Nineteenth Century Irish Emigration to, and Settlement in, Argentina

NINETEENTH CENTURY IRISH EMIGRATION TO, AND SETTLEMENT IN, ARGENTINA. BY P A T R I C K M c K E N N A. M. A. G E O G R A P H Y T H E S I S 1 9 9 4 C O N T E N T S Page. Chapter 1 Nineteenth Century Irish Emigration to, and settlement in, Argentina. 1 Chapter 2 Review of Source Material used in this work. 18 Chapter 3 The Effect of Physical Geography and Climate on Early Settlement. 36 Chapter 4 The Origin of Irish Colonization. 57 Chapter 5 The Process of Nineteenth Irish Settlement in Argentina. 75 Chapter 6 The Role of the Irish Church in the Formation of the Community. 96 Chapter 7 The Journey to Argentina. 124 Chapter 8 The Sending Areas. 138 Chapter 9 The Number of Irish Immigrants. 158 Chapter 10 Gender Roles in Irish Emigration to Argentina. 186 Chapter 11 Profile of the Emigrant. 207 Chapter 12 Patterns of Irish Settlement in Argentina. 223 Chapter 13 Life for the Irish in the Camp. 245 Chapter 14 The consolidation of their position by the Irish elite. 274 Chapter 15 An Overview of Irish Emigration and Settlement in Argentina. 289 APPENDIX 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY C H A P T E R 1. NINETEENTH CENTURY IRISH EMIGRATION TO AND SETTLEMENT IN ARGENTINA. A Global Perspective. By the start of the twentieth century about 7.5 million Irish had crossed the Atlantic to resettle in a new world which was being opened up for trade and commerce by European powers. In the case of the Americas, this new world stretched, unbroken, from the frozen wastes of northern Canada and Alaska through the equator until it again reached the great glaciers of southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Figure 1:1 Trans-Atlantic emigration from Ireland, 1720-1900 2 Beyond the Americas the New World spanned the African and Australian continents. The Irish, however, emigrated in an organized way, mostly, to very specific regions of this new world. The regions of the New World that the great majority of the nineteenth-century Irish emigrated to are located between the 30th and 50th parallel, both north and south of the equator. In addition their settlement was always bounded on at least one side by the ocean, or a large navigable river which linked the interior to the ocean. The reason why the Irish chose this relatively limited area, with easy access to the ocean, for settlement during the nineteenth century is apparent to the geographer. It was because the great grassland regions of the world are found within those parallels and it was not until the nineteenth century that those regions became the focus of European immigration. Settlement between the 30th and 50th parallel allowed the Irish settlers continue the type of agricultural production with which they were familiar, while access to the ocean allowed them trade their products for the European manufactured goods they were also familiar with when in Ireland. It was not until the late eighteenth century, however, that the great grassland frontiers became important to the growing European mercantile and industrial powers, so that the conditions for mass Irish emigration did not occur until then. By the end of the eighteenth century emigration from Ireland to the grassland regions of Canada and New England had become well established especially among the Scotch-Irish around the ports of Derry and Belfast. By the early nineteenth century this type of emigration was also beginning to occur among growing numbers of the Catholic Irish population, especially among those of similar 3 class to the Scotch-Irish, the relatively prosperous tenant farmers. Early Influences on Irish Emigration. By the second decade of the nineteenth century a series of events took place which greatly affected Irish emigration to the New World. England was involved in a European war against Napoleon. One major effect of this war was that growing emigration from Ireland to the New World was almost completely halted. Those potential emigrants who were forced to remain in Ireland not only created a notional population increase greater than it would otherwise have been, further adding to an already rapidly increasing population. The immediate consequences of this population increase and the lack of emigration were alleviated to some extent by the fact that Ireland was a major supplier of grain for the English troops. The wheat fields had to be ploughed, sown and harvested by manual labour, thus absorbing much of the labour supply, on a seasonal basis at least, for the duration of the war. When the war ended, however, a fall in demand for wheat led to an agricultural depression promoting a switch to cattle production by the land owners. This resulted in a rapid reduction in employment for labourers and a consequent large increase in emigration from the country. Another important factor which facilitated the huge rise in Irish emigration when the war with France ended was that at about the same time the colonial trade in slaves was abolished by England. As a result most of the ships involved in the slave trade were tied up in Liverpool while their owners desperately searched for alternative sources and centres of 4 trade with new regions. The English looked especially to the great grassland frontiers of the southern hemisphere to increase their influence and allow a new expansion in trade. This expansion of commercial influence by the English had a large military as well as merchant navy content. Many of the soldiers and sailors involved in this expansion, together with ordinary merchant seamen, were Irish. Not all of those Irish soldiers and sailors returned home with their comrades. Many of those who remained in these new locations did however maintain contact with their families in Ireland. And thus, links were formed between small areas in Ireland and specific locations in the new world. The link between Waterford and Newfoundland is one example where merchant seamen from the south east of Ireland settled on the other side of the Atlantic and began a chain which developed into significant emigration from the Waterford area specifically to Newfoundland. Buenos Aires is another example where soldiers, from Co. Westmeath, remained behind to form a nucleus which began emigration, from around Streamstown initially, to the Pampa of