an analysis of these
signatures :

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 453

(a) Irishmen who signed and voted "for" the sale —
Messrs. M. Dinneen, M. G. Mulhall, P. S. Conway, Patrick
Cole, Felix W. Dolan, J. S. Royston, Thomas Nevin, E. J.
Byrne, James Reynolds, Bernard Feeney, Edward Alpin ( ?),
J. Foley Kelly, M. Brown, Louis Greaven, L. M. Kelly, M.
C. Eustace, W. Bulfin, M. J. Kehoe, Walter Duffy, Rev. E.
O'Reilly, T. F. Murphy, Rev. P. O'Grady, Robert Downey,
Ed. Hanly, F. H. Mulhall, Thomas Atkinson, James Ham,
Rev. H. Gray, James F. Feeney — in all 29.

(fo) Irishmen who signed on understanding that they
merely bore witness to result of division, but voted "against"
sale — Rev. S. O'Reilly, and Messrs. Diego Carthy, James
Savage, Gmo. Crinnigan, M. J. Byrne, Michael Seery, John
Spcirin, James Donnelly, John Cunningham, William Cava-
nagh — 10. Irishmen: 39.

(c) Argentines who signed and voted "for" sale —
Messrs. S. G. O'Farrell, Ed. Tormey, John Moore, Michael
Brennan, J. F. Gahan, Stgo. Connaughton, T. A. Gahan,
W. J. Dillon, Rev. Jose Geoghegan, Stgo. Kenny, T. F.
Kenny, Jose Murray, R. McGovern, Dionisio Harrington,^
Juan Leonard — 15.

(d) Argentines who signed but voted "against" sale —
Ed. Morgan, G. M. Mooney, and David Suffern — 3.

(e) Argentines, "menores de edad" (minors), who
signed, and voted for sale — G. R. Kenny, Thomas Gahan — 2.

(/) Orientales who signed and voted "for" sale — E.
Kenny, Rd. Kenny.

(g) North Americans who signed and voted "for" sale —
C. H. Doherty and John F. Cochrane.

(h) Englishmen who signed and voted "against" sale —
Rev. J. J. C. Petty.

Different nationalities, 25; total signatures, 64.

I have been somewhat lengthy in the analysis so as to
give all who were present an opportunity of impugning it.
If I have classified any Irishman as Argentine or vice versa

^ Mr. Harrington corrected, saying that he was Irish-born.

454 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

and the gentlemen write to me (my address is S063 Cordoba)
before 5th of July next, and on his honor point out the
mistake, I will rectify with same publicity as this, but one
or two errors will not alter the main point at issue. As
the validity of the authorization to sell rests solely on the
signatures of Irishmen, I will leave the 25 of different nation-
alities on one side and deal only with the 39.

(a) Frs. O'Grady and Gray and Mr. J. F. Kelly did
not vote although they signed — the first as per letter — and
when the division took place the other two gentlemen were
making out the scrutiny of the election. To avoid discus-
sion, however, I will admit that all three voted for the sale,
and I will even admit that through some subtlety of the
law the ten signatures of (b) may be construed into having
aquiesced in it; but twist and torture logic as you will you
cannot make 50 out of 39. Consequently, the 18th of June
authorization is utterly useless and the new Committee can-
not act upon it. Father Fahey's foresight has thus three
times (sale to S. H. Nuns, 1889, '93 Committee and 18th
of June attempt) saved the Convent, and the fact that it
has not yet been possible to get 50 Irishmen to consent to
the sale clearly proves their views on the matter. (Whilst
I write. Irishmen are signing protests in Arrecifes, Giles, San
Antonio and other "partidos" against 18th of June at-
tempt.) Hitherto the resistance to the sale has been only
of a passive nature, and if another general meeting be called
with this object let camp Irishmen come into town and in
unmistakable terms make known their wishes to the effect
that "it is the unalterable decision of the Irish community
not to sell the Irish Convent and Orphanage." To conclude
we must now not "rest on our laurels" but "be up and
doing." The Orphanage cannot continue as at present. It is
only the forbearance of the Board of Health that allows the
actual number of inmates. An effort must be made to rebuild,
and for this money must be forthcoming. Let subscription lists
be started at once in camp and town. Let the wealthy give
their thousands and the poor their mite, but let us all give.

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 455

If money cannot be obtained, and as the place is not to be
sold, there remains but one alternative — turn out the
Orphans, close the doors of the establishment, and then to
our everlasting shame place over it the following inscription :
"Here was the Irish Orphanage."

In the discussion which the June general meeting called
forth, a lady wrote that Father Fahey bought the portion
of the Rio Bamba property on which was the Irish Hospital,
expressl}^ for that purpose, and that portion of the Hospital
was to be a home for old men, and that the property was
never intended by him to be used for anything else. It is
strange that while Father Fahey's "will," as to the selling
of the property, has been stickled for so hard and so long,
scarcely anybody has bothered, since soon after his death,
to respect his wishes as regards the Irish Hospital and
home for old men.

In the September following a general meeting gathered.
Father Flannery presiding. Dr. O'Farrell pressed his plan
for the sale of the old and the building of a new Orphanage.
Here are some of the figures : $250,000 could be got for the
old place, a suitable site of 13,300 square varas could be got
for $40,000, and by expending $150,000 on a building to
hold 300 there would still be $50,000, or more, to be in-
vested in house property as an endowment to the institution.
Not to sell would entail the collecting of $150,000 to make
the necessary repairs and additions, the Municipality insist-
ing that the present building ought to only house 60 chil-
dren. Father Flannery gave place to Mr. M. G. Mulhall,
in order to speak in support of the sale. Mr. Suffern
strongly opposed it, and Mr. E. J. Byrne stated that the
property, at the way property was selling in the neighbor-
hood, was worth more than $300,000. Recent sales close
by had brought $35 the vara, and there were 10,000 square
varas in the Convent and Orphanage grounds. In the discus-
sion as to finding a suitable out-of-town site. Father O'Reilly
suggested Lujan as the most convenient; others had, of
course, other sites they thought more favorable, and it ap-

456 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

peared that a sale was certain to be agreed to, yet when
it came to counting the votes it was found that 81 were
against a sale and but 31 in favor of the proposal.

The Central Committee finding their plans had not the
public approval, resigned, and a new, anti-selling Committee,
of which James Carthy and David Suffern were president
and secretary, respectively, was elected. This new admin-
istration found its task — that of keeping the Orphanage
running and at the same time complying with the demands
of the Health Department — so impossible that it called a
general meeting in the following December and presented its
resignation. A new Committee was then chosen on the under-
standing that the old institutions would have to be sold,
and that as soon as possible. Dinneen presided at this meet-
ing, and there was a very lively passage at arms between
him and Mr. Andrew Geoghegan, because of some remarks
Geoghegan made about the Irish. Dinneen was a very fighty
man — someone once called him the fighting editor — and
Geoghegan was not a bit more meek than he, and it was an
odd and somewhat pathetic thing to see that day the only
really turbulent spirits in the assembly, of about 60 men,
were two of the oldest of those present. The late Dr.
McDonnell, who has since figured so prominently in Irish
Catholic Association affairs, then lately returned from Rome,
made his first appearance at an I. C. A. meeting that day.
Bulfin and E. J. Byrne acted as tellers in the election, Suf-
fern serving as secretary. The new Committee appointed a
sub-committee, to treat for the sale of the institutions, con-
sisting of Dr. O'Farrell, Patrick Ham and Felix Dolan.
General meetings and extraordinary general meetings were
the regular order then, and in the following February another
one met ; O'Farrell presided and there were 120 people pres-
ent, 71 of whom were Irish born, of these 66 approved of the
selling of the Convent and Orphanage and the long contest
on that point was ended.

The names of those taking part in this meeting merit
being recorded and so I will give them following. Members

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 457

of Committee present: O'Farrell, Suffern, Ham, Byrne,
Dolan, Dinneen, Greaven, Moore, O'Grady, Gannon. Irish-
men who signed for sale: John Kenny, Wm. Kavanagh, J.
S. Meaney, 0. Burrows, J. Richards, S. Barry, J. McCor-
mick, M. Browne, Wm. Quinn, M. Finnegan, J. Sperin, F.
Duffy, D. Ronan, P. Whelan, E. Hannon, J. Donnelly, T.
Duggan, G. Foley, E. J. Byrne, Wm. Leyden, P. Doherty,
J. P. Ryan, M. Eustace, P. S. H. Conway, Wm. Ussher,
Luke Doyle, J. Moore Kelly, A. Ennis, P. Dunne, J. Dunne,
P. Feely, Mr. Doherty, Wm. Bulfin, B. Feeney, M. Duggan,
P. Byrne, Patrick Cole, N. Cunningham, T. Daly, M.
Mclnes, P. A. Mulhall, M. Hearne, N. Fitzgerald, A. Daly,
E. Hearne, J. Keegan, M. Murphy, J. Kenny, D. Kiernan,
J. Cunningham, J. Bowen, J. Gallagher, P. McCarthy, J.
Shields, T. Nevin, J. Kilduff, L. Daly, M. Dowling, R. Ham-
mond, J. Savage, T. F. Murphy, J. Loughlin, John Burke.

Next year, in the month of April, the property was
sold to the Christian Brothers. The transaction was pushed
through in such a hurry and so secretly that not even all
the Committee knew about the bargain being closed. Father
O'Grady at once resigned his membership as a protest
against this unnecessary hurry and secrecy. In the pub-
lished criticisms of the sale it was shown that lands within
a few squares of the Irish property were sold for from $50
to $100 per square vara, cash down, while that of the
Orphanage was negotiated at $40 per square vara, the price
to be paid in instalments running over a period of some
six or seven years, the outstanding balance to bear interest
at 4% V^^ ^^^^ P^i* annum. The bargain seems to have
been a most extraordinary one; the papers of the time may
be consulted for very full information on the question. In
February of 1897 a meeting was held in Mr. Ham's office
at which the Committee decided to buy from Mr. Thomas
Duggan, for the lump sum of $90,000, the land on which
the Orphanage now stands, containing, it was announced,
115,000 square varas. It was further announced that of
this sum, $50,000, bequeathed by the late Michael Duggan

458 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

to the Orphanage, would be considered already paid, leav-
ing the Committee to provide only $40,000. The proposed
cost of the new building would be $150,000, the institution
to have a chapel and accommodation for WO children and
a staff of nuns sufficient to teach and care for that number
of inmates. In the following May the Committee, Messrs.
O'Farrell, Byrne, Moore, Gannon, Carthy, Suffern, Feeney,
Ham, Dolan, Fitzgerald, Greaven, Fitzsimmons, Duggan
and Murphy, met at the Orphanage and accepted the plans
of Messrs. Inglis and Thomas. The plans were highly
praised by the Committee for their "architectural beauty,
general distribution, comfort and hygiene."

The sale of the old buildings with the discussion of the
transaction which followed must have greatly dulled the
public interest, for a general meeting to elect officers for a
new term, held in the following October, only brought
together 35 persons, the solitary representative of the camp
Irish being J. Kegan of Navarro. Dr. O'Farrell, presiding,
took care at this meeting to explain that the $50,000 allowed
by Mr. Thomas Duggan in part payment for the land pur-
chased from him by the Committee was given "in fulfillment
of the late Michael Duggan's dying wish." He further an-
nounced that the late Thomas Gaynor of Piran had left half
his fortune, some $70,000, to the Orphanage. At this meet-
ing it was proposed to give a square of land and $50,000,
as a gift, to the committee of the Boys' Orphanage. The
proposal, however, on being questioned, was dropped for
the time being, but two years later, on the motion of Mr.
Bulfin, it was agreed by majority of a general meeting to
give 10,000 yards of the land, where the present Hurling
Field is, corner of Nauquen and Bellavista, to the Ladies
of St. Joseph for this purpose.

