Irish Roots
the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific, Lynch
fought with the Chilean Army, leading
troops against Bolivia and Peru. After
the Chilean victory, Lynch was made the
military governor of Peru.
Ireland left an imprint in Mexico as
well. Born in Spain of Irish ancestry,
Juan O’Donojú (1762-1821) was the
last Spanish viceroy of Mexico. Hugh
O’Connor (1732-1797) was born in
Dublin. Leaving Ireland, he became
an officer in the Spanish Army and
was transferred to the New World.
The Spanish viceroy appointed him
as governor of Spanish Texas, where
he ably defended the beleaguered
settlements from Apache raids. Indians
called him “the Red Captain” because
of his bright red hair. In 1775 O’Connor
led a detachment to build a new frontier
presidio (fort), which grew into the
modern city of Tucson, Arizona.
During the 1846-1848 War with Mexico,
Mexico’s forces included an Irish unit
called the San Patricio (or St. Patrick’s)
Battalion. They included Irishmen and
other foreigners living in Mexico, but
many of them were Irish-born deserters
from the U.S. Army. Knowledge of
anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudice
in the American army led Mexico to
offer a chance for military service and
land bounties to Irish deserters. The
Irish battalion fought well, notably
at the Battle of Churubusco outside
Mexico City. Some of the deserters
from the U.S. Army were captured and
hanged by the American forces, but the
survivors formed a unit in the postwar
Mexican army. The San Patricio
Battalion was commemorated on Irish
and Mexican postage stamps in 1997.
The Society for Latin American Irish
Studies at http://www.irlandeses.
org/index.html has several useful
databases, biographies, and much more
information on the estimated 70,000
Irish who emigrated to South and
Central America. “Irish Passengers
to Argentina (1822-1929)” has 7,159
passenger names, with their dates of
arrival, ports of departure, and the
ships that brought them. “Irish Settlers
in Argentina” contains 4,348 names, not
all of whom are on the passenger list.
There is also a list of Irish-Argentine
burials.
Worldwide vital records, census rolls,
and other materials are becoming easier
to search with the addition of many reels
of digitized microfilm at Familysearch.
org. Records are in Spanish (Portuguese
in the case of Brazil), but a Spanish
dictionary will help you attain
enough of a vocabulary to deal with
the most common types of records.
Notable collections at Familysearch are
national censuses of Argentina from
1869 and 1895, and a Buenos Aires city
census of 1855. A search with the keyword
“Ireland” in the “place” category for
the 1895 Argentine census found 3,240
results. Searching for “Dublin” as place
of birth in “Brazil, Immigration Cards,
1900-1965” (a collection containing
tourists as well as permanent emigrants)
yielded 289 hits.
2013 Number 3
be browsed alphabetically.
In Spanish documents, you may
find “Irish” rendered as irlandés or
yrlandés, or perhaps in the case of
women and girls, as the feminine
irlandesa or yrlandesa. (Nationalities are
normally not capitalized in Spanish.)
Irish surnames and Christian names
While some European immigrants to South America found new lives in the cities, others
settled on farms, such as this early 20th century family of immigrants to Argentina.
(Library of Congress.)
At Familysearch, you may find other
people of Irish descent listed in
civil registration or church records
from Latin American and Caribbean
nations. Included are some records
from the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto
Rico, which was a Spanish colony
until 1898. “Puerto Rico, Records
of Foreign Residents, 1815-1845”
contains over 18,000 images scanned
from microfilmed records at the U.S.
National Archives. Irish surnames
such as O’Neill and Ryan appear in the
collection, which is not indexed but can
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Celebrating Irish Ancestry
7
would often be converted to Spanish
equivalents or spellings. Tucson’s
founder Hugh O’Connor appears in
Spanish accounts as “Hugo Oconór”.
With growing published and online
worldwide genealogy records becoming
available, searching for any “Wild Geese”
among your ancestors in Latin America
is becoming a much easier task. Buena
suerte! Good luck!
David A. Norris is a freelance writer and
artist from North Carolina with a particular
interest in genealogy.
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