Argentina. Thus a combination of factors began the great nineteenth century Irish exodus to the New World. Briefly these were, an expanding population and economic recession in Ireland, combined with the English need to develop new frontiers for trade together with an ample supply of shipping, capable of moving both the goods and the emigrants to the desired destinations. Consequently the nineteenth-century Irish emigrant was perfectly placed, in 5 time, location and circumstance to settle the new frontiers. Furthermore a rural lifestyle in Ireland based on heavy manual labour meant that the Irish emigrant brought to the New World the variety of skills necessary to integrate the new frontiers into the European mercantile system. A very good match therefore existed between a suitable surplus population in Ireland and a great shortage of just such a population in the New World. In addition to being ideally suited to the needs of the developers of the New World, the Irish were also the ideal outward cargo. Irish emigrants became a self-loading, fare paying ballast for the growing number of ships trading with the New World. For those reasons Britain, reluctantly at first, soon began to encourage in every way the outmigration of her surplus, potentially rebellious, Irish subjects to the new frontiers in the distant reaches of her empire. Argentina's Role in the British Colonial System. Argentina, though an independent Roman Catholic and Spanish speaking nation, was drawn into this British colonial trading system from very early in the nineteenth century and competed as an equal in the British market with the British colonies of Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as well as the US. This trading relationship between Great Britain and Argentina continued from about 1815 until about 1960. It is therefore valid in terms of economic-geography, even if incorrect in strictly historical or political terms, to treat Argentina as a very important part of the British colonial outreach in the nineteenth century. 6 All the new great new grassland frontiers of the world were therefore being incorporated into the British colonial mercantile system, in one form or another, during the nineteenth century. All of those regions needed European labour to fully develop their economic potential within the then existing mercantile world. Consequently the regions were in competition with each other, not only for a share of the European market, but also for a share of the emigrants leaving Europe in search of a new start elsewhere in the world. Ireland as a Source for Immigrants. Ireland was a very important source for immigrant recruitment for all of the British colonies, particularly as the Irish were the only significant emigrant group in the nineteenth century who spoke English and were legally British. This allowed the Irish greater choice than other European emigrants, because, in addition to settlement in the colonies, they had the choice of emigration to the industrial centres in England as well as an in-built advantage, because of their language, in seeking industrial employment in the United States. Furthermore, the Irish were always among the very earliest Europeans to emigrate to the new frontiers and, once the Irish became established, they encouraged further immigration from Ireland. They made up about 10% of the entire European Trans-Atlantic emigration, despite being about 1% of the European population1. This competition for Irish immigrants afforded the intending Irish emigrant a wide variety of locations to choose from. Each potential destination had its own advantages and disadvantages for the emigrant. Some offered well paid industrial employment, others 7 offered the opportunity to the emigrant to acquire his own land. Some canters offered a large existing Irish community while others offered isolation. The Irish emigrant in the nineteenth century was in a position to weigh all those factors and choose the option which he felt offered him the best chance of success and fulfillment. The Purpose of This Thesis. A great deal of research has been devoted to the Irish who emigrated to those areas which were English speaking. The Irish who emigrated to French-speaking Quebec, the only other significant non-English speaking, non-Protestant nineteenth-century Irish emigrant destination, have been written about to a lesser extent. Quebec however, being part of Canada was, by then, a British colony and therefore subject to British rule, though it maintained a French rather than a British legal system. The Irish in Argentina however have been largely ignored to date, being confined to footnotes or a few short essays by academic researchers. This group of emigrants, while emigrating to a quasi-British colony, had to establish themselves in a country, most of whose customs and laws in addition to its language, were alien to the Irish. The purpose of this thesis is to examine specifically this group of Irish emigrants in the belief that this will redress the imbalance in research to some degree. Because no overall academic work exists about the Irish in Argentina this work will examine how emigration from Ireland 1 4 emigrated directly to the city of Rosario in the province of Santa Fe at the northern most tip of the Irish region in Argentina, in the late 1870's and early 1880's, to work in white collar positions in the British owned railway companies. The rest of the urban Irish immigrants either outmigrated to other Irish urban centres, usually in the United States, or disappeared into the wider, largely Italian, immigrant community of the city of Buenos Aires. The settlement patterns and lifestyle of the Irish in the different settlement areas, rural and urban, will be discussed in Chapter 12. The lifestyle of the Immigrant. While some Irish remained in the city the great majority were rural settlers. Chapter 13 describes the conditions under which the early emigrants in particular worked. It explains how the Irish acquired first their sheep and later their land. It also describes the isolation and the dangers that they experienced while caring for their flocks and settling the new lands. A description of the homes they built, the clothes they wore and how they, as individuals, related to each other and to the, largely alien, surroundings