In February, 1899, the new Orphanage was occupied and
on March 19 was formally opened. The Central Committee
in control, had already become very unpopular with the
masses of their countrymen. The selling of the old and
the building of the new Orphanage were transactions any-

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 459

thing but satisfactory, and when it was found at the formal
opening of the institution that the Irish Nuns had been re-
placed by Italian Sisters, the English flag raised at the
inauguration and the English Minister brought out to pa-
tronize the function there was much disquieting suspicion
and general indignation. Added to all this, the accounts
of the Association were mixed up in Mr. Ham's business
accounts, and could not be publicly audited, so when the
next general meeting came on, September following the open-
ing of the new place, the Committee's Report was, on the
motion of Mr. Padraic McManus, seconded by Mr. Patrick
McCarthy, rejected. Several of the Committeemen resigned,
and until a new Committee was elected, in the following
March, the requisite number of members to duly constitute
a business meeting of the Committee could not be got
together, although nearly all the gentlemen forming the
Committee lived in the Capital. The general meeting of
March, 1900, is interesting in the light of after events as
well as for the proceedings thereat. Father Patrick O'Grady
and Rev. Dr. McDonnell acted as chairman and secretary,
respectively, and both were proposed for these honorable
positions by Mr. McManus. The meeting had to elect a
Central Committee, and immediately on the polls being de-
clared nine of the gentlemen selected declined the trust re-
posed in them; the nine coming next highest on the poll
were then announced as elected, and four of these refused
to serve. The difficult condition in which the outgoing Com-
mittee had left the affairs of the Association being given
as the reason for not being willing to take on themselves
such a responsibility. In presence of the outcry we hear
in these times against Committees of the I. C. A. it will
be to the point to include here an extract from one of the
many letters which then appeared in the press criticizing
the Committee that had been deposed; it might be taken
almost as an extract from some of the criticisms being pub-
lished at the present time. After referring to the various
refusals to act on the new Central Committee, says the critic

460 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

in question : "Could any censure or reproof for bad manage-
ment be more complete? The men responsible for bringing
the only Irish institution we have to its present deplorable
condition count without their host when they imagine they
can get the priests to again act on a Committee with them."
However, a Committee having the confidence of the Irish
people was soon after got together, and one of their first
official acts was to issue a statement of the conditions they
were confronted with. It commenced by explaining that the
Christian Brothers, who then owed the Association $172,000,
with some back interest, were willing now to pay off this
sum at a discount of 10 per cent. The Association at the
time being paying 9 per cent for money borrowed by the
previous Committee agreed to make terms with the Brothers
at a discount rate of 8 per cent. The arrangement was
duly entered into, but because of some delay that was suf-
fered in the getting through of the legal documents and
formulas the Brothers claimed an interest of some $1300,
which claim, however, they settled by taking half that
amount. These gentlemen, notwithstanding the inexplicably
favorable terms they had got out of the Irish Catholic Asso-
ciation, seem to have been anything but friendly in their
dealings with the institution, and they practically pulled
down the old Orphanage over the heads of the children and
the Sisters before the new buildings were ready to receive
them. It is a remarkable fact, and one that I would very
much rather not to have to record, that in every deal we
have had in connection with this property since Father
Fahey's transfer of the grounds of the Salvador to the
Jesuits down to the Salesian architect's bunglings of a few
years ago, our people have always got the worst of the bar-
gains. No wonder that the great majority of them are
opposed to any such transactions at the present time ! With
all the deductions and discounts the Committee received very
nearly $164,000. Of this amount $94,000 went to pay a
debt due Mr. Ham, and the statement went on to say the
architects were owing a sum not exactly known, that there

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 461

was a lawsuit by the builders for $43,000 pending, and that
a large sum was needed to make some urgent repairs on the
new building. Because of all these debts, dues and demands
the Committee had to make a strong appeal to the public
for subscriptions to keep the institution going. And this
within a few years after the sale of the old property and
the fine Gaynor bequest! The statement I have been re-
ferring to was signed by the following Committee: Rev.
Father Flannery, Rev. L. E. McDonnell, P. Ham, Rev. Pat-
rick O'Grady, E. Tormey, D. Morgan, Rev. J. M. Ussher,
Rev. M. Quinn, M. J. Byrne, Frank Rath, James Connaugh-
ton, L. Casey, Edward Morgan, John Moore, James Carthy,
P. Dowling. From the death of Father Fahey, S9 years
previously, the Irish Convent and property had been under
the control of the non-nationalist, or what has come to be
called the "Shoneen," element of our community, and during
that time the Irish Hospital was suppressed, the Irish Nuns
twice removed from the institutions, the Irish property dis-
posed of three or four times, in as far as the controllers
could dispose of it, and finally the disastrous transactions
touched upon in the foregoing pages were consummated. The
history of the institution since the expulsion of the element
referred to has not been in every way satisfactory, but great
advancement has been made on the old order of things. The
institution is now a truly Irish-Argentine one, with a right
purpose and right ideals, and guided by a spirit which
reflects credit on the free land and faithful old race to which
it belongs. It has always had brave and generous friends;
its property, at a moderate calculation, is at present worth
over two million dollars, current money; that it exists at
all is due to the good sense and good spirit of the common
people who so often gathered to its rescue in days of danger.
Soon after the "Dresden" immigrants were settled in
Naposta little items of news began to find their way back
to Buenos Aires, to the effect that things were not progress-
ing satisfactorily in the new colony, and by the end of 1890
reports of keen distress, even hunger, among the unhappy

462 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

people were in general circulation. Great efforts were made
by some charitable people to tide the colonists over what
was thought would be but a passing spell of unpropitious
happenings; but the wail from that then far-oif land con-
tinued to come more piercing and appealing, and early in
1891 the colony had to be brought back to Buenos Aires.
The years had come bad. There was revolution, and, as a
consequence or a cause thereof, that frequent and hope-
destroying condition of Argentine economic life, "the crisis,"
was on the land. Mr. Gartland suffered like everyone else
who speculated, and was unable to do all he had promised,
and undoubtedly meant to do, for the colonists, so in the
first months of the year the greater part of the settlers
arrived in Buenos Aires, in the greatest distress and misery.
Proposals were made to send the weary and disappointed
families to the Delvalle lands in Pehuajo, but while arrange-
ments to this effect were under way it was seen that some-
thing should be done for those who were unfit for any kind
of camp work. The female children whose parents were
unable to take care of them were admitted to the Irish
Orphanage, and a movement was started for the founding
of an institution, more or less similar to the Girls' Orphan-
age, in which needy boys could be taken care of. The first
public steps in this direction seem to have been made, some
say at the suggestion of the Governor of Buenos Aires,
others at that of the British Minister, on the 17th of April,
when a meeting was held at the Irish Orphanage to under-
take the matter. Fathers O'Reilly, Gray, Dr. O'Farrell and
some other gentlemen were present, and it was announced
that the Government would contribute $4000 towards the
support of an orphanage and school if founded, and in
addition provide school furniture. The meeting decided to
call the new organization "The Fahey Institute," and that
it should be managed and controlled by ladies. The follow-
ing were thereupon chosen for this work: Mrs. M. Mulhall,
Mrs. Dr. Hanly, Mrs. Thomas Duggan, Miss Ryan, Mrs.
Dr. O'Farrell, Mrs. Nelson, Mrs. Achaval, Mrs. Dr. Murphy,

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 463

Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Dillon, Mrs. Lacroz, Mrs. Martin, Mrs.
Galbraith, Mrs. MacAdam, Mrs. J. Duggan, Mrs. H. Dug-
gan, Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Carthy, Mrs. Garraghan, Mrs.
Kirk, Mrs. Kelly, and Miss Moore. Soon after a house
of six rooms was rented from the Lazarist Fathers, for $80
monthly, at 146 Calle Cochabamba. Messrs. M. Mulhall
and T. Duggan were named treasurers, and the Government
donation was promptly handed in. The idea of a boys'
orphanage was among the dreams and hopes of Father
Fahey, and others after his death, notably Father M. L.
Leahy and Dean Dillon, had urged its need, and now that
it was more of a necessity than ever it was well taken up,
and subscriptions came in so generously that from the very
start the undertaking became a success. So, on the 19th
of May, 1891, with thirty-three boys of the returned colon-
ists of Naposta, the institution opened. The terms made
with Father Freret were $80, currency, per month for rent
of house, and $4.10, gold, per head per month, for support
and teaching of the boys. Thus was founded the Boys'
Orphanage — an institution that was very much needed and
that has done a great deal of good amongst our community.
The Rules governing the institution, as published in 1892,
read as follows: 1st. That none but destitute children be
admitted, and that all are free of charge. 2nd. That the
Orphanage be open equally to all English-speaking boys be-
tween the ages of five and ten years, and that in the case
of Protestants they must bring a written request from Her
Majesty's Consul or from one of the resident Protestant
clergymen. 3rd. That no child having any infectious disease
be admitted. The management of the new institution were
looking out for a more suitable location and concern for their
Orphanage from the beginning, and of the many sites sug-
gested the one in Capilla del Senor was chosen, at a cost of
$8500, the area of land then secured being 2400 square
varas. The new establishment was placed under the care of
Mother Catherine Dowlan, of the Order of St. Joseph, an
Irish nun, with two Argentine Sisters, and on the 5th of

464 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

April, 1893, was occupied. It afforded accommodation for
100 boys then; it has since been enlarged and improved con-
siderably.

Of the minor events of the last tenth of the nineteenth
century in Buenos Aires not very many are worth recording,
but a few of particular interest must be noted to correct
some popular mistakes and to help to round out the chapter.
There had for some time been murmurings and hints as to
certain moneys collected by Father Leahy for the raising of
a tribute to Father Fahey's memory. Where was the money ?
What became of it.? Who got it? and so on. In 1892 Mr.
M. J. Byrne asked, through the press, if it was known what
had become of it, and the Editor of the "Standard," than
whom there was then no one living better posted in the
matter, replied to the inquiry to this effect: The money
collected by Father Leahy was used to pay the expenses of
Father Fahey's burial, but was not sufficient to this end,
a balance of $10,000, old money, about two hundred dollars
gold, remaining short. The committee who had the matter
in hand borrowed this sum from the following gentlemen:
M. Duggan, John Hughes, T. Gahan, Kenny Bros., M. and
E. Mulhall, $2000 each. This amount was still due the
lenders, but it was mentioned that they had practically re-
nounced all claim to it. I have often heard it said that
Thomas Armstrong defrayed the expenses of Father Fahey's
funeral, but from this it appears that he must only have
provided the money necessary on the moment and that the
fund referred to was devoted to its repayment, no debt re-
maining over save that to those mentioned. Another fund
about which there was some question was that on hand at
the time of the historic "Parnell Split." This money was,
of course, subscribed for Irish political purposes, and, as
amongst our countrymen everywhere else in the world, the
Split divided our ranks here, some standing by Parnell and
some facing the other way, so for some time an agreement
could not be come to as to which division of the old Party
this money should be paid to. In February, '94, however,

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OP MERCY 465

some £400, almost all the money then in the treasurer's
hands, were remitted to Justin MacCarthy for the benefit of
the Irish Evicted Tenants. It is well that these things should
be made known and the truth plainly recorded, for rumors
of any misapplying of funds raised for public purposes work
for the discredit of our community and the weakening of the
confidence and trust we need and ought to have in each other.

From their early years in Buenos Aires the Sisters of
Mercy were owed a sum of money by Father Fahey, and
through him by the Irish people; some said the amount of
this sum was three hundred pounds, others said it was con-
siderably more, but whatever the exact figure ought to have
been, when the old Convent was sold the Sisters were given
a sum of twenty-five thousand pesos, currency, with which
to provide themselves with a Convent. They immediately
began this work and on the 1st of November, 1896, Arch-
bishop Castellanos laid the foundation stone of their present
home, Estados Unidos and 24 de Noviembre Streets. It is
now the parent house of the Irish Sisters of Mercy in Argen-
tina and has a fine boarding school and a large free school
for girls. The boarders are, of course, mostly Irish- Argen-
tine girls, but girls of other nationalities are also admitted.

In 1896 Dr. L. E. McDonnell, with the following commit-
tee, founded a Catholic Total Abstinence Society in the
South City district : M. Hart, E. J. Brown, T. W. Kennedy,
W. Brown, M. Burke, J. Barber, J. Holmes, D. McCarthy,
W. McKlusky and T. E. Gormley. The society did some
good work while it lasted, but amongst a class of men whose
employment shifts them about a good deal from place to
place it is hard to keep such an organization together for
very long, and in time it dwindled away.

When the Gaelic League of Ireland was six years old,
and had already become a movement plainly with a destiny
before it, the advanced Irish nationalists of Buenos Aires
felt the time had come when they should not alone proclaim
their allegiance to Irish Ireland but lend a willing hand in
the work of its realization. So, in May, 1889, the first

466 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

branch of the Gaelic League of Argentina was founded at
a meeting in the Passionist Monastery. The undertaking
was well organized and carried out and met with ready and
generous support, the membership of the branch immediately
running up to 170. The committee to manage the organiza-
tion elected at this meeting was composed of J. E. O'Curry,
President; Patrick Conway, Vice-President; D. Suffern,
Treasurer; James Savage, Pro-Treasurer; Michael O'Breen,
Secretary; Padraic McManus, Pro-Secretary. The Gaelic
movement took sudden and strong hold on the Irish people
here, and no other community, anywhere, in proportion to
its numbers, has given more generous financial aid to carry
on the struggle at home, ever since, than have the Gaels of
Argentina.

Somewhat earlier than the coming, in organized form,
of Irish Ireland to Buenos Aires another Irish club had been
started under the name of the Porteiio Club. Like so many
of its predecessors it had a fairly promising start, and as
an actual, living organization worked its way out beyond
the limits of this book's reach and right into the twentieth
century. It was of the social order, a manner of society
there ought to be very ample room for amongst our people
in this great Capital.

