Longford Westmeath Argentina Society

Who are we?






The Longford Westmeath Argentina Society, formed in 1989, is a historical and cultural group, which aims to promote a greater awareness of and maintain the relationship between the descendants of Irish emigrants to Argentina, and our own community.

 La sociedad Argentina de Longford y Westmeath es uną organizacion fundadą en 1989. La aspiracion mayor de la sociedad es de formeńtar el conocimiento de la emigracion irlandesa a la Argentina. Es importante tambien mantener los vinculos entre la comunidad irlandesa en Argentina y nosotros aca en el punto de origen de la emigracion al Rio de La Plata.

Cada ano celebraremos un asado, ademas de distintos eventos culturales y educativos sobre la situacion actual en Argentina. Tambien ofreceremos consejos y contactos a los irlandeses que viajan a Buenos Aires y naturalmente les proporcionamos ayuda a todo los visitantes argentinos en Irlanda.


What do we do?


The Society holds lectures, social events, outings, and an annual "Asado", as well as offering a point of contact for Argentine visitors to Ireland, and advice and contacts for local people making the trip to Argentina. Our meetings are generally held in Mullingar.

Many of our members have visited Latin America, some independently, and others on a trip which was organised by the Society in the Autumn of 1998.

People from other parts of Ireland are often amazed to learn of the links between this country and Argentina. However, in three Irish counties - Westmeath, Longford and Wexford - there is a strong awareness of these links, since these were the counties of origin of an estimated 60 per cent of the estimated 30,000 Irish who emigrated to Argentina during the 1800s.

There are now approximately 400,000 Argentines of Irish descent. A fact often commented on is that many third and fourth generation Argentine Irish people still speak with Longford and Westmeath accents, despite never having visited this country.

Surnames common in the Irish midlands survive still in Argentina, and the pages of the Southern Cross newspaper, set up in 1875 to serve the Irish community there, are littered with these surnames, usually prefaced by Spanish Christian names.



Like to join us?





A year's membership of the Longford-Westmeath Argentina Society costs just 10 euro, and provides an opportunity to learn more about that country, and to meet people who share a similar interest.

To join, please contact any of the members of the Executive of our body, whose names are listed below:



EXECUTIVE AND COMMITTEE



Chairman- James Dowler, Abbeyshrule, Co Longford, Ireland. Tel: 353-(0)868470711, James Dowler

Secretary - Louis Kiernan, Moyvore, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. Tel: 353-(0)872046339, Louis Kiernan

Treasurer - Tom Ganly,11 Roscommon Road, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. Tel: 353-(0)90-6498800, Tom Ganly

Webmaster - Eilķs Ryan,Ballymore, Co. Westmeath, Ireland. Tel: 353-(0)86-2627410, Eilis Ryan



 



Why links between Westmeath, Longford and Argentina?




Genealogist With Westmeath Roots Explains Ireland's Emigration To Argentina

The Irish who went to Argentina came in a number of different " waves" according to Dr. Guillermo MacLoughlin, an Argentine- Irish genealogist and historian, who at the end of September addressed both the Longford Westmeath Argentina Society in Mullingar, and the major emigration conference, "The Scattering" held in Cork.

The different Irish "groups" in Argentina included the Spanish- Irish, the British-Irish, and even Russian-Irish, and Irish- born or ethnic Irish who came from America and Canada. Some of the European Irish would have been, he believes, descendants of the Wild Geese.

Dr. MacLoughlin said that the Spanish Irish group consisted of Irish-born people, or their descendants, who came in the early period to the colonial territory of the River Plate, which afterwards became the Argentine Republic.

Many of them held important positions in the military and civil administration during the colonial years, while others were wealthy merchants or professionals. There were also some Irish Catholic priests, integrated into the local clergy. Some of those Irish are mentioned as founders of different cities in the sixteenth century.

 

Famous Irish Argentine people




Among the most prominent of these early Irish settlers were the family of Patrick Lynch, from Galway, who settled in Buenos Aires in the 1740s, and whose descendants included Benito and Pastor Lynch, officers during the struggle for independence; the writers Benito and Alberto Benegas Lynch; Cabinet Ministers Matias Frers and Alberto Rodriguez Varela; and the revolutionary Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, "Che" Guevara, who died in Bolivia in 1967.

Some other families with Irish roots are hard to trace because of the hispanicisation of their surnames, eg., the Kellys, who became the "Cueli" family, and Campbells originally from Dublin, who became "Campanas".

The "British-Irish" were, Dr. MacLoughlin said, those Irish who came as soldiers or officers of the British forces. The first British attempt to establish military positions in Argentina took place in 1763. One particular defeated expedition was under the command of Captain John MacNamara, whose troops boasted names such as Heffernan, Manahan, Lynch, Brown, Young, Hughes, Carr, MacGeoghegan and others.

Argentina's struggle for independence began in 1810, when the local people born under Spanish rule, decided to cut relations with the Spanish King. The Irish were divided among loyalists and independents, but all, eventually, went on to support the cause of independence. The Naval battle of Montevideo, on March 17 1815, assured the independence of Buenos Aires, and Admiral William Brown, a native of Foxford, Mayo, who had founded the Navy, began the action with the band playing the song "St. Patrick's Day In the Morning", which is now one of the official songs of the Argentine Navy.

The largest single wave of emigration to Argentina began in the late 1820s, when many Irish went over to take advantage of the opportunities for advancement in the rising wool and meat trades. Some established in the cities, but the majority went to the interior.

Two Westmeath men, William Mooney and Patrick Bookey, as well as Patrick Browne from Wexford, contacted the people in their counties of origin, and invited them to establish in Argentina. Many of those who went were the younger, non- inheriting sons of large Irish tenant farmers, with the education and management skill which allowed them in a matter of years to become rich farmers.