they found themselves in is also given. The Reorganization of the Irish Community post 1875. By 1875 the region of Argentina which up until then had been settled by the Irish was rapidly transforming from being a frontier country into becoming a highly efficient 1 5 agricultural producer on the outskirts of one of the most rapidly expanding cities in the world. Thomas Armstrong and Fr. Fahy had recently died and so a new leadership, with different objectives was in control, directing the future of the Irish community. The direction that Irish settlement took under their leadership is outlined in chapter 14. Conclusion. An overview, in Chapter 15, draws together all the strands of the previous chapters and shows that nineteenth-century Irish emigration to, and settlement in, Argentina conforms to the general Irish emigration of the period, in that they were among the earliest arrivals and, for at least the first three quarters of the century, the most important group of European immigrant labourers in the country in economic terms, and rivalling the Italians for supremacy in absolute numbers until about the middle of the century. The emigrants were attracted to Argentina by the availability of fertile land and the opportunity to make a fresh start doing something at which they were skilled, but were unable to turn to commercial advantage at home. They were able to arrive at their destination using established, reasonably convenient, trading links. They had prior knowledge of the conditions in the country from official channels, as well as from close family members or near, trusted, neighbours already resident in Argentina who were willing to recommend it as a place of opportunity. They were, for the most part, even from the beginning, going to an established Irish community, with Irish value systems, which was firmly linked into the 1 6 British colonial trading system. The majority were able to settle close to relatives or, at the very least, near neighbours and friends from Ireland. They were assured of steady employment which paid substantially more than similar employment at home. Most of the emigrants consisted of single, non-inheriting, sons and daughters who were faced with the choice of a considerable fall in status at home or the chance of success abroad. The earlier in the century the emigrant arrived in Argentina, usually, the better they succeeded in economic terms. When conditions no longer favoured the intending emigrant or when they judged conditions better elsewhere they abandoned Argentina in the same way that many abandoned Canada and turned their attentions, usually, to the United States. Despite many similarities, between the Irish settlers in Argentina and those Irish who settled elsewhere throughout the 'English' colonial world there were distinct differences. Argentina was the only self-governing country where the language and customs of the country were of Latin rather than English origins. Even in Canada there was at least a choice for the Irish immigrant, within the country, whether to settle in an area where English or French traditions existed. No such choice existed in Argentina. The customs and laws of the country were fundamentally different to the system found in all other popular Irish areas. Finally, a subtle if informal, control on the number and type of immigrant was exercised by the organizers of the immigration, though not, it would appear, by the government, to ensure that only those who would operate within a strictly rural environment would settle permanently in the country. 1 7 The Irish adopted different economic and social strategies in Argentina to those they adopted elsewhere but even that adaptability forms part of the overall Irish settlement pattern because the Irish developed a different strategy in every destination, in order to take best advantage of the local conditions. Thus while Irish emigration to Argentina during the nineteenth century has unique features which merit study, it was, nevertheless, very much part of the general Irish nineteenth-century, trans-Atlantic outreach to areas tied into the Anglophone industrial and mercantile system. 1 8 N O T E S 1. Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smyth (1993), 'The Irish Diaspora: Emigration to the New World, 1720-1920, 340, 2.An interesting fact about the British invasion of the river Plate in 1806/7 is that the three instigators and leaders of the invasion, Popham, Beresford, and Beaufort were all Irishmen. 3. 'Estanciero' literaly means 'estate owner'. In 1815 only a handful of men would have controlled all of the land in the territory around Buenos Aires city under the newly independent government of Argentina. Following intensive European settlement in northern Buenos Aires province from the middle of the last century, holdings in excess of about 1,000 hectares are also called estancias. Nineteenth century Irish estancieros, with one or two exceptions, fall into this latter category. Prior to the mid nineteenth century and even today everywhere outside northern Buenos Aires an estanciero is generally assumed to own tens, if not hundreds of thousands of hectares of land. 4. 'Porteno' which means 'a man from the seaport' was a term used to describe old established creole merchant families operating out of the port of Buenos Aires. 5. This remark was continually repeated to me by the older members of the Irish-Argentine community during my field trips to the country. Even a cursory examination of Coghlan (1987) whould bear out the truth of their claim. 6. David Rock (1986) Argentina 1516-1987, 115,153,165. 1 8 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF SOURCE MATERIAL USED IN THIS WORK. Introduction. The material used in researching this work comprises both primary and secondary source works. Some of the manuscript material was obtained in Ireland. This was augmented by other sources and primary field research conducted during the course of two field trips to Argentina, the first for ten weeks in September/November 1990 and the second, a much shorter five day visit to Buenos Aires city, in August 1992 following a conference at the University of San Paulo, Brazil. Primary Sources The primary sources consist of letters written at the time by immigrants to their families in Ireland, together with letters written by the leaders of the Irish community (mainly Fr. Anthony Fahy Irish chaplin, for much of the period), to the Archbishops of Dublin. Other primary sources consist of two unpublished journals together with articles, and advertisements published in local Irish newspapers, such as THE WEXFORD PEOPLE and THE WESTMEATH EXAMINER during the nineteenth century. In addition specialist newspapers such as THE AGRICULTURAL GAZETTE were also consulted. 