The first item in this story of the Irish in Argentina
introduces the, even then, old and bitter quarrel between the
Irish and the English nations. Field had to be specially
persecuted by the English pirates, into whose hands he had
fallen, for no other reason than that he was an Irishman.
The last incident to be noted in the century which ended
more than three hundred years later is itself a part of the
same old quarrel. England is, as usual, out pirating; not
South America but South Africa is the scene of her opera-
tions this time, the two Boer Republics are being destroyed.
The sympathy of Irishmen everywhere went forth to the
victimized Republics, and how otherwise could it be with
their own memories? There was then an English priest,
Father Vaughan, in Buenos Aires, collecting money, mostly

RETURN OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY 4G7

from the Irish, and he set to organizing a great high mass
for the fallen English soldiers at which the Irish priests and
people were called on to assist, and so show Argentina that
they were a party, in sympathy at least, to the piracy. What
happened was that the Irish priests and people protested
vehemently against turning a sacred rite to the use of effect-
ing a mere political trick, and as an expression of their true
feelings organized a solemn memorial mass for the fallen
in the Boer cause. So unpopular became Father Vaughan's
proposal, when fully exposed, that he had to abandon the
idea altogether, whilst the services held for the victims of
his Government brought together an immense concourse of
Irish-Argentine people and their friends. The incident did
not betray very real religious spirit on either side, and that
such occurrences have to take place is to be deplored, but
they are inevitable, and they will last and grow more serious
while England persists in her injustice to Ireland.

CHAPTER XXV

In Santa F± and Other Provinces

THE first settlement of our people in Santa Fe is well
within the memory of men not yet very old, but so
far as I know only one of what might be called the
first settlers is still left to tell the tale. Thomas Armstrong
acquired vast estates in this province years before sheep-
farming, as a real industry, extended to such a distance from
the Capital, and on his lands on the upper Pavon he had
some Irishmen employed as early as 1860. A few years
later some families crossed the provincial border into the
Peyrano district, and the earliest purchase of land, by an
Irishman, I have heard of was effected in that locality in '64.
In the following year the testimonial to Father Fahey had
four subscribers from Pavon, already, however, there were
a few Irish families settled in Rosario, attracted thither, no
doubt, by the new railway works started in the beginning
of '63.

When Hutchinson visited the battle-ground of Pavon, a
few months after the historic fight, there were no Irish in
the district. In 1865 the Widow Garrahan, with her sons,
Timothy and James, settled at Arroyo Seco, and they were
the first of our people, in the sheep-raising business, who got
so far north. The next year brought a little colony of four
families from Baradero, with some seven or eight thousand
sheep. This was the first really important treck to Santa
Fe, the treckers being James Conway, Michael Grennon,
Daniel Ryan and Michael Murray, the latter the only one of
the four now surviving. They settled midway between the
Arroyo del Medio and the Pavon on the estate of Senor
Nunez. The Garrahans were Longford people, and Tim

468

IN SANTA FE AND OTHER PROVINCES 469

Garrahan had the fame of being the tallest Irishman in Ar-
gentina; the other four families were from the borders of
Westmeath and Kings County, and were closely akin to each
other. Sheep were then so scarce in Santa Fe and of so
poor a quality that the flocks of the newcomers were regarded
with wonder and admiration by the natives. The largest
flocks theretofore in that district numbered only a few hun-
dred and were, comparatively, of very inferior quality.

The constant spread of the area needed for sheep-raising
in Buenos Aires province, the consequent upper tendency of
rents and the good accounts being heard of the Santa Fe
camps soon brought many more settlers, and by a dozen
years or so from the coming of the pioneers the Pavon region
and the lands on to Aceval and Saladillo were pretty fully
occupied with Irish sheepfarmers, amongst whom may be
found the following Wexford names : Pierce, Mitty, Donnelly,
Hogan,, Mackey, Scallon, Jordan, Martin, Hier, Fortune,
Cardiff, etc., whilst Hammond, McGuire, Mahon, Seery,
O'Connor, Murray, Boohan and Metcalf came to reinforce
the Westmeath detachment. Ussher and Shannahan were
from Galway and Cork respectively. These are only a few
of the first settlers, and who are nearly all represented in
the district still.

In 1865 an enterprising gentleman from County Clare,
named Henry Barclay, came to Santa Fe with the purpose
of obtaining a grant of land from the Government of the
Province whereon to establish a colony of his county people.
The negotiations in the affair were slow and unsatisfactory,
and Barclay died in Rosario before anything came of them.
The next couple of years saw the sheepmen penetrate as far
outward as Melincue and as far northward as Roldan.
Among the migrants of this year, '67, came Patrick O'Shea
from the district of San Antonio de Areco, getting, as the
Pole seekers used to say, farthest north, with sheep, up to
his time. Three years later his son, Patrick, entered the
Franciscan Order in San Lorenzo, and in time became one
of the best known Irish priests in the country. As this

470 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Franciscan became the most noted and beloved, so far, among
our Santa Fe colony a little sketch of his life here will be to
the point.

He came with his parents and other members of his
family from Moyglass in the County of Wexford when he
was but three years old, and grew up with them in the dis-
trict of San Antonio. In his twenty-first year he entered
the Monastery and ten years later was ordained to the priest-
hood. In the fifteen years of his life as a priest he filled
all the posts of honor and responsibility in his community
and in the last year of his life founded a new house of his
Order, that at Echosurtu in Rosario. He had an extraor-
dinary faculty for acquiring languages, and as well as in
Spanish, preached in English, Basque, Italian, German,
French, and in various dialects of Itahan. These linguistic
acquirements made him specially effective as a missionary,
and there was not a colony of Europeans in Santa Fe Prov-
ince that he did not minister in. His visits to the Indian
tribes, which his Order had done so much to civilize and
protect, were rich in good to the wild people and plentiful
in dangers and hardships for the missionary. But Father
O'Shea did not confine his missionary labors wholly or even
chiefly to the struggling colonists from the European con-
tinent or the savage communities of the desert. It is quite
safe to say that there was not an Irish family in Santa F^,
in his time, that he did not find out and visit, especially in
the days before there was established a regular Irish Chap-
laincy in Rosario, while throughout the Province of Buenos
Aires he was as well known as any of the official Irish Chap-
lains. A man of vast experience and keen sense of humor,
it was not strange that he had a wonderful fund of stories,
comical, and of adventures among the untamed aborigines
and the scarcely less rude colonists of the remote settlements,
and no one could recount a tale with more drollery and grace
than he could. Many and pleasant are the stories and say-
ings he has left among his people, and they are still remem-
bered and retold when some incident or recollection brings

IN SANTA FE AND OTHERfPROVINCES 47l

the simple-minded, kindly-hearted Franciscan, and patriotic
Irishman, to the minds of those who knew and loved him
in the old days. He was a man above the medium in height,
well formed, dark complexioned, with a round, pleasant,
though not handsome, face. In some attack on a remote
mission by bad Indians he suffered several wounds, one of
which disfigured his nose very much, but this disfigurement
did not bother him greatly and it helped to give point to
more than one or two of his jokes. ^ The present writer
had a friend long ago in Rosario, who at times had the habit
of getting too festive, and on these occasions he usually
knocked his nose, which was naturally large, against some-
thing, even, I am sorry to say, it not infrequently came in
contact with mother earth herself. Father O'Shea met him
one day while the traces of some of these collisions were
still painfully visible, and looking at him with an air of
comic sympathy he asked: "Musha, Mike, what happened
your nose?" "Oh, Father," Mike answered, a little per-
turbed, as he feared a lecture, for his questioner could give
a very biting one when he wanted to, "I was looking for
something in the dark and knocked against the back of a
chair." The priest closed up his lips very tightly, gave an
expressive shake of his head and merely commented: "Well,
Mike, if you keep on looking for things in the dark like
that you'll soon have as handsome a nose as my own."

His life was one of incessant labor, in all circumstances
and conditions, yet no one ever came in contact with him
but was brightened and cheered by his pleasant word or
timely joke. He fell sick in his new monastery at Echosurtu,
returned to the old house in San Lornezo and passed to the
reward of his goodness in the first days of 1895. He brought
into his Order two young Irish Argentines, the late Father
Nicholas Metcalf and the present Father Lorenzo C. Mur-
ray, both natives of the Parish of Zarate, and who were

1 There is also the story that Fr. O'Shea got this injury by a half blind
coach driver running into a lamp-post with him once upon a time when he was
hurrying to catch a train.

47^ THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

ordained to the priesthood in the years 1899 and 1900, re-
spectively.

The lands occupied by the Irish sheepfarmers in Santa
Fe, extending along the Parana, at the beginning, up close to
Rosario and westward some eight or ten leagues from the
great river, were amongst the best sheep camps in all the
country, and those who settled there made fortunes fast.
A sheep-man from Pavon, Timothy Galvin, published a state-
ment in the latter Seventies, to the eifect that in two years
he made sufficient money, from one flock of sheep, to retire
on to Ireland. Of course this is not a very definite state-
ment, as he does not mention how much his sufficiency should
amount to, but ordinary flocks were said to yield as much
as twelve or fifteen hundred dollars, gold, per annum, clear
profit, which in those days was a quite considerable sum. The
region, as might be expected, soon became overrun with
sheep, and no part of the Republic was more thickly settled
with Irish families till the last five or six years of the cen-
tury, when agriculture became more profitable than pastur-
age, and flocks had to, like Horace Greeley's young man, go
west. But the early settlers had the wisdom and good for-
tune to invest their savings in the purchase of land, and
to-day a large proportion of the pretty and comfortable
estancias all across southern Santa Fe and far into Cordoba
are the property of happy and prosperous Irish-Argentine
families.

With the crossing of the Arroyo del Medio by the first
Irish sheepfarmers coincides pretty closely the first settling
of Irishmen in the city of Rosario. The place had then about
twenty thousand inhabitants, some one-half of whom were
foreign-born. Although up to a short while before this
period the town was of little or no importance it was not
without a very interesting history, as far as it went back.
Francisco Godoy brought a little band of tame Indians, Cal-
chaquilles, from the north of the Province and established
them, in 1725, at what was then called Paso de los Arroyos.
This little tribe had been Christianized and in their chapel

IN SANTA FE AND OTHER PROVINCES 473

had a greatly beloved image of the Virgin of the Rosary,
which image had a history somewhat like that of the Virgin
of Lujan, and great miracles were believed to have been
effected through devotion to Our Lady, as represented in this
statue. The fame of these miracles spreading abroad into
other districts and towns many people came from great dis-
tances to the little chapel to make offerings to, and receive
favors from, the Ever Blessed Mother, so that the place came
to be known far and near as the Capilla del Rosario de los
Arroyos,^ later shortened to Capilla del Rosario, and finally
to Rosario, as at present commonly known.

In 1801, Tuella, a Spanish government official in the
place, wrote that the town had eighty houses, all told, and
probably some three hundred inhabitants. Santa Fe was
not then, nor for long after, a Province, and the district,
which ran from the Carcarafia river southward to the Arroyo
del Medio and westward from the Parana as far as the
Indians allowed, had about six thousand of a population,
and was part of the Province of Buenos Aires. It may be
of some consolation, although surely of no encouragement,
to gardeners and fruit growers in this many-ways favored
region to know that when the chronicler just named wrote
his record of Rosario the chief pest of the whole district was
the black ants. They were the great enemy of all fruit and
vegetable cultivation, and after one hundred years' struggle
to destroy them they are still the bane and despair of the
man who tries to keep a garden or an orchard. Rosario has
the honor of being the scene of the first raising of the Argen-
tine national flag. At half-past six o'clock on the evening
of February 27, 1812, in front of the town, Belgrano flung
to the breeze, for the first time, the glorious White and
Blue as a banner for his people. But this is not the only
glory of the district. Not quite a year from this date went
by when San Martin gave the locality another classic day
in that mighty charge of his cavalry down from the Monas-

1 Chapel of the Rosary of the Streams.

474 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

tery of San Lorenzo on the approaching and fated Span-
iards. Balcarce burned the place in the civil wars of 1819 —
only 16 out of 180 houses escaping the destruction. Urquiza
made the town his headquarters when mobilizing for his
march to Caseros, and it was he, soon after, established it a
city and a port. The plagues of cholera and yellow fever
scourged it piteously in the Sixties, as I have mentioned in
referring to the noble services of Hutchinson and his wife
in those days of trial.

