Irish Roots
2013 Number 3
Viceroys, Founding Fathers,
and Settlers
By David A. Norris
The Irish in Latin America
c
hile’s five peso notes of the 1950s,
like many other Chilean bills, show one
of the country’s “founding fathers”.
These notes from this Spanish-speaking
country, though, bear the portrait
of a national leader with the very
Irish-sounding surname O’Higgins.
Bernardo O’Higgins (1778-1842) was
the son of Ambrose O’Higgins, an Irish
expatriate. Ambrose O’Higgins worked
through careers as a merchant and
Spanish army officer before reaching
the rank of Viceroy of Peru. Later, the
younger O’Higgins joined the forces
fighting against the Spanish royalists for
independence. After helping lead the
patriots to victory, Bernardo O’Higgins
became the first head of state of the
newly independent Chile.
The O’Higgins story is not really
surprising. According to the genealogy
site Findmypast.ie, there are 80 million
people with some Irish ancestry in the
world today. Half of them live in the
U.S. One quarter of the population of
the U.K. has Irish blood, as well as a
substantial proportion of Australia and
Canada. But, the Irish have also left
their imprint in Latin America.
The pressures of English rule, religious
persecution, overcrowding, and poverty
drove many Irish out of their native
land. In some eras, Irish Catholics were
barred from British military service.
Beginning in the 1500s, many Irish
soldiers found employment in foreign
armies.
In 1691, the Treaty of Limerick ended an
Irish Jacobite rebellion in support of the
Stuart King of England, James II. Under
the treaty, 14,000 soldiers and 10,000
women and children were allowed to
leave Ireland for France. The soldiers,
who ended up in European armies,
became known as “The Wild Geese”.
In later times, the term “Wild Geese”
referred to other expatriate or exiled
Irish soldiers serving in armies around
the world.
The Department of History of the
National University of Ireland presents
the Irish in Europe Project, with much
information and several databases, at
http://www.irishineurope.com. Their
databases can be searched at http://
irishineurope.ie/vre/search/index. One
of their databases includes 17,000
soldiers of Irish birth in 17th and 18th
century Spain. (By the way, they also
have nearly as many records for Irish
soldiers in the French army.)
Spain had army units that were entirely
filled with Irish soldiers. Records of
these officers and men at the Irish in
Europe Project have soldiers’ names and
ranks, with dates of service, place of
birth.
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Some descendants of Irish families
in Spain immigrated to the Spanish
colonies of the New World, joined by
other people who left Ireland and went
to the Americas. Many Irishmen fought
with the patriot forces of Simón Bolívar
in the early 19th century South American
wars for independence against Spain.
About 1700 Irishmen joined John
Devereaux’s Irish Legion, although bad
luck and incompetent leadership made
them largely ineffective.
William Brown (1777-1857) was born
in County Mayo. As a young orphan,
Brown joined a ship as a cabin boy
and found his destiny at sea. Brown
later commanded a packet that sailed
between Argentina and Uruguay. When
the Spanish destroyed his vessel, Brown
joined Argentine patriots fighting the
Spanish. Admired as the founder of the
Argentine Navy, Brown won two major
victories that helped ensure Argentine
independence, as well as winning a
later naval war with Brazil. Several
Argentine warships have been named
after “Admirante Guillermo Brown”.
Patricio Lynch (1825-1886), born in
Valparaiso, Chile, was descended from
an Irish merchant who had arrived in
South America a century before. Lynch
served in the Royal Navy during the
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