1 9 On the Argentine side, THE SOUTHERN CROSS and THE HIBERNIAN were consulted to find out the concerns of the Irish community living in Argentina, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth. In addition during the field trips there were interviews conducted with elderly Argentine-Irish who could still remember growing up in the Irish community early in this century. The records of the Pallotine Order were also consulted for this work. A further important primary source is a photocopy of an original hand written manuscript obtained from the Irish embassy in Argentina during the first field trip to Argentina in 1990. This journal was written by John Brabazon, about his early life as an immigrant in Argentina during the period 1842/52. While this manuscript was written in chronological sequence it appears to have been written later than 1852 though no date is given. In addition to visiting the Irish settlement areas of Argentina the four main regions, as described in the following chapter, were visited in October 1990. The observations made and descriptions given in Chapter 3., with the exception of climate and geological data, are the result of personal encounters and experiences together with oral information obtained locally, on that field trip. Secondary Sources. 2 0 Very little has been written on nineteenth century Irish emigration to Argentina and many of the works relevant to the topic are presently out of print, some for over a hundred years. Many of these publications are known only to a few specialist readers. An overall and persisting problem encountered in researching this thesis was the dearth of work on IrishArgentine settlement and with the total absence of reliable maps from Independence until the 1880's when it became a major destination for urbanizing southern Italian migrants who were to provide the manpower during the country's industrializing phase. Seven important secondary sources are employed in this study of Irish-Argentine emigration. Two volumes by William McCann first published in 1853 comprise the earliest published major source. Six volumes of the Handbook of the River Plate published by the Mulhall brothers between 1868 and 1893 are an important source of general statistical information on nineteenth century Argentina and are also a very good chronicle, when taken together, of the changing conditions in the Argentine countryside around Buenos Aires city over their publication period. Murray1, looks at Irish immigration from a historical perspective. This is the only effort to date at a historical overview of Irish emigration to Argentina. A novel by Kathleen Nevin2 is the only work in existence which examines Irish emigration and settlement in Argentina from a female perspective and is therefore the only source available which makes any attempt to chronicle an Irish woman's experience in Argentina. It 2 1 is for this reason that Nevin's work is considered here. Coghlan's works published in 1982 and 1987 form the basis for most of the statistical analysis undertaken in the thesis. Coghlan's 1982 work comprises passenger lists for the port of Buenos Aires for parts of the nineteenth century along with abstracts from the 1855, 1869 and 1895 census. He lists the name, the age occupation and area of residence of Irish immigrants. His 1987 work is a genealogy of the Argentine-Irish community based on about 3665 Irish immigrants. Finally a work by Korol and Sabato3 who were the first to statistically analyze the Irish communities contribution to Argentina is also used. Much of this work though published prior to Coghlan was derived from Coghlan's (then unpublished) work. While it is intended to discuss these authors' work separately in greater detail, it is worth pointing out here, that the reason almost all the works used to form the basis for this research are by authors of Irish origin is coincidental. It arose because these are the only important works available which look at Irish emigration, to Argentina, during the nineteenth century. Detailed Discussion of the Sources Because the above works are known only to a few highly specialized readers it is proposed to discuss these sources here in a much more detailed fashion than would normally be the case. Those already familiar with the works will not find this discussion necessary in assessing their importance to this thesis. 2 2 UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL John Brabazon The major unpublished source used in this thesis is a journal written by an emigrant from Westmeath called John Brabazon. Brabazon wrote a of his experiences as an emigrant in Buenos Aires province between 1842 and 1852. Brabazon was not a typical Irish emigrant in that he came from a well known Protestant family in Westmeath. Indeed it is only in the 1990's that the Brabazon family home and 300 acre farm went out of the Brabazon name to a nephew Mr. Greg. Potterton. That said, John Brabazon was typical of emigration from the area in that he left Ireland with his passage and very little money and was met by family members on arrival. Possibly because of his wealthy background, he was unprepared for life as a labourer in Argentina. An honest man, but no businessman, he drifted in and out of almost every kind of work done by Irish emigrants during the 1840' and 1850'. He bought sheep when they were dear and sold out when they were cheap. He describes the real dangers experienced by those early Irish emigrants from the lone gaucho, to renegade bands of 'soldiers' fighting in the, almost constant, civil wars of that period. He also describes how many Irish left Argentina for California during the gold rush of 1849 and how others availed of free passage to Australia, paid for by the British government, in the 1850 when the civil war, against the dictator 2 9 Ireland to Buenos Aires around that time. While