Of the small Irish colony in the city in '67, one, William
Fitzpatrick, a Queens County man, was drowned in the
Parana and later Barclay succumbed to one of the prevail-
ing plagues. The first Irish names I find as of people in
public business are those of James Keenan and William
Kehoe. The Irish colony was quite small in the city when
Keenan started his hotel in the "Bajada," and it was for
many years the rendezvous or club, as it were, of our people
whether campmen, town residents, or newcomers, and con-
tinued so up to Keenan's death in '88. To the Irish Relief
Fund started in 1880 I find the following contributors, and
they include nearly all the Irish families then in Rosario and
the district outside: James Keenan, T. C. Donovan, John
Shea, Thomas Frayne, E. Hayes, Peter Boland, Thos. Jere-
miah, W. H. Lane, J. Marshall, Walter Gregory, E. Scallan,
Stephen Mackey, P. Jordan, P. Cowan, L. Walsh, R. Ham-
mond, J. Pierce, N. Hogan, Phil Hier, John Donnelly, S.
Gaul, P. Cullen, Mr. J. Cleary, Mrs. P. Cullen, John Kehoe,
Daniel Ryan, Louis Mitty, W. S., E. E. T., F. Doyle, J.
Gaynor, Mrs. Garrahan, Mrs. A. Garrahan, M. J. Grennon,
James Conway, Mike Murray, Mrs. B. Grennon, John
O'Brian, Hugh Fergus, Ben Lea, R. Thompson, J. G. Bruce,
E. V. Macken, G. Baker, Rev. J. R. Wood, J. M. Gay, W.
Kehoe, H. Parkman, H. O. Gray. The result of the col-
lection was nearly $28,000, old money. Three years later
another collection for the same purpose was made by Nicho-
las Hogan of Pavon amongst his neighbors, which amounted
to $2723, and which shows that those Pavoneros were very

IN SANTA FE AND OTHER PROVINCES 475

patriotic and generous. The following were the contributors :
N. Hogan, Mrs. Hogan, P. Hogan, E. Owens, L. Mitty, J.
Mitty, J. Walsh, J. Pierce, Mrs. Hier, Mrs. Donnelly, Rev.
J. Foran, J. Nicholson, Mrs. J. Leahy, P. Cullen, D. Ryan,
M. Murray, S. Furlong, D. Whelan, Jas. Flaherty, P.
Toban, J. Cleary, R. Stewart, Mrs. T. O'Toole and Patrick
Lane.

The losses of sheep suffered in the bad years of the latter
Eighties compelled many struggling sheep farmers to try
some other line of business, and a considerable number of
those turned to railroad work, and Rosario being then the
headquarters of several of the principal railway companies
the Irish population of the place increased greatly in a few
years. The city had already a couple of Irish doctors,
McGuinness and Frend, the former well remembered by the
old people, and the latter still, as for the past thirty years,
the popular and trusted medical adviser of practically all
the Irish community of that region of Santa Fe. But a great
want then was an Irish priest who could devote all his time
and zeal to his own country people, and in 1888 this desi-
deratum was happily satisfied in the coming of the Rev.
John M. Sheehy, a young priest of the Diocese of Water-
ford, a native of Michelstown. Father Sheehy at once set
to providing his flock with a chapel and the necessary house
accommodation for a resident chaplain. In the early days
of '89 a meeting to adopt measures for the building of an
Irish church was held at Mr. Warner's house, in Calle
Puerto, now San Martin, whereat the following committee
was named for the inauguration of the enterprise: Rev. J.
M. Sheehy, A. J. S. White, William Kehoe, W. M'Garrell,
R. Warner, W. Monkhaus, M. Sheehy, and M. Lynch; the
first three being president, secretary and treasurer, respec-
tively. So successful were the new Chaplain's efforts in the
raising of funds wherewith to carry out his mission that at
a meeting in the following September it was announced that
the site for the new church had already been bought and paid
for. This meeting was a more democratic one than that at

476 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Mr. Warner's, as the names of those attending it testify.
It was held on the premises of the St. Patrick's Literary
Society, an organization, Hke so many of its fellows in Buenos
Aires, of all too short a career. The following were present
at the meeting: Father Sheehy, Messrs. Warner, J.
McCarthy, Wm. Kehoe, P. Ward, J. Keenan, M. Gearty,
M. Walker, E. Kehoe, M. Sheehy, E. McCarthy, T. Boohan,
F. Lynch, F. M'Mahon, W. Casey, F. Gearty, M. Gearty,
^. O'Connor, P. Lawler, J. Sullivan, J. Kelly, J. Conway,
J. Garrahan, R. Hammond, J. O'Connor, N. Hogan, and
E. Scallan. The chapel and residence for the chaplain were
commenced at once, and completed in record time. A great
bazaar and raffle organized in the first months of '93 realized
sufficient funds to pay off the remaining debt on the new
edifices in Calle Salta, which edifices, by the way, have been
very largely improved and added to since then.

In 1896 St. Patrick's Catholic Association was formed
for the purpose of holding and controlling the Irish property
already founded, and to be founded. The meeting at which
this step was taken was held in Father Sheehy's parlor, in
the first days of January, and was attended by a very rep-
resentative gathering of Irish and Irish-Argentine residents,
ladies and gentlemen. The following St. Patrick's Day, at
a bazaar given in aid of the church, and held in the Cervantes
Theatre, the first members of the new Association were in-
scribed. This bazaar and raffle, like the previous ones, were
a great success. At that time there was a numerous Irish
colony in Rosario, united and enthusiastic for the advance-
ment of every religious or patriotic Irish cause. There were
then frequent social reunions amongst our community, such
as balls and concerts, and the feasts of St. Patrick and Santa
Rosa were usually marked by one or both of this order of
entertainments. There were still a large number of the first
Irish settlers living and active, and it would seem, from the
changed conditions amongst us, that they were much more
social and neighborly with one another than their children
ishow themselves to be, although individual hospitality and

IN SANTA FE AND OTHER PROVINCES 477

good nature among the latter are virtues that have in no
way failed or diminished. I must not forget to note, while
on this subject, the pleasant annual feasts Don Patricio
Ward used to give to his host of friends in those days at
his estancia near Roldan.

Soon after the dissolution of the St. Patrick's Literary
Society Mr. John Harte, an old member of the Irish National
Foresters, sought to establish a branch of that beneficent
organization amongst his countrymen in the city, and a con-
siderable number of young men were enrolled as members,
but after the first few meetings there was the usual falling
off and slackening of enthusiasm, and like many another
well-intentioned scheme it languished for support and failed
after about a year of rather anemic life. For the remaining
few years of the century there is nothing to be said of our
community in the city but that it went on increasing in
numbers and wealth. In the nearer and older camp districts
the spread of tillage forbade an increase in numbers, for
our people were not then inclined to be tillers of the soil,
but it added greatly to the wealth of those of them in whom
the promise of the second Beatitude was fulfilled — who pos-
sessed the land.

Albarracin, in his history of Cordoba, published a map
which shows that in 1889, from Fort Melincue on to Rio
Cuarto there was not a town, a village, not even an estate
to be noted — it was left as a desert or unknown land. To-
day that desert is a rich and populous region with dozens
of railway-stations and a score of large and prosperous
towns. One of the principal of these is Venado Tuerto, and
the largest and most important Irish settlement anywhere in
the Republic beyond the Province of Buenos Aires. In '79
Edward Casey purchased from the Government of Santa Fe
some one thousand seven hundred square miles of land, and
in the following year commenced the sale, in comparatively
small lots, of the more conveniently located parts of this
immense territory, chiefly to sheepfarmers from the Buenos
Aires camps. Such the date and manner of beginning of

478 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

the Irish settlement of Venado Tuerto and the surrounding
districts. The place was then considered very far out, and
extremely wild. Some of the pioneers still tell touching
stories of the dangers and loneliness of the country, and
of the hardships that had to be endured before railroads,
or indeed roads of any kind, connected it with anything like
civilization. But, as in all new lands where wealth can be
acquired rapidly, this backwoods state could not long pre-
vail, and shops, the mail coach, the chaplain, the doctor,
the schoolmaster came by degrees, and finally, the train was
speeding through the smiling land before the experiences of
the oldest inhabitant were a dozen years long. Father Flan-
nery was the first Irish Chaplain to visit Venado Tuerto,
as before the coming of Father Sheehy to Rosario all the
departments of Santa Fe, where Irish people were settled,
were attended by him at regular intervals.

Outside the department of Venado Tuerto there are
numerous Irish estancias all across Southern Santa Fe and
Cordoba and into San Luis, but with the exception of those
around Melincue and one or two other towns they have all
been established since the beginning of the present century.

Irish residents in Cordoba before the end of the last cen-
tury were almost wholly connected with railroading and other
such enterprises, and can scarcely be considered as settlers or
colonizers. During the four years immediately preceding 1880,
according to Albarracin, but ten Irish immigrants came
to Cordona. The next twenty years, however, saw these ten
several times multiplied, but of the increasing numbers few
turned to the land for a living, and except for here and there
an advance across the borders of the province from Buenos
Aires and Santa Fe by a few sheepmen or cattlemen, the
Irish ingredient in the population was practically confined
to the provincial capital and the principal railroad centers
till the first years of the present cycle.

In Entre Rios some Irish settled as early as they did
in any part of Buenos Aires outside the city. In reports of
passports issued to people going to that province Irish names

IN SANTA FE AND OTHER PROVINCES 479

occur frequently from about 1826. In those days it was
much easier to get to Gualeguachu than to Chascomus or
Pergamino, for there was a fairly regular and comfortable
boat service between the Capital and that Entrerian port,
and until the passing of Urquiza it was considered by many
a safer and more convenient region for sheepfarming than
the outside departments of Buenos Aires. Like in Santa Fe
the natives were more kindly disposed and less given to deeds
of lawlessness than in the Queen Province. But with the
fuller security for property and the more settled government
that came with the administration of Mitre the outer camps
of Buenos Aires began to offer the best inducements to those
inclined to pastoral pursuits and so the movement of our
people coraimenced to be rather from than to the mesapota-
mian Province. Among the names to be met with in records
of affairs in Entre Rios I find O'Brien, Duffy, Donovan,
Bookey, Byrne, O'Donnell, MacNamara, Gaynor, O'Dwyer,
Mackey, O'Shaughnessy and many others less notably Irish,
but which are quite common in Ireland, those given, how-
ever, are unmistakable. The first settlements of our people
in that province were mostly in the Gualeguachu department
and its neighborhood, but Parana in the days of its great-
ness had a little Irish colony, too.

All the provinces have had, and still have, of course, Irish
settlers, some of whom rose to high distinction, as O'Mills
in Catamarca and Malouney in Jujuy, but I must leave the
task of searching after these out-of-the-way offsprings of
Kathleen-ni-Houlihan's scattered tribe to someone, or vari-
ous, among the scattered. I have already urged that several
of these someones tell what they know of their own surround-
ings, seek to know more and record what they learn. Thus
would material be heaped up and preserved for the literary
Goban Saor of the coming day to raise a tower as noble and
lasting, to our race in Argentina, as any of the great works
in lime and granite which the renowned artificer of the Gael
has left to tell "how great was Eire." Names and events
that may seem most commonplace and unworthy of note tp-

480 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

day, because we are so familiar with them, may greatly inter-
est our grandchildren, and so on down through the gene-
rations. So, now that you are at the end of this chapter,
whether you be young or old, man or woman, if you know
anything worth while, bearing on the Irish in Argentina,
set to and write it off to some paper — get it into print, and
you have done something — you have laid your stone on the
earn of the race.

CHAPTER XXVI

Difficulties of Getting at all the Facts of Irish- Argentine History
AND Some of These Facts— The Building of an Old-times House —
Selling Farm Produce — Amusements — Funerals — Health Condi-
tions— Immigration — The Future — Leadership — A Census — Conclu-
sion.

IT was only when searching for the information which I
have tried to set before the reader in the foregoing
chapters that I came to get something of an under-
standing as to how much larger a task the writing of a
history of the Irish in Argentina was than the one I had
mapped out for myself when I decided to write this book.
Although I knew that it would be impossible to deal with
such a subject in a detailed manner in a volume of the size
I proposed publishing, I was quite unconscious of the amount
of material of this kind, of great importance, that lay scat-
tered about and hidden in strange places, and that, from its
quantity and the labor its collection and co-ordinating would
demand, I should have to pass over untouched almost. So
it will be seen that the facts brought together from a number
of sources and forming the story which fills the preceding
pages are only the more prominent and easily discerned
bodies in the fair constellation, to put in that way, of our
people's record in this land. Anyone who looks at the sky
of a fine clear night can see many beautiful stars, but it is
only by careful study, and with the help of certain costly
instruments, that the real beauties of the starry firmament
can be got at. In more or less equal case have I found
myself in scanning the past of our people in this country.
I lacked the time and many other requisites for a sustained
and penetrating view, and thus had to leave much to some-
one better equipped to discover, but I searched with fond-

481

482 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

ness and attention as far as the vision that was mine could
carry, and, although I am well aware of how much I have
missed, I have seen many interesting things — more than I
expected — ^but they are what I may call things of the first
and second magnitude, the less clear members of the cluster
have still to be searched out and mapped.

