The Irish in Argentina: not just farmers and priests

Some half a million Argentines claim Irish decent. Most Irish immigrants arrived in Argentina after 1830 and largely came from just two places: the area around the Longford-Westmeath border and Wexford.

The narrow geographical spread is the result largely of two midlands men, John Mooney and Patrick Bookey, who wrote home from Argentina of the opportunities in the vast Pampas farms. Even today, it is not uncommon to hear Argentines speaking English with a midlands accent.

Nineteenth-century emigrants generally settled in overwhelmingly Irish communities. Many children attended industrial schools set up by Father Fahy, a chaplain originally from Loughrea.

The Irish in Argentina were not just farmers and priests. William Brown, the son of a Foxford peasant, founded the Argentine navy and played a key role in the successful battle for independence from Spain at the start of the 19th century.

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This year, 2016, marks the bicentenary of Argentine independence. The Argentine Irish also played a role in our centenary this year: the first person to raise the Tricolour outside the GPO in 1916, Eamon Bulfin, was born in Buenos Aires in 1892. By then Irish emigration had started to decline, prompted by the ill-fated Dresden Affair three years earlier.

The Irish influence has not disappeared completely. The Southern Cross styles itself as the oldest newspaper anywhere in the world catering for the Irish Diaspora.

But nowadays the Irish are very much integrated into Argentinian life. "We are no longer Irish, we are Argentines of Irish descent," says Dr Guillermo MacLoughlin, the Southern Cross's 14th editor since it was established in 1875.

The internet has made it easier for the Irish in Argentina to connect with distant relatives back home. Martin Arbeletche Scott, whose great-great-grandfather came from Dublin, recently discovered that he is related to Dublin southeast Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy. "I feel my Irishness," says Scott.