Nevin's characters are not well drawn her perspective on emigration and HibernoArgentine society towards the end of the nineteenth century are very clear. While at no time does this novel by Nevin make any claims to scholarship or literary prowess, her work shows her as a very observant and unblinkered woman for her time. As this is the only work which examines the values and mores of the then established Irish-Argentine society at the end of the nineteenth century from a female perspective and is the only work that makes any attempt to define the position of women or their role within that society, it is employed in this thesis to try and give some insight into female emigration. Susan Wilkinson. Another novel written in a similar genre to Nevin's work is Sebastian's Pride by Susan Wilkinson. Wilkinson, a Canadian of Irish-Argentine extraction uses her own family history to write a romantic novel set in the Argentine camp during the nineteenth century. The central family in the novel, at the publisher's request, are supposed to be English. In fact they came from near Mullingar. They are untypical in that the first emigrant was Protestant and working in Dublin before he emigrated. Nevertheless the picture of camp life as experienced by the Irish in the nineteenth century is very well drawn. Like Nevin's work, Wilkinson never intended her work as an academic source and it makes no pretensions to scholarship. It 3 0 was written as light romance for a Canadian audience. Despite this limitation, drawn as it is from her own family's experience, it does illustrate very well how a man who emigrated penniless to Argentina and was determined to succeed, regardless of moral principle, was able take advantage of conditions in the country to acquire and keep a large land holding there. Eduardo Coghlan The most important of all the publications to this thesis, is that of Eduardo Coghlan, retired judge, with a Ph.D in genealogy, who was able, because of his position as head of the Census Bureau in Argentina, to collect a vast amount of raw data on the nineteenth century Irish community. All of these raw data, which consists of two works, published privately in a limited edition in Argentina, was transformed into computer format by me. The analysis of them forms the basis of the statistical reports in this thesis. The two publications referred to are El aporte de los Irlandeses a la Formacion de la Nacion Argentina, published in 1982 and his 1987 publication Los Irlandeses en la Argentina. A copy of both are in my possession. Coghlan's 1982 publication consists of a list of about 4,000 passengers who arrived in Buenos Aires between 1835 and 1875 together with abstracts from regional (1855) and national (1869 and 1895) census which provide 10,894 entries of 'Irish' and 'English' emigrants. His 1987 publication purports to be a complete genealogy of Irish-Argentine 3 1 emigrants. It was compiled from baptismal and marriage certificates as well as property records and passenger lists. These dependent records were augmented by census material. In the 1987 work Coghlan has published data on over 3,650 original emigrants together with a record of their descendants and marriage partners, in most cases, up to the present day. As such, it represents a unique and useful database for analysis of the Irish Argentine settlement and society. No comparable data set has been published for any other emigrant Irish community. Coghlan (1987) does impose limitations on the geographer, however, in that it records only those migrants who left some record of their presence in their new country. It is a record of residuals. From a Darwinian perspective, Coghlan records only the fittest who went on to reproduce. His records and information on individuals improve as those individuals rise in importance within the community. In short, while Coghlan's records cover about 15-20% of the total estimated Irish emigration, it is not a random sample of the emigrants who originally left Ireland for Argentina in the nineteenth century, many of them only settling there for a short period before moving elsewhere in the Americas. What Coghlan's work cannot do is account for those considerable numbers who migrated either back to Ireland or to the United States, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Neither does it record those migrants who disappeared or who, soon after arriving, died during the many cholera epidemics which occurred in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. In only a 3 2 few cases does he record out-migration of some who, by the time they left Argentina, had already been recorded in marital or property transactions. Commenced in the 1960's, Coghlan's research is based entirely on surviving evidence and consists, in the main, of property owners and those who married within the country. Nonetheless it is an important, albeit biased, sample of upwards of one fifth of Irish emigrants to Argentina. As a description of the background of the present-day Irish-Argentine society it is less partially representative. These limitations have to be borne in mind when interpreting his data. Coghlan nevertheless remains a very important source for the geographer, as it is by far the most complete record of a surviving Irish community anywhere outside Ireland. It is possible to obtain from his work information that can be used to measure population origin, movement, integration and assimilation in their host country. Much of that information confirms broad patterns found in Irish migrant communities elsewhere. It is therefore legitimate to use Coghlan as the core work when studying a homogeneous community within a broader settlement framework. Coghlan's 1982 work consists of lists of 'Irish' names by district, age, nationality, marital status and occupation as recorded in the three census of the nineteenth century. Because very many Irish were recorded as 'English' all 'English' emigrants with Irish family names were included. Thus this record has to be to some degree subjective and its main weakness is that 3 3 it cannot differentiate between those who emigrated from Ireland directly and those first generation English who emigrated also. Much of this difficulty can be overcome by very careful analysis of the data in the work, part of the reason for the