In New York our wealthier people have formed an Irish-
American Historical Society with members scattered all over
the country, and these members gather or encourage and
assist the gathering of every scrap of historical information
of an Irish or Irish-American character that can be laid
hands upon. The members are not all literary men, nor are
they all very rich men, but they are all patriotic men — good
Americans who are proud of their race and of the part their
race has played in the making of the greatest nation the
world has yet seen. They have done great things for Amer-
ican history, which means for good Americanism, for they
have brought to light a lot of facts which previous Ameri-
can historians, seldom friendly, or even fair, to anything
Catholic or Irish, have rather distorted or entirely ignored.
The society has thus done great things for Ireland, for they
have procured for her some of her due in the eyes of the
world; and they have done great things for themselves and
their fellow-Irish- American-citizens, for they have made men
of the Irish race more regarded and honored in a land where
there is, even still, a bitter anti-Irish and anti-Catholic party,
not very open in its activity, but very tireless and wonder-
fully effective.

It has frequently appealed to me how much such a
society could do in the collecting preserving and making
public of the scattered, decaying and hidden treasure of
Irish-Argentine historical material that lies about in old
family archives, and half forgotten official records, as well
as in old pamphlets and periodicals which have not found
their way into the public libraries, but still exist in out-of-
the-way places. The origin of the old families of Irish name
who were here before the Revolution ; the part which Morris,

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 488

John Brown, Fleming of Lima, Gahan and Shannon, the
skippers of Revolutionary time, and many others played in
making this country a free nation; the many stories and
traditions of Brown, O'Brien, Father Fahey and others ; the
Irish chaplaincy of the first twenty years of settlement of
our people in Buenos Aires ; the number of minor officers and
privates who served in the army or navy of the Independ-
ence period, and in all the military campaigns since; what
has become of the considerable amount of Irish property in
chapels, schools, priests' residences, libraries, etc., which once
was ours, are some of the matters it would be good for the
public, and especially the Irish-sprung public, to know about.
Scarcely any one individual now living, or to come after,
can ever get to know, rescue and elucidate, as the need may
be, all the interesting bits and scraps of what is our full
story, but many, each one contributing what he can, would
in time accomplish much in this direction, especially if these
were those having such material or who could reach those
having it. I have great faith in the manly spirit and good
race-pride of the present generation of young Irish-Argen-
tines, of both sexes, and I have enumerated the above few
items with strong hope that some of these young men or
young women will be attracted to the patriotic, pleasant and
useful work of studying and bringing to light for us all these
interesting, but at present, clouded phases of our colony's
story. It is, however, and I take the risk of making myself
tiresome in the reiteration of the statement, through a society
like that one of our cousins in North America, of which I
have spoken, that the best work to this effect could be done.
It will be noticed, perhaps with something of objection,
that I have given a very large place in this work to the
wool-raising industry, and possibly have overlooked many
matters quite intimately associated with the everyday con-
cerns of our people. But let it be borne in mind that that
was the line in life which gave occupation to fully nine-
tenths of our community throughout two-thirds of the last
century, and also that this work does not purpose to do

484 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

much more than make a surface examination of the ground
gone over, and the peculiarity referred to, if such it be, will
be sufficiently explained.

Although the extracts I have given from the picturesque
portrayal of the shepherd's duties and dwelling by the late
William Bulfin are particularly faithful, so far as they go,
it must not be forgotten that not all the people who tended
flocks on the lovable but somewhat mysterious Pampas were
bachelors, whose lives were passed in lazy abundance or terms
of disheartening famine. There were married people, too,
and pleasant young families, and grand homes and humble
homes, and glad days and sad happenings, as is the lot of
mortals wherever that lot be cast. Young people had their
loves and sports and disappointments, and old people their
worries and aches and enjoyments, as young and old have in
all lands, and I shall here record a few items peculiar to
that country life that is now almost a thing of the past.
The last twenty years have been years of rapid transition,
and there will be such a gulf between the ways of the country
people twenty years hence and those of the people of twenty
years ago, that scarcely anything from the country life of
the last century will be visible to the eye that looks only at
the landscape.

The shepherd's hut, as Bulfin showed it to us, was the
starting point of most of our Irish-Argentine homesteads.
The splendid estancia house, substantial and commodious,
with its renaissance mural decorations, frescoed ceilings and
carved panelings ; its Roman luxuries and costly modern com-
forts ; its tasteful gardens and bowers, and varied and pic-
turesque groves, was so commenced. Many a man whose first
occupation in the new land was digging a ditch or dagging
sheep lived to be the justly proud owner of such a delightful
home. But people of such extreme good fortune were, of
course, the fewer among the many who could be said with
truth to have succeeded. As is the world's way there were
grades and classes in the successes achieved, and, naturally,
the greater number only got as far as what I may call com-

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 485

paratively comfortable circumstances; and I will try to
sketch in brief something of the homes and home life of this
class, as being the most numerous, those who have most gen-
erally disappeared, and who, therefore, are the most impor-
tant to be remembered in a record of things that were.

One of the many advantages which the rich plains of
Buenos Aires offered to the rural settler was the ease with
which he could provide himself with a fairly comfortable
house. The term "mud cabin" or "mud-wall dwelling" is one
that conveys to us, off hand, something of a notion of
squalor and poverty, and in Ireland, where "the peasant
scarce had leave to live" up to a little more than a genera-
tion ago, the connection was only too real, but, as the say-
ing is, circumstances alter cases, and mud may be quite re-
spectable, relatively considered. In the old days in Buenos
Aires a man went forth with his flock of sheep free as the
wind. If he found the pasturage he desired he made a deal
with the proprietor thereof for the use of a certain tract
of the land for a certain period, and his next care was to
provide himself with a dwelling wherein to abide on that
particular area. This he proceeded to construct by the skill
of his own hands and the sweat of his own brow, no masons,
carpenters, plumbers, painters or glaziers had to be sought
out and hired. He dug up the black rich earth to the depth
of a new spade's blade in a circle of thirty or forty feet in
diameter, poured, plentifully, the water from a well, already
prepared close by, into the newly turned earth, and mounted
on one of his horses set to maneuvering as many of his troop
as he could handle within the narrow circle till he had the
plastic earth therein, as deep as he had dug, worked into a
cohesive mass, as clay is when ready to be moulded into
bricks. Dry grass or sedge off the plain around was worked
into this mass while in process of preparation, and from this
composition the walls of the house were shaped by the builder
setting one soft loaf of the material upon another and
bruising in the joints till the rafters were reached. Of
course the skeleton of the habitation is usually formed first.

486 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

with four corner-posts well set in the ground, some stanchions
intervening between these ports, and all bound together with
fence wire or slats. In olden times the covering or thatch
was made from a sort of strong rush which grows in swampy
places, but for the last forty years or more zinc and boards
have taken the place of the paja thatch. These mud walls,
when well made, and protected by a liberally projecting
eave are strong and durable, and take a lime whitewashing
as well as mortar plastered walls. Where the building
material was so easily found and construction so simple it
need hardly be explained that the number and size of the
rooms in the dwelling mostly depended upon the requirements
of the family, but a parlor (sala), dining-room, sleeping-
rooms, kitchen and a shed for all uses usually formed a
moderately well-to-do family's residence. Where the owners
of the land built the habitation it was generally constructed
of brick burned convenient to where the dwelling was to
be raised, the mortar used being mud, and prepared in the
manner of that used in building the mud wall already de-
scribed. Lime and sand being now more easily transported
into country places form the mortar mostly used in such
constructions at the present time, but fifty years ago it was
otherwise, and a few years since I heard an old man tell
that he drew the lime and sand, fifty years before, from a
river port, Baradero, I believe, that built Mooney's house
in Giles, the only house in all the country for miles around
in which such materials were used. Few of the old mud-wall
estancias now remain, but as late as twenty years ago they
were common enough. The new generation, with new ideas
and more wealth and security, have been changing things,
and Argentina has suddenly become a land of luxury, fashion
and taste the most modernized — and why not.^ — win gold
and wear it!

When wool, hides, grease and fat animals were the chief
or only products of the land, the buyer came to the door of
the seller, made his bargain, sent his carts or troopers, as
the case might warrant, and carried away his purchase; no

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 487

going to markets or fairs ; the price was agreed to while
the produce was still on the ground from which it sprang.

The people's big diversion was the horse-racings to which
reference has already often been made, and which are now
mostly things of the past, at least, in the old style. The
cattle marking also was something of a sporting event,
although a very necessary business operation. It combined,
however, a good deal of entertainment with the hard and
exciting labor the men had to perform, and, like the harvest
meehils at home, cheered along with a liberal sending round
of the bowl, or tin cup, it was commonly followed by a
dance and feasting. Dances in the old, good times were
very common and afforded great amusement, and, indeed,
made life very sociable and pleasant in what would otherwise
be an existence rather lonesome and boring. There was an
occasional flute-player, sometimes a fiddler, but always an
abundance of operators on the accordion, and the accordion
was a piece of furniture that scarcely any house was with-
out. I believe real musicians hardly recognize the accordion
as an instrument of their cult at all, but, for all that, it is
a sure fact that its inventor, counting the years since it got
rightly started, has amused and gratified fifty times more
of his fellow mortals than the inventor who has the grand
piano to his credit. It is ordinary and vulgar according
to the ideas of the people who like to talk of what they
call "classic music," but it is as good as a whole band to
a small crowd who want to dance and be merry. With an
abundance of music thus always on hand it was easy to
improvise a dancing party on a summer's evening or a win-
ter's night; for although the houses were generally half a
mile or more apart, the fact that everybody who was able
to mount a horse had one or more to mount, made consid-
erable distances, when there was any possibility of a few
hours' enjoyment, not a matter of any great difficulty. So
it was easy to get young people enough together to make
an evening or a whole night go by very pleasantly. Irish
dances were generally favored by the elder folks, but the

488 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

agreeably jingling polka and the swaying, whirling waltz
were the joy and glory of the younger element — the "coun-
try-boms," as their Irish-bom parents and friends used to
call them. This kind of diversion, with the passing of sheep-
farming, in the old-fashioned way, has almast vanished from
the camp Irish of the present time, and more's the pity.

A marriage in those days was an epoch-making event,
for it was usual to have at least one afternoon's and night's
dancing, sometimes more, and all neighbors and friends, that
is, of our own race, were invited. I have already mentioned
that our first settlers were greatly averse to making familiar
friends of the ordinary "natives," so, few of them were ever
invited or permitted to attend these merrymakings. A select
party went with the bride and groom, often to the number
of a couple of dozen, to the town or church where the re-
ligious ceremony was to take place. This rite was performed
as early in the day as the circumstances allowed, and by
the time the party returned to the family house many of
the less honored guests had gathered there, and, dinner and
toasts disposed of, little time was lost till the dancing was
under way. There being always more dancers than the danc-
ing space could accommodate there was never, all the night
long, any flagging or slackening of enthusiastic merriment.
A challenge race made during the night by some of the
guests, most of whom came ahorseback, might be run soon
after sunrise, or, indeed, several such races, and a game of
chance on the taba was sure to play a part in the outdoor
variation of the entertainment. If the new home of the prin-
cipals in the feast was not too distant the journey thither
was not commenced till the afternoon. I speak, of course,
of the days when great areas of the green plains were not
yet circumscribed and guarded by the useful but travel-
hampering wire fence. The home-bringing of the bride was
as a rule effected in the company of a numerous train;
coaches, brakes and whatever other vehicles were in use in
the district were all pressed into service on occasions of this
kind, but the majority of the participants made the journey

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 489

on their best mounts, and the train was a glad and happy
one, indeed.

Burials and funerals the camp knows of, too. But the
custom of burying the dead the day after the demise had,
and, of course, has still, the effect of curtailing the pro-
portions of the funeral corteges. All the neighbors for
several leagues around, were, however, advised when anyone
died, and the funeral was an event that only insurmount-
able difficulties would hinder a neighbor being in attendance
at. The priest and the undertaker were the first to be
notified, and both got as quickly as they could to the home
of the deceased. The funeral procession having sometimes
as far as eight or ten leagues of journey to make, started
early, and again all the variety of vehicular conveyance noted
in the bridal home-coming was in line, and again, too, the
cavalcade formed by far the greater number of the solemn
and quick moving concourse that hurried over the horizon-
rimmed plain. One of these funerals in the years now long
gone by was a most impressive and picturesque sight. Only
the old towns had cemeteries then, hence the great distances
funerals had sometimes to traverse.