The heart of this emigration was localised in a quadrangle stretching roughly from Athlone to Edgeworthstown to Mullingar and on to Kilbeggan.

According to Dr. MacLoughlin, the vast majority lived a rural lifestyle, and horseracing was a principal sport and social activity. "These race meetings were, it is claimed, as good as 'the best ever seen in Mullingar'," he said, adding that as a result of this interest, Jockey Clubs were set up, and these are nowadays prestigious social institutions in Argentina.

These settlers did not initially integrate with the rest of the Argentine community. They had their own churches, hospitals, schools and clubs, and married among themselves.

In 1878, Edward Mulhall, a native of Dublin, and founder of " The Standard" newspaper in Argentina wrote: "The Irish owned an aggregate value of land and stock that cannot fall short of two million sterling. Some of these men had from 50,0000 to 200,000 sheep, and run immense tracts of land which average £ 1,000 to £10,000 per year. In no other part of the world have Irishmen been more prosperous, and nowhere do they constitute a more orderly and industrious community than in Buenos Aires."

Nowadays, according to Dr. McLoughlin, there are more than half a million Argentine people who can claim Irish ancestry. The community has now integrated totally into Argentine life, and have intermarried, and moved to the cities.

"Nevertheless, it is also possible to find in rural areas Irish descendants speaking with a notable Westmeath accent, thought they have never been to Ireland, and are grandsons or great grandsons of Irish emigrants to Argentina," he said.


------------------------------------------------------------------------


 





The Irish in Argentina


It is believed that the first Irish people to set foot in Argentina were three Galway born members of the crew of the Spanish Admiral Hernando de Magallanes in 1520, but the real Irish "invasion" occurred in the 1800s, and approximately 80 per cent of those emigrants came from Counties Westmeath, Longford, and Wexford.

Among the earliest of these emigrants was Thomas Armstrong, from Garrycastle, Banagher, Co Offaly, who emigrated in 1817, and who went on to found organisations to develop the agricultural and mining industries, a bank, and the Argentine Stock Exchange. By 1824, the Irish community in Buenos Aires was large enough to have its own chaplain. Fr. Edmund Burke, a Dominican.

The birth of the wave of emigration from the midlands is attributed to two men, William Mooney, and his son-in-law, Patrick Bookey, from Streamstown, Co. Westmeath, who arrived there in 1827. They befriended Patrick Browne, from Wexford, who had been sent over by the Liverpool-based Dickson and Montgomery Bank to run their affairs in Argentina.

These three men, seeing the opportunities which existed in the Argentine meat and wool industries, sent back to their home areas inviting people to join them, and from the 1830s, the flow began. Between 1826 and 1830, just 34 Irish people entered the port of Buenos Aires, while in the following five years, from 1831 to 1835, 167 entered.

The majority of those who went out were from a farming background, and took advantage of the system known as "halves" under which they would look after a number of thousand sheep for farmers on the pampas for a certain period of time. At the end of the agreed period, the flock would be divided equally between the owner and his Irish shepherd. This enabled the Irish emigrants to set themselves on a sound financial footing, and many went on to buy their own farms, sending home for yet more Irish to join them as labourers.

Journalist Peadar Kirby, describing the origin of these emigrants writes:

"Since Irish emigration to Argentina was almost entirely in response to encouragement from previous emigrants who were established there, it came from two clearly defined areas, south-east of a line from Wexford town to Kilmore Quay in Wexford, and from a quadrangle on the Longford/Westmeath border stretching roughly from Athlone to Edgeworthstown to Mullingar to Kilbeggan. Virtually the whole population surrounding the town of Ballymore, which stands roughly at the centre of this quadrangle, emigrated to Buenos Aires in the 1860s."

Fr. Anthony Fahy, a Dominican priest from Galway, was appointed to Argentina in January 1844, and he estimated his flock at that time to be about 4,000, three quarters of whom were living in the countryside. He oversaw the establishment of a hospital for the Irish in 1848, and the arrival of Irish Mercy nuns in 1855 to run it. The nuns went on to set up a college to educate the Irish children, and the Passionist and Pallottine Fathers established further colleges, and parish churches for the Irish.

Fr. Fahy encouraged Irish women to emigrate, in order to ensure the survival of the Irish community. He acted as banker for the Irish there.

The emigration continued apace and it is estimated that 30,000 Irish people emigrated to Argentina in the 1800s, the majority going out from the 1840s to the 1860s. By 1875, the Southern Cross, the oldest Irish newspaper outside Ireland was founded. It still exists, and carries articles in English and Spanish, and was just last year running a column for those interested in learning Irish!



 

The above information is taken, with the permission of the publishers and author, from Peadar Kirby's book "Ireland and Latin America - Links and Lessons" published jointly by Trocaire and Gill and Macmillan as part of Trocaire's World Topics series of books. It is available from Trocaire, the Catholic Agency for World Development 169 Booterstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin at £5. The latest book in the series is " Poverty Amid Plenty - World and Irish Development Reconsidered, available from Trocaire at £7.50.



PLEASE BE PATIENT: THIS PAGE IS GOING TO BE DEVELOPED - BUT SLOWLY!

WebSpawner Page Machine
Westmeath Independent
Find out more about on-line Irish resources
Want to check the roots of your family tree?
Westmeath Examiner
Want to see what's hitting the headlines in Ireland today?
Send E-Mail to: longfordwestmeathargentinasoc@yahoo.com
Free Webpages This page created using the webpage creation facilities of Webspawner.
Copyright © 2005 Eilis Ryan. All Rights Reserved