confusion in differentiating between Irish and English lies with the census enumerators, who in many districts recorded all emigrants as English when other records clearly show, often the date, townland and parish in Ireland where they were baptized. It would also appear, from looking at the records, that in some districts the enumerators may have been deliberately misled by the emigrants, possibly for reasons of status. In some areas all the estancieros are listed as English, while their labourers are given as Irish, though proof of the Irish origins of the estancieros is absolute. The converse is also found in other areas, where the property owners are given as Irish and their labourers as English though in this case proof of the Irish origin of these 'English' labourers is not so conclusive. There is no doubt that some Irish did re emigrate from England and that English emigrants of recent Irish origin also entered Argentina. Their numbers, on balance, appear to have been very small as all were able to disappear into the various regional Irish communities. This would indicate that those few who emigrated from England and are counted as Irish may 3 4 have been attracted to Argentina from information supplied directly from close family members in Ireland, rather than from any tradition of emigration to Argentina from the English community in which they were living. Korol and Sabato The work by Korol and Sabato (1981) Como fue la inmigracion Irlandesa en Argentina, was a brief synopsis drawn from the works discussed above. This work was published in 1981, a year before Coghlan' census material. Nevertheless Korol and Sabato, friends of Coghlan, had access to Coghlan's data prior to its publication. Their most important contribution was that they were the first to prove that only those Irish emigrants who arrived before 1865 had any real chance of acquiring land in the country. Living in Argentina they had access to records not available in Ireland. They are the source for numerical data on the size of Irish estancias at the end of the century, when they were purchased etc. Its perspective is different to this thesis in that it concentrated on the importance of the Irish community to the development of the Argentine economy by the middle of the nineteenth century. It was written for an Argentine audience. Consequently much of the work dealt with conditions in Ireland which obliged emigrants to leave. It is important in that it was the first to attempt to quantify the importance of the Irish emigrants to the emerging post (Spanish) colonial Argentine economy. 3 5 Published a year before Coghlan's census and six years prior to his genealogy and lacking the technology of the modern computer, most of the information since established by Coghlan and dealt with in this thesis was unavailable to the authors, though it is obvious that Coghlan was of great assistance to them in preparing their work. One difficulty with the work is that it assumes that in the three census Coghlan captured 100% of the Irish emigrants. On that basis the authors estimate the total number of Irish emigrants including those who re-emigrated at only 10,672 which I feel is a considerable under estimate. Other sources, as they arise, will be discussed in chapter endnotes. 3 6 N O T E S 1. Thomas Murray (1919) The History of the Irish in Argentina. 2. Kathleen Nevin (1949) You'll Never go Back. 3. Korol and Sabato (1981) Como fue la inmigracion Irlandesa en Argentina. CHAPTER 3 THE EFFECT OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE ON EARLY SETTLEMENT. Introduction. Argentina is located south of the equator and is the second largest state in South America. It covers an area of 2,791,810 km sq. and is situated along with Chile, on the southern peninsula of the South American continent. Argentina stretches from approximately the 22nd to the 55th parallel, measuring about 3,460 km in length. Its width, from east to west, varies from between 1,580 km in the north to about 220 km at the Straits of Magellan and even less further south in the territory of Tierra del Fuego. This gives the Fi g ure 3.3 Modern Ar g entin a 3 6 3 7 country its long tapering shape. Were it situated in the Northern Hemisphere, Argentina would stretch from Aberdeen in Scotland to the town of Tummo on the border between Libya and Niger. On this map the city of Buenos Aires would be located in Morocco, roughly where Rabat now stands. On the North American Continent Argentina would stretch from the Belcher Islands in the Hudson Bay, to the City of Guadalajara in central Mexico. Buenos Aires city would be located about where New Orleans in the USA is now sited. Argentina therefore contains most of the variety in geology and climate found in Europe and North Africa and the north American continent. Argentina, its Geology and Climate. Argentina's only mountain range, the Andes, lies along its western side from Bolivia in the north to the Straits of Magellan in the south, forming a natural border with Chile. Moving east from the Andes the country becomes a plain, devoid of any significant features of relief until it reaches the Atlantic. Consequently the east-west airflow is significantly affected by the country's mountain zone, whereas the north-south airstreams travel across thousands of kilometers over plains, unimpeded by any significant relief features. Therefore the cold dry polar wind has a marked effect in its sub-tropical zones, particularly in winter, while warm moist tropical airflows penetrate as far south as northern Patagonia, usually in summer, affecting that climate to a considerable degree. Its geology and climate therefore make Argentina a country of many contrasts, with almost 4 4 important centre for Irish settlement despite Irish troops being exiled here on a number of occasions between 1780 and 1807. Patagonia. Patagonia is the other great erosion zone in Argentina. It accounts for the southern half of the total length of Argentina and a quarter of its total area. It stretches 1,600 km from the Colorado River in the north to the Beagle Channel in the south. It was formed by sea bed uplift rising in a series of terraces beginning about 500 km. east of the Atlantic coast rising westward to the Andes. Its coastline, which is formed by one of these terraces, consists mainly of