Life on the plains, in the old days of the first and second
generations of settlers, notwithstanding that it was not what
might be called toilsome, and notwithstanding that the Argen-
tine climate is a decidedly fair and agreeable one, was not
so suited to our immigrants as people think who look at the
matter merely from the knowledge offered by the fact of
so large a proportion of them succeeding, in a business way.
The acquiring of wealth, although a very important aim in
nature's plan, is not, however, the only or even the chief
temporal purpose for which man is placed upon earth by
the Creator. Man was meant, when placed here on earth,
to stay here as long as humanly possible ; or, in other words,
to live to be old. And where this purpose is not fulfilled
there is something wrong. The Irishmen and Irishwomen
who came here in the past were almost all young in years
and very healthy, yet comparatively few of them have lived

490 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

to be old; life for our people in the past in the Argentine
was, therefore, not by any means ideal. Men who assidu-
ously and conscientiously cared for their master's or their
own flocks had often to endure much hardship, in the cold
rains and winds of winter, as also, though, of course, in
lesser degree, in the droughts and pitiless suns of summer.
Camping away from home in times of pasturage want, where,
not alone all kinds of home comforts were lacking, but even
the shelter of a roof was often unknown for months at a time,
could not but have its effect; the change from an almost
exclusively vegetable and cereal diet, as in the homeland, to
one wherein scarcely any variation of mutton and coffee
occurred year in, year out, was no less likely to make itself
felt unfavorably as time went by; and next to these, so
serious strains on men's health, or, as some would hold, a
consequence of them in most cases, the dreadfully unre-
strained use of alcoholic drink, which was then so common,
was equally certain to produce its evil results ; and thus
early demise among our people, especially our men, came
to be so ordinary that it is impossible to make a study of
their story in this land without remarking it. If statistics
could be made and published of the death rate of the Irish
immigrants up to, say the year 1890, I am very confident
its exceptional height would be very surprising. Cancer,
it was stated by certain medical men some time ago, was more
common amongst the Irish in Argentina than amongst people
of other descent. I have heard little on this subject in recent
years, but deaths from heart failure amongst people of Irish
birth was alwa^^s noticeably common. It is a fact, however,
that the second and third generations of Irish-Argentines
are as free from these and aU other diseases as are any other
strain of Argentines whatever.

From the time of the "Dresden's" coming, whether from
the disappointment and suffering of the immigrants, through
the Government's mismanagement of the affair, and the ill
reports that got abroad in Ireland therefrom, or that other
countries offered greater advantages to the emigrant, Irish

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 491

immigration into this country has fallen off greatly, that
of the laboring or farming class entirely; but young men
capable of filling clerical positions, and young women who
mostly find occupation as teachers and governesses, continue
to come in limited numbers, and for the most part remain
in the capital and one or two of the chief business cities.
Irish emigration to Argentina is just now at about the
lowest point it has reached in a hundred years, but I believe
that an upward tendency will soon begin to show itself.
When the present war is over, which God grant may be
soon, and the economic affairs of the world get back to a
condition that we will be able to call normal, we may, I feel
certain, expect to see this country make very general and
somewhat rapid industrial progress. Many lessons are
being learned, at great cost and much humiliation, from this
fearful world conflict by Argentine statesmen and men of
affairs, that will surely bear fruit in making the nation less
dependent on the outside world for so many of the necessities
of civilized and politically strong national life. It is a mis-
take to think that Argentine backwardness in manufacturies
is due to a lack of native raw materials. Probably none of
the great manufacturing countries of the world, except the
United States, produces so much of what is essential to this
order of industry as she does, and no doubt this kind of
national development will receive more effective governmental
attention from this on. So, as I look to Argentina as the
country of the world whose geographical position, natural
resources and urgent necessities combine to give her prece-
dence, among the new countries, in industrial development, I
foresee a revival of Irish immigration as considerable, at
least, as that which Australia or South Africa may be able
to attract. Although, under the native government which
we expect to result from this war, Ireland will have work
for all her people, for some generations, at least, there
will still be some who will go abroad, just as we see, even
now, some Argentines going to seek their fortunes in North

492 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

America and Australia, and this country will get a large
proportion of these.

This new and continuous stream of immigration will serve
to strengthen and renew the ties of kindred and association
between the old nation and its offshoot here, and although,
because of occasional intermarryings between our people in
this country and fellow Argentines of other strains, a thing,
by the way, that has gone on from the beginning, some
people think they see a gradual coalescing of our element
of the citizenship into absolute Argentines without distinc-
tion or qualification as to origin, I, on the contrary, believe
that it will be proportionately as strong and as distinctively
Irish- Argentine in a hundred years from now as it is to-day.
People who give expression to ideas like those I refer to
forget how conservative and tenacious the Irish nature is. If
it were not that a foreign language had been forced by cen-
turies of persecution, proscription, fine, and even torture
upon them, the Irish people have changed nothing since the
days of Columcille, except in the mere surface matters which
in all ages come to peoples as the centuries move by; such
as the modernization of wearing apparel, occupations and
the adoption of the benefits which science has conferred upon
the world in common. The same religion is still theirs, the
same ideals, even the same games. ^ Ireland is still the land
where the "old are so wise and the young so gentle." There
men and women of pure and virtuous lives still raise large and
healthy families (a thing that has come to be wondered at
in other nations, old and new). Seven hundred years and
more of struggle, mostly a losing one, for an ideal ; and now
the reconquest of the language, the only great possession
which the nation has failed to hold, for the land was never
entirely lost, do not bespeak a people that lightly loses its
identity in the world.

I know families whose grandfathers and great-grand-

^ Here in Argentina the only athletic game that has ever prospered among
our young men is that of camanact, beloved of the renowned Cuhullion,^and
which the mighty Finn and his comrades played all over Eire.

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 493

fathers came here nearly a hundred years ago who take great
pains to learn Irish music, Irish dances, and to keep up
Irish customs, and who even speak English with an Irish
accent; yet, of course, who would never yield a point to any
of their fellow-citizens in loyalty to their native land. Many
of these are, indeed, more Irish, and better Irish, than their
grandfathers were. And this being the case in the past and
at the present time, with an Ireland humiliated and without
a place in the society of nations, what may we expect in
the future that will know a great, free, progressive, repub-
lican Ireland .P

The schools of the ancient free Ireland were one of her
chief glories, and the salvation of continental Europe, they
will not be less a characteristic of the new free Ireland, and,
from the way things are looking now, Europe will stand
as much in need of them by-and-by as she did twelve hundred
years ago. Most of our Irish-Argentine families who will
be able to afford the outlay will consider it a wise investment
to have their boys, at least, educated in Ireland, for such
an education will be a mark of merit that will have its
business use as well as its social distinguishment. And this
condition, that will surely be, as well as the trade and immi-
gration from the fatherland, are chief among the things that
clearly convince me that when another hundred years are
over the Irish in Argentina will be just as much themselves,
and themselves only, as they are to-day. And why not?
To change would not be to improve; and it is not our way
to go backward or stand still.

There are no better Argentines than those of Irish
blood, and yet they are very distinct from the general body
of their fellow-citizens. Not only in their personal charac-
teristics, social dispositions and business and policital mo-
rality, but even their spiritual outlook is still the old Irish
one. Go into any of the country towns, where the Irish in
other times settled and established families, but where Irish-
born men and women are now quite few, and who do you see
coming long distances on Sunday morning into these towns

494 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

to attend Mass? Those large, symmetrical men and fair
stately women whom you see around the church, or meet
at the inns, or in the business houses are not of the race which
makes up the great majority of the country's population.
Whether you go to Monte or Pergamino, Capilla or Chivil-
coy, Lobos or Rojas, Arrecifes or Chacabuco, Chascomus or
Carmen de Areco, Mercedes or San Pedro, Lujan or Venado
Tuerto, or any other district where the Irish settled, you
will find their children and grandchildren coming in to Mass
on Sunday, and you will find also that they are about the
only people who do,^ just as was the custom of their fore-
bears. Though it is common throughout the country to work
on Sunday, people of Irish descent are, and always have been,
noted for their avoidance, as much as possible, of that sinful,
ugly and animalizing custom, and, indeed, every friend of
social order, as well as of Christian decency and national
advancement, should applaud and emulate their faithfulness
to the holy and wise command of keeping the Lord's Day.
The Irish are generally very highly considered by their neigh-
bors, and I have often heard it said, that it was through the
rectitude in business, and faithfulness to promise, of the
Irish, that the expression *'palabra del ingles" (word of the
Englishman) came to mean absolute trustworthiness ; the
Irish and Scotch, as well as the English themselves, are gen-
erally designated "ingleses" by the common people. This
assertion may be true or not, I offer no opinion for or
against, but I know that the English in Buenos Aires very
well deserve the compliment. Whatever John Bull may be
in politics and international dealings, there is no man truer
to his word in business.

1 A certain Parish Priest, of Basque birth, in a country town was asked by a
friend in the Federal Capital, not long ago, how he was getting along with his
congregation. " My only trouble with my congregation," replied the Pastor,
" is that it does not trouble me at all. For instance, on account of the heavy
rains last Friday and Saturday, which prevented the Irish from coming in, my
congregation consisted on Sunday of three old women, two young girls, a dog
and an American dentist." The dentist in the case was an Irish- American.

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 495

It is not in business, military, naval, scientific, educa-
tional, and religious affairs only that the Irish in Argen-
tina have made themselves a proud name. The most meri-
torious of Argentine painters, so far, was a young Irish-
Argentine, Henry Sheridan, son of Peter Sheridan of sheep-
farming fame, who died in 1861, at the age of 27 years.
This young landscapist has left some very notable work after
him. His pictures were mostly bought up by English people
and brought home to their country, but some of his best
works still remain in Buenos Aires. Hernan Cullen is a
noted sculptor of the present day, and there are numerous
literati and people in other branches of art of first rank
who spring from Irish stock, but who are in name and
thought and work Argentine, though always proud of their
connection with "la verde Erin." The army and navy have
scarcely ever been without men of Irish name in all the
ranks, right up to the top.

A thing our people always lacked in Argentina is lead-
ership. We have not had at any time in all our century
of life here what might be considered as even a close ap-
proach to real leadership. Father Fahey was, of course, a
man of great influence with our people, and trusted and
beloved by them as no other man ever was. But his work
was that of the pastor of his flock; he preached religion to
them, he counseled them for their temporal good, he inter-
ceded for them when they got into trouble with the authori-
ties, which was a great deal, and left organizing them for
political and economic selfhelpfulness to others, and the
others never rose to the occasion. Edward Mulhall was the
first to make a strong and persevering effort to be a leader
of this order among his people; and he was about as fit
for the undertaking and as apt to succeed in it as, at present.
Sir Horace Plunkett would be in a similar case with the
Irish people at home. Mulhall was a well-meaning, amiable
man, but he never could get it into his head that Ireland
should be anything but a part of the British Empire, nor
that the Irish people, at home or abroad, should have any

496 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

earthly aspirations but to get on in the world and be loyal
to "our leige Lady the Queen." Others since his time have
tried their hand at the same task. Some of these have fol-
lowed, more or less, the lines he marked out, while others
again have taken courses at right angles to his path, but
none of them have succeeded. The late Mr. Bulfin was one
of the sanest and most nearly successful who took the matter
up; he was making good progress; the people were gather-
ing to him; he had real ability, and seemed to have got to
understand how to use it ; but he had only commenced, com-
menced well, when death intervened. No one else had ever
united so many of our people under a really self-respecting,
self-asserting, Irish- Argentine banner as he had. The guid-
ing influence with him was that spirit which the Gaelic
League had aroused, and which is clearly expressed, for
those who are touched by that spirit, in the three words,
an Irish Ireland, The closer the Irish- Argentine people
could be brought into communion with that spirit and influ-
ence the better it would be for them and for Ireland; this
Bulfin saw; for this he worked, and was succeeding. This
is the only line, because it is in accordance with the laws
of human nature, along which success in such a purpose has
any possibility of being achieved. The greater part of his
people fell in with his ideas, these ideas were not inspired
by anything of rancor, partizanism, or selfishness, and they
stood for good patriotism, good manhood and good common
sense.

It is no easy matter to influence and lead our people here ;
they are proud, more than a little egotistic, somewhat sus-
picious, unaccustomed to real party politics and leadership,
and then they are smitten to no small extent with that ac-
cursed Latin product, which all South America has loved
so much to cultivate and foster, called amor propio, which
has played, and still plays, so large a part in the wrecking
of high national hopes and promising public careers.
All those I have mentioned as in any way rising towards
the height of leadership, commencing away back with

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 497

O'Brien, were Irish-born, and whatever possibility there was
of men so circumstanced succeeding in the past I believe
there will be less of such possibility in the future. Yet, this
is the greatest want of the Irish-Argentine people at the
present time. They may not see it in this way themselves,
most of them do not see it in this way; but what are they
in the Argentine Republic as an influence or a power for
the good of their country or themselves, as a community
or entity, compared with what they might be as an organized
and well-directed body.^ Let them ask themselves the ques-
tion, and if, after giving it intelligent thought, they will
make an honest answer to it, that answer will be that they
amount to little or nothing. Little or nothing in the public
affairs of their own country, and in the protection and
advancement of their own business interests, in comparison
with what they might be and ought to be, considering their
resources and opportunities ! As a body they are wealthier
and more numerous than the English, the Germans, or the
Americans.