cliffs ranging in size from 60 m. in the north and south to 550m. at the centre just north of Comodoro Rivadavia. In some areas a narrow costal plain occurs or the range of cliffs is cut by a river valley. Patagonia is, however, mostly inaccessible, cut off on the east by the Atlantic cliffs and on the west by the Andes mountains. It is almost totally dependant on the Pampa region to the north for access to markets. This is a major reason why, even today, Patagonia remains one of the most under populated regions of the world. The whole Patagonian region, which got its name from the fact that the native population were supposed to have very large feet, is an erosion surface being worn away by both water and wind. Winter winds with ground-speeds of 160 km per hour are commonplace in some of the more southerly areas. Rivers such as the Rio Colorado and the Rio Negro, fed by the snows high up in the Andes, have deeply incised the surface. They are now, for the most 4 5 part, misfit streams flowing at the bottom of large canyons. Patagonia lies within a prevailing westerly air flow from the Pacific and is affected by the Southern Andean rain-shadow, which gives it a dry, cold climate with a low annual rainfall over most of its area. Because of the very low rainfall the species of vegetation growing there reflect a continental climate rather than a maritime one, despite the comparatively mild temperatures due to the close proximity of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Vegetation also varies according to latitude and soil conditions, with the grassland in the north giving way to tussock grass and scrub to the south. All of these factors when combined with a very poor development of lateral stream valleys resulted in the absence of a reliable supply of accessible surface water over vast areas. These factors together with its inaccessibility, delayed European settlement of this region while land in the much more hospitable Pampa region was available. An interest in Patagonia really only began when sheep farming could no longer compete with cattle and grain on the Pampa. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century it attracted some investment from Britain. Emigrants from the sheep farming districts of England Wales, Scotland and Spain, and a handful of Irish, who went to work as labourers on English company-owned estancias, settled its more sheltered canyons. The Welsh colony in Chubut was an early experiment at settlement. This colony, never grew beyond a few hundred in size. The survival of this group of immigrants, as a separate community which was able to retain its language and culture unaltered over several generations, was due more to its isolation than to its size or economic Figure 3:5. 'The Meeting of the Waters', Bariloche. success. It never attracted further Welsh settlers to the region in the way the Pampas continued to attract the Irish and Scots who were emigrating at that period. The Welsh settlers were never to amass the huge personal fortunes acquired during that period by some Irish and Scottish who emigrated to the Pampa. In fact the early Welsh settlers were often so destitute as to be dependant on the charity of the indigenous population to provide them with food to escape starvation during the harsh winter months. Some of the 4 6 Welsh abandoned the colony in the early eighteen seventies and moved to one of the newer colonies in Santa Fe. The later colonies were based on the highly successful British models which were by then operating in Canada and the US for over a century. These colonies never gained wide acceptance in Argentina largely because of the Government's unwillingness or inability to enforce, on the undertakers, the conditions under which these huge tracts of land were given out. In the twentieth century Patagonia's large, but as yet, un-quantified mineral resources had begun to attract some attention but very little investment. One region of Patagonia which has been successfully colonized, in the twentieth century, was the area around San Carlos de Bariloche. Possibly because of its similarity to Switzerland (and Killarney), Bariloche has attracted very significant German settlement, particularly since the Second World War. These settlers have invested heavily in developing Bariloche, along with its large hinterland as a very important tourist resort, making it the 4 7 Figure 3:6 Street Map of Bariloche 4 8 premier holiday location throughout South America for winter sports such as skiing. German has almost the status of a second language here and can be heard regularly in the shops and on the streets. The houses and buildings are very similar in construction to those found in Switzerland, while the town itself consists largely of tourist hotels and family owned chocolate factories, with shops attached to sell their product to the tourists. These small factories combine to make Bariloche the premier chocolate producing region in Argentina and further add to this region's remarkable similarity to Switzerland. One of the principle streets together with one of the main avenues in Bariloche are called O'Connor. The O'Connors were an important local creole family who emigrated to Bariloche from Chile and are credited with organizing the resistance to Spanish rule in that area at the time of independence. O'Connor was under the command of Juan MacKenna, who in turn reported to Bernardo O'Higgins, the great architect of Chilean Independence. Thus even here the Irish were an important influence on the eventual political destiny of the area. The Gran Chaco The Chaco and the north-eastern provinces of Misiones and Corrientes combine to form the northern region. It stretches to the boundary between Argentina and Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. The actual border owes its present shape to political conflict in the nineteenth century and not to any differences in natural features, which it shares in common with its neighbours north of the border. Four main rivers cross the Chaco in a south-easterly direction. They are the Rivers Pilcomayo, Bermejo and Salado, all of which flow into the Parana system and the 4 9 Rio Dulce which drains into Mar Chiquita. The largest of these rivers is the Pilcomayo which joins the Rio Paraguay at Asuncion. The Rio Pilcomayo divides