It was a great mistake on the part of our first settlers,
that instead of, as did their brothers who turned towards
North America, becoming citizens of their adopted land they
remained subjects of the English monarch — our first sorry
result of want of leadership — there was no one to show them
the mistake they were making. That error has kept the
Irish and their descendants "ingleses" ever since — depend-
ants, in some unaccountable and really pitiable way, of the
English. With some notable exceptions the wealthy of our
people, as referred to in an earlier chapter, actually call
themselves, in the most slavish and, of course, untruthful
manner, "britanicos ;" while numbers of the humbler, em-
ployed in English and American concerns, where they prac-
tically, owing to their native ability and their command of
the two languages, could not be done without, are positively
afraid to call their souls their own when it is a question
of the great world causes and conflicts that are in every-
body's mind and mouth at the present moment, and in view

498 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

of their helpless condition they cannot be found much fault
with for this. But is it not a shameful position to be in
in their own land, and that a free republic?

The mistake of the old settlers may be palliated to some
extent, it was, nevertheless, a most unfortunate mistake,
but what excuse have their descendants, those of them who
do, for following the same course, in as far as in their power
lies ? None at all. And it bespeaks for them want of patriot-
ism, want of spirit and want of common sense; three ugly
and degrading characteristics. Still I do not believe that
our people anywhere, of whatever rank, if put to the test
are wanting in any of the qualities mentioned. The fact is
they have never awakened to their true position here — ^there
has been nobody to awaken them — nobody to put them to
the test. Individuals, no doubt, there have been who were
alive to these realities, but not everybody who sees an error
can correct it. What is needed in Irish- Argentina is a sort
of mental revolution, or what the sects in the United States
call a revival movement.

By far the greater number of the Irish-Argentine people
are still on the land, and live by it. They are more of the
country and more with the country than either of the other
classes, but their effect on its political life, and for useful-
ness to each other is nearly nil. All this comes from the
want of organization. "Union is strength"; and the word
union as here applied is only another name for organization,
and organization there cannot be without leadership. Hence
my saying that leadership is the greatest need of our people
here at the present time. We are now like a fine young
athlete; we are healthy, strong, can run, jump and use our
fists quite well, and have done so already in a rough and
amateurish way, but it is only with training and direction
we can get beyond our amateurishness, that we can compete
with the professionals that we have to contend against, and
get our share of the prizes and championships — can take
our right and proper place, free men and true, in the Argen-
tine Republic.

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 409

And now, before dropping this point, let me say that
every man and woman in the land can do something in this
training and direction while we are awaiting the leader that
will some day come. Each one can try to train and direct
himself and herself to be good Argentines and good Irish;
to not be too ready to suspect everyone who proposes to do
anything of a public nature to be animated by some selfish
ambition or unworthy motive; to be willing to lend a hand
wherever a worthy general or local effort is being made to
unite and bring people together for their amusement, en-
lightenment, or political, or religious improvement; to be
tolerant of other people's opinions; when divisions amongst
us arise, as happens in all communities, not to be bitter par-
tizans ; and above all things not to be guilty, when disagree-
ments may occur, of that mean, false and fool cry, which the
enemy has kindly provided us with to use against ourselves,
"Oh, the Irish can never agree." The Irish can agree among
themselves as well as any other race upon earth, and they
have agreed upon a few things which their enemies and cal-
umniators have used fire and sword and every wile and
endless treasure to force or coax them to disagree upon,
and which after centuries of such effort are still the worry
and despair of these same enemies and calumniators. And if
you want a handy example of the occasional disagreements
among themselves of other good men than those of your
own race, take a look into the glorious, though comparatively
short, history of the country in which you were born.

It is very difficult to arrive at anything like a satisfac-
tory conclusion as to the number of people now in Argen-
tina of Irish birth and descent. There is no census to cal-
culate from, that is, of the races, and there are many people
of Irish ancestry on one side, at least, who have not Irish
names, and then there are many Irish people whom by their
names one cannot distinguish as such from English, Scottish,
or American; as, for example, Smyth, Brown, Jones, Green,
Gray, Wilson, Graham, Johnson, Thomson, Hamilton,
Miller, Edwards, Robins, Robertson, Roberts, Robinson, and

500 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

a number of Macs and others. Then at what distance, in
the case of families of mixed race, from the stem that had
both parents Irish, or of Irish name, must we stop consider-
ing a family as of Irish descent, or justly to be regarded
as of the Irish race? These are some of the difficulties that
make the accurate counting of the number of Irish-Argen-
tines at present time, 1917, next to impossible. A thing I
have found both here and in North America, among people
of mixed Irish and other blood, is that such people prefer
clinging to the Irish side in their strain rather than to the
other, this is not told in boast, although it is something
for Irish people to feel pride in. I could mention a multi-
tude of cases that have come to my own knowledge to con-
firm this statement, but I will content myself with mentioning
two, only:

Years ago I arrived at a certain point on the Cordoba
and Santa Fe Railroad where the train put off and took on
passengers although there was no station or house anywhere
close-by — nothing but the open plain. There were a few
people gathered around the spot, some to take the train
and some to receive friends or mail which they expected.
They were all natives of the district, but the person I ex-
pected to meet me was not among them. I looked through
the eight or ten people who made up the little group, but
saw no one likely to be English-speaking, and I could speak
very little Spanish myself. One man, however, amongst them
struck me as having something of a friendly look about him,
although he was quite dark in complexion and dressed exactly
in the style of the "sons of the country." I went to him
and asked him if he spoke English, he answered me in
Spanish that he did not know English, but that he would
take me to the house of an "irlandes," for being Irish him-
self he knew all the Irish around there. I thought for the
moment he was talking in joke, but learned when I got to
my countryman's and friend's house that the name of this
gaucho-looking man was McCann. His mother was Argen-
tine; his father had died while he was very young. I often

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 501

meet a little school-girl of chestnut-colored hair whose father
is a Spaniard, but whose mother is an Irish- Argentine, and
while understanding that she is half Spanish, for I know
her father, I one day, on account of the color of her hair,
called her an "inglesita" (a little English girl), but she
promptly and somewhat resentfully corrected me saying that
she was an "irlandesita" (a little Irish girl).

Whether or not it would be fair to count such people as
the two I have just told about as Irish and a part of the
Irish community, I shall not seek to decide; they themselves
would in almost every case insist on being Irish-Argentine,
and I have found many of them more Irish in their ways
and sentiments than some of their compatriots with purely
Milesian names, but the matter is not of very much impor-
tance here. Probably if all the people of such mixed blood
in Argentina, that is, Irish on one side, were counted they
would not number anything like ten thousand, and I shall
not include them in my calculation, as affecting it so lightly.

In the early Forties it was calculated that there was less
than four thousand Irish people in the country, and in 1879
the Archbishop of Buenos Aires stated the number in the
country districts as twenty-eight thousand. In neither case
is it explained whether the number given relates to only
Irish-born or to people of Irish birth and descent. If only
Irish born be meant the number may be, approximately,
correct, in both cases; but if they purposed to include all
of Irish birth and descent in the country in their different
times, they were nothing more than a hopelessly poor guess,
especially so that of the later date. If the Archbishop meant
his number to represent Irish families or Irish householders
I think it would be more nearly correct, although I should
say something of an over estimate.

Could his figure be relied upon, and did it include all
the Irish-born and people of Irish-descent, in the city and
outside of the city limits, we could come to a reasonably
close and safe estimate of our present numbers. But I think
anyone who makes out a calculation grounded on his figures

50^ THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

will see from the resultant total that he worked on a wrong
basis, for the number he would get would be far below what
obviously our present population is. It must be admitted
too that our people have not made the increase that might
naturally be expected from a virtuous and fairly well-to-do
people in a new country, which fact would further show
that the figures of Dr. Aneiros are either incorrect or in-
definite. This niatter of a falling off in the progenitiveness
of the Irish in the last couple of generations is noticeable
also in Ireland and the United States as well as here,
although less so in Ireland than in this or the Northern Re-
public. Early marriages have been remarkably on the
decline in Ireland for more than a generation or so, but not
to so large an extent, although with better reason, as
amongst us here and in the United States.

The enumeration of deaths gives something of a clue to
the number of our people as compared to that of the whole
population. But then comes several difficulties: the number
of districts where no such statistics are published, and again
the number of names that may or may not be Irish, and
still again the number of names that are mutilated or Argen-
tinized. But making allowances for everything, after look-
ing at the matter from various angles, and considering every
point, pro and con, that my study of the question presented
me with, I have decided on offering the following figures as
an honest effort at a guess: In Buenos Aires City, 30,000;
outside the city, in the whole Republic, 80,000; 110,000,
all told.

Now we have seen the first coming of the Irish to the
Rio de la Plata country; followed them in their enterprises
and efforts in peace and war ; traced, lightly, their progress ;
told something of their foibles and faults ; took a passing
glance at their everyday life, with its joys and sorrows;
made a record of the institutions that were peculiarly theirs ;
have forecast something of their future, according to my own
lights; and counted their numbers with care, but with noth-
ing like guaranteed accuracy. And, so, my book is finished.

DIFFICULTIES IN GETTING FACTS 503

It is not without errors; it is far from being a complete
history ; but it is something done. I hope it will give pleas-
ure, enlightenment, and pride to those for whom it was
written, and that it wiU give pain or annoyance to no one.
If it have this result I shall be richly rewarded for whatever
of time and toil I have given to its writing, but anyhow I
shall always have the satisfaction of knowing that I have
left something after my hands that will be for the good of
our people, and that I am sure, without any fear of being
over presumptions, that many of them will be so pleased for
that they will gladly excuse my all too obvious shortcomings
as an author and a historian.

THE END

VOCABULARY OF SPANISH WORDS AND PHRASES

Balde sinfondo, bucket without bottom.

Barraca, storage place, warehouse.

Campo, camp; the country as distinct from the city, land.

Cafia, cane, strong spirits extracted from the sugar cane, rum.

Cardo, a kind of broad-leafed sweet thistle.

Casique, an Indian chief.

Catre, a kind of bedstead, a bed, a cot.

CaudUlo, a mihtary or political small calibre boss.

Chiquero, a sheep-pen, pen for anything.

Criollo, criole, any native of the country (loosely used) .

Cura, a parish priest, commonly any priest.

Estancia, estate house, estate.

GanchOf a hook.

Graceria, a place for rendering fat animals into grease.

Gringo, a corruption of the word griego, Greek; hard to be understood, a

foreigner.
Guarda, a guard, a policeman.
Paisano, a peasant, a fellow countryman.
Pajonales, districts or places overrun with coarse grass, paja.
Partido, parish, district.
Peon, a servant boy or hired man.
Plantel, a foundation, especially stock to breed from.
Poncho, a kind of cloak or shawl with a hole in the center for the head to go

through, Indian, I believe.
Porte'ho, a person belonging to the port, now anyone born in or belonging to

Buenos Aires City or Province.
Puesto, a place, position or place one occupies, here a sheep-run.
Pulperia, a country shop or store, a shebeen.
Recao, a saddle of a particular type, a riding gear.
Scdadera, a meat curing establishment of the old time.
Tolderia, an Indian village or camp, a place of tents, tentage.

504

NAMES OF WORKS AND AUTHORITIES CONSULTED AND DRAWN

UPON

Albaracin, " Hist. Cordoba."

Alsina, " Hist. Immigration."

Argos, newspaper.

Bulfin's Article in Grant's Almanac.

Charlevoix, " Hist, of Jesuits."

Correo de Comercio, newspaper.

De Angelis, " Hist."

Del Techo, " Hist, of Jesuits."

De Moussy, " Emigration to Argentina."

" Documentos de Belgrano."

Dominguez, " History."

El Nacional, newspaper.

Federal Almanac, 1850.

Fianna, Review.

Funes' Argentine History, " Ensayo,"

Gaceta, newspaper.

Gaceta Mercantile newspaper.

Guia de Forasteros (Almanac), various.

Gutierrez' " Argentine Hist."

Haigh, Samuel. " Life in Cuyo."

Hutchinson's " Gleanings."

King, Colonel.

" La Nacion Argentina."

" Leaves from the Annals of the S. of Mercy."

" Life of Belgrano," Mitre.

" Life of San Martin," Mitre.

" Life of Dean Funes," Mitre (Son).

Lopez, V. F., " Hist, of Argentina.

Love, " Notes and Comments."

Lozano's " History of Jesuits."

Lucero, newspaper.

Mansilla's " Life of Rosas."

McCann, " 2000 Miles' Ride."

" Memorias de Vertiz."

Moreno, Mariano.

505

506 THE IRISH IN ARGENTINA

Mulhall, M. G. and E. T.

Parish, Sir Woodbine.

Passionist Order in Argentina, pamphlet.

Ramos Mexia's " Life of Rosas."

" Revista del Plata."

*' Revista de la Plata."

" 70 Afios Atras (70 Years Back)."

Standard files from beginning.

" Semanario de Agricultura."

** Sarmiento, Domingo."

Telegrafo Mercantil.

" The Conflict of Races," Sarmiento.

Tuella, " Rosario."

INDEX

OF NAMES OF PERSONS. PLACES AND THINGS

PAax

Aguirre. 61

Arias, Hernando, Intro XXVI

Armstrong, Thomas 73

Armstrong T. St. George 395

Arrecifes 261

Aroyo Luna 240

Artigas, Jos^ 47

Asotea, The 270

Auchita, Jos6 6

Azul 254

Balbin, J. C 112

Ballesty, James 242

Banba, Intro xi

Baradero, District 228

Beazley 53

Belfast 23

Bookey, Patrick 157, 448

Brady, Elena 87

Brady, Fr 279

Bragado, District 253

Brian, Mr 88

Brath, Intro xii

Brogan, Mr 88

Brown, Adml. .26, 28, 68, 81, 119, 178

Brown, Capt. M 69

Browne, Patrick 78

Browne, John 218

Bulfin. William 139, 189

Butler, William 37

Byrne, Fr.M 372,419

Burke, Fr 56

Cabot, Intro xxv

Campbell, Pedro 46

Capilla del Senor 222

Carmen de Areco 232

Carrol, Michael 445

Canuelas, District 199

Cantlon, Patrick 251

Cesair, Intro ix

Ceballos, Intro xxxi

Chaplains, Irish 266

Chacabuco 257

Chascomus 203

ChivUcoy 250

Cochrane, Adml 35

Collins, James 101

Collectors for I. C, A 337

Contributors to Army 92

Contributors, Patriotic 93

Contributors in 1840 103

Connolly, Rev. Fr 204

Coughlan, Engineer 181

Conway, James 468

Cordoba, Prov 478

Correo de Comercio 21

Crosbie, Dr 205

CuUen, Domingo 86

Cullen, Josd Maria 181

507

508

INDEX

PAGE

Cullen, Rev. Fr 275

Curran, Rev. Fr 277

Curumalan 447

Curley, Mgr 278

Craig, Thomas 13

Cyprian, Rev. Fr 272

Daly, Patrick 88

Daly, Patrick 319

Danes, Intro xviii

Devlin, Mary 67

Dillon, John 71

Dillon, Gregorio 123

Dillon, John 423

Dineen, Michael 284, 445

Donati, Father 397

Dolores, District 207

Donohue, Patrick 79

Donohue, Daniel 40

Donovan, Dr. Cornelius 158

Dougherty, John 102

" Dresden," The 440

Dublin 25

Du£F 21

Duffy, Sec. Am. Consul 53

Duffy & Co 75

Duffy, Mr 76

Duggan's Chapel 258

Duggan, Michael 248

Dwerhagen, Sheepbreeder 60

Eire, Intro xi

Entre Rios 478

Escalada, M. Blanco 45

Fahey, Fr 129, 135, 319, 322, 343

Fahey Institute, The 462

Fahey, Fr's., Funeral Expen 464

Firbolgs, Intro ix

Fodla, Intro xi

Fomorians, Intro ix

Favorita, Ship 25

Fehily or Field, Fr 1

Fidehs, Fr. Kent-Stone 414

PAGE

Fitzsimons, James 71

Fitzsimons, Dr 208

Flannery, Fr. Edmund 259

Fleming, Brigadier 23

Flores, District 256

Flusk, P 41

Foley, Bartholomew 78, 339

"Fontonoy" 257

Funes, Dean 304

Furnier, Major 75

Gaelic League 465

Gahan, Capt. Ed 51

Galvm, Timothy 472

Gannon, Fr. Michael 128

Gannon, Michael 203

Gaona, Capt 181

Garabaldi, G 33

Garay, Intro xxv

Garrahan, Widow 468

Garrahan, Tim and James 468

Gaynor, John 254

Gearty, Fr. Richard 278

General Brown Club.. . .391, 423, 448

Geoghegan'g Hotel 341

Geoghegan, A 456

Geoghegan, Rev. Joseph 207

Goban Saor 479

Godoy, Francisco 472

Gowland, Mr 181

Grennon, Fr 276

Grennon, Michael 468

Grogan & Peacock 77

Guardia del Monte 213

Gwendoline and King Alfred 392

Haedo 61

Hale, S. B 94

Hallet, Stephen 63

Halloran, Mr 65

Halsey, Thomas Lloyd 60

Hamilton, Patrick 75

Handy, Mr 283

Hansen, Emilio 128

INDEX

509

PAOB

Harrat, Sheepbreeder 59

Healy, Peter 222

Higgins, Richard 88

Horsestealing for Export 254

Hutchinson, Thomas 309

Ireland, Archbishop 432

Irish, The Going to Uruguay 102

Irish, The Going to Entrerios. . . 102

Irish, Chapel, First 204

Irish, Convent of Mercedes 246

Irish National Society 328

Irish Cat. Association 336, 429

Irish Hospital 154, 336, 351, 360

Irish Imm. Gurls' Home 340

Irish Hospital Collectors 364

Irish Chaplains Circular 365

Irish Woman Subscribers 374

Irish Ladies Society Members. . . 387

Irish Chaplains 266

Irish Meeting Called by A. B. . . 398

Irish Colony Scheme 423

Irish Relief Fund 428

Irish Immigrants Wanted 431

Irish Convent, New 450

Kearney, Michael 258

Keen, George 101

Kenny, James 32

Kenny, Thomas, Judge 250

Kiernan, Bernard 67, 86

Kiernan, Santiago 86

Kiernan, John B 92

Kilallen Chapel 257

Kilpatrick, Daniel 85

King, Col 41

Kirwan, Fr 213, 275

Lace, Mrs 444

Ladies Irish Soc 381

"LaGazeta" 23

Las Heras 216

"Lautero" 42

Leahy, Fr. John 278, 351

PAGB

Leahy, Fr. Michael 232, 276

Lepper, Dr. James 123

Lima (Traitor) 17

Limerick 1

Linch, Catalina 25

Linch, Mariana 25

Linch, Patricio 25

Linch, Francis 26, 75

Linches, Various 37, 40

Linch, Justo 23

Liniers, Capt 15

List of Passangers 313

Lobos District 213

Lobos Island 3

Lujan District 217

Lynch, Estanislao 39

Lynch, Father 277

McCarthy, James 87

MacKenna 26

MacKenna, John 23

Mackay, Daniel 74

McCartan, Fr. M 99

MacNamara 8

Matanzas 199

McManus, Padraic 421

McNamara, Fr 246

MacMurrough, Intro xx

McNerney, Fr 259

Maxwell, Patrick 389

Mallison, John 85

Malouney, Peter P 479

Mendoza, Intro xxv

Mercedes District 244

Mercurian, Evrard 6

Mercy, Sisters of I'^'l

Merlo 216

Metcalf, Fr. N 471

Milesius, Intro xiii

Mooney, John 78

Mooney, William 264

Moran, Fr. Patrick 87

Moreno 216

510

INDEX

PAQB

Morgan, Edward 87

Morgan, Michael 339

Moron 199

Morris, Raymond 45

MuUady, Fr. Thomas 277

Mullaly 444

Mulhall, M. G. and E. T 301

Murders in Salto 241

Murderer's Feast 253

Murphy, William 85

Murphy & Co 190

Murray, Archbishop 90

Murray, " Big Mickey " 448

Murray, Michael, Santa F6 468

Murray. Fr. L. C 471

Nacion Argentina 315

Names of New Arrivals 93

Naposta 461

Navarro District 249

Nemedians, Intro ix

Newberry, Dr 444

O'Brien, Gen 39, 81

O'Brien, James 41

O'Brien, Capt. George 42

O'Brien, Sergt-Major Joseph. ... 45

O'Connell and Shiel Accused. ... 94

O'Connell Monument Fund 317

O'Donnell, Carlos 20

O'Donnell, Charles 76

O'Donnell, Sabino 77

O'Donnell, Cap. Santiago 181

O'Donovan Rossa 307

O'Gorman, Michael 11

O'Gorman, Thomas 14

O'Gorman, Patrick 15

O'Gorman, Charles 75

O'Gorman, Adolfo 76

O'Gorman, Fr. Patrick 90

O'Gorman, Camila 118

O'Grady, Fr. Patrick 280

O'Hara, Peter 397

PAOX

O'Hare, Daniel 338

O'Mara, Buckley 440

O'MiUs 479

Onil(O'NeiU) 101

O'Reilly, John 71

O'Reilly, General 40

O'ReiUy, Fr. Samuel 277

O'Rian, Miguel IS

O'Rourke, Michael 75

Orr, William 7«

O'Shea, Patrick 469

O'Shea, Fr. Patrick 470

Oughan, Dr. John 37. 73. 103

Padilla (Traitor) 17

PaUotine Fathers 234, 248

Parnell Def. Fund 242

Parnell Split, The 464

Passionist Fathers 401

Partholan, Intro ix

Pa von Irish Settlement 469

Pefia (Traitor) 17

Pergamino District 262

Perichon, Madame 14

Pheonicians, Intro xv

Pilar District 221

Porteno Club 46«

Prescott Am. Historian 7

Pro-boer Mass 467

Pueyrredon, J. M 18

Purcell, Fr 278

Purcell, Fr. John 397

Quebrachitos 123

Quilmes 199

Quinn, James 127

Quinn, Fr. Michael 265

Ramallo District 263

Reid, Dr. David IS

Reily, Marcus 21

Rodriguez, Gen. Martin 34

Rojas 61

Rojas District 242

INDEX

511

PAGB

Romerate, Comodoro 47

Roosevelt, Intro xiii

Rosario City 472

Ryan, Daniel 468

Saladillo District 253

Sanches de Mandeville 70

San Antonio de Areco Dis 229

San Andres de Giles District 230

San Pedro District 259

San Nicolas District 263

Salto District 241

Santa Cruz (Dictator) 102

Santa F6 468

Sarmiento, Domingo 446

Sarsfield, Velez 375

Savino, Father 395

Scott 26

Scully, James 223

" Shamrock " 71

Shannon, Capt 65

Sheridan, Peter 59, 125, 199

Sheridan, Dr. Hugh 203

Sheehy, Fr. J. M 475

Sisters of Mercy 450

Sisters of the S. Heart 427

Skennon, Michael 18

Sobremonte, Viceroy 16

Society of Friends of Ireland. . . . 328

Soldiers Fund C. de Areco 232

Solis, Intro xxiv

Soriano 67

" Standard," The 301

St. Brendan's College 234

St. Brigid's Chapel 218

St. Patrick's Society 376

Staples, Robert 26

Stewart, Capt. John 23

Subscribers to Relief Fund for

Great Britain and Ireland. ... 124

Subscribers for Ireland Rel. Fund 147

Subscribers for Irish Chapel 204

Subscribers for Irish Hospital ... 158

PAGE

Subscribers to Soldiers' Fund. . . 212
Subscribers to Moreno Chiu-ch. 216
Subscribers to Merlo S. Fund. . . 217
Subscription to O'Con. Fund. . . 317

Subscribers to Giles Church 230

Subscribers to Soldier's Fund. . . 233
Subscribers to Fahey Memo .... 236

Subscribers to Fenian Fund 243

Subscribers to Kirby Fund 244

Subscribers to Irish Fund 245

Subscribers to Mercedes Irish

Convent 246

Subscribers to Irish Liberty Fund,

Navarro 249

Subscribers to L. League 242

Subscribers to Fenian Prisoners

F. Arrecifes 261

Subscribers to Fahey Testimonial 324
Subscribers to Cholera Fund .... 334

Subscribers to Fever Fund 348

Subscribers to Irish Hospital . 355, 361
Subscribers to Irish Orphan. 389, 435

Subscribers from Santa Fe 474

Suipacha District 259

Tain Caorach Halsey 60

" Tatay " Estancia 233

Taylor, Capt 305

Tax Payers in 1842 123

Thespians 368

Total Abstainers 465

Tormey, Darby 262

Tribune, newspaper 385

Tuaha de Danann, Intro x

Turner, Engineer 181

Urquiza, Justo Jos6 183

Vandeleur, Col 21

Vertiz, Intro xxxi

Villa, Pancho 46

Vaughan, Fr 466

512

INDEX

PAGE

Veinte Cinco de Mayo, District . 253

Venado Tuerto, District 477

Ward, Patrick 239

" Waterwitch," The 312

Whealan, Michael 85

White. William P 30

PAGE

Whitfield. Mr 71

" Whitman," The 42

Wymie, Patrick 227

Windle, Dr 248

"Zephir,"The 25

Zarate District 227

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