the region in two, forming the northern border of Argentina in the process. This central region is separated from the Andes zone by the Rio Dulce. North of this river, in Tucuman and Salta the two regions merge imperceptibly. The Chaco is a great lowland deposition plain which has been built up, as a consequence of wind and water action with detritus from the Andes, making it an unconsolidated zone and very subject to change. Most of the region is covered by savannah grasses interspersed with areas of scrub forest along with forests of some of the hardest timbers known to exist. In local areas, depending on soil conditions and availability of water, semi-deciduous woodlands containing several species of palm occur. The soil generally is very impervious and subject to flash flooding in the summer months, especially in the eastern portion where rainfall is higher. This flooding is particularly severe, even in the west, when, occasionally, the polar airflows penetrate the region in summer. The resulting spectacular thunder-storms, and heavy rainfall, which ensues when these airstreams mix with the predominating subtropical air-flows, cause sudden overflowing of rivers and streams throughout large areas. These floods often combine with the unstable structure of the ground to cause major shifts in river beds, even the courses of substantial rivers such as the Rio Bermejo have been radically changed in this way. This often results in areas which were always fertile becoming arid overnight while districts that were traditionally dry can become marshlands. The economic effects of these local changes can be catastrophic on an individual estancia or in a local area. Much of the area is suitable for cotton, flax and rice production and has valuable hardwood reserves. However its remoteness and general inaccessibility from the Pampa region has resulted in almost no long term European investment or settlement. The population, in large part immigrants from Bolivia and Paraguay, is still mostly ethnically Native American with very little European settlement. This whole region generally, both culturally and economically, gives the impression of being an area of transition between the European Pampa and Latin America to the north. In the east of the region, Misiones and Corrientes contain sub-tropical rain forest. Politically part of Argentina, visually and geologically they appear more part of southern Brazil. This 5 0 Figure 3:7 The Iguassu Falls on the border with Brazil and Paraguay. area experienced almost no immigration since the time of Mendoza in 1537. Consequently Corrientes is a province of vast estancias owned by old established Creole families. Much of Misiones is a National Park and it too has a very small population. Because of its remote location on the border of two vast countries, Missiones it is cut off from both by distance and the fact that its only natural resource, temperate rain forest in ecologically fragile. Therefore tourism centered on the Falls has not been developed to anything like the degree that has taken place around the much smaller Niagara Falls which separate the US and Canada. Figure 3:8 The silt laden head waters of the Parana River flowing over the Iguassu Falls The only settlement of interest is a small nineteenth-century Swedish colony which still speak Swedish with an accent similar to that heard near the border with Finland. This colony is similar in some respects to the Welsh colony of Chubut in that isolation ensured its 5 1 5 2 survival, though its existence appears to be much less known, even in Sweden. Misiones is best known because of the Iguassu falls, on the Parana River, located on the border with Brazil and Paraguay. A feature to note however is the quantity of silt in the water, entering from Brazil. The Parana drains most of that country south of the Amazon Basin. Therefore much of the soil that has been eroded from southern Brazil enters the Parana, to be deposited further south when it joins the Uruguay River to become the River Plate. When the Parana takes in additional silt from the waters of the Pilcomayo and Bermejo Rivers, just south of where these photographs were taken, one can get some idea of the scale of deposition that takes place in the flood plain of the Pampas. The Pampas. The Pampa region of Argentina is one of the world's great grassland areas. It is the major deposition zone for the soil particles blown in from Patagonia and the Andean region as well as most of the silt from southern Brazil. It consists of aelouis and along its major river, the Parana, alluvium soil deposits. This makes the region a vast highly fertile, if visually featureless, plain. The prevailing winds from the west and south act as a sieve, filtering the soil particles, depositing the larger grains in the west and south of the region. These particles get progressively smaller until the very fine dust particles are washed out of the atmosphere when they come into contact with the moist Atlantic winds blowing in from the east. The finest soil is found in the area between the Parana and Salado rivers. The Parana and the 5 3 Salado, in the past, flooded this area and in turn deposited rich alluvium which mixed with the aelouis to create a highly fertile zone within this already fertile region. The whole region is interspersed with small streams which meander through the land until they meet to form small rivers and eventually find their way to the Atlantic. Inland from the banks of the Salado river, to the west and south, the soil gradually becomes sandier making the land less fertile as it progresses towards Patagonia, the Andean region and the Chaco. Its fertility is further reduced as the warm, moist, Atlantic air currents have an ever reducing effect on rainfall levels. As the land becomes sandier it also becomes drier. In addition the area to the south becomes progressively cooler with an ever increasing incidence of heavy frost and snow in winter. This process of deteriorating land quality continues very gradually until it meets the other three regions of the country. This entire region, overall, has an excellent climate and ranks as one of the worlds great fertile temperate zones. Its only natural vegetation is grass. Because of its generally warm and almost frost-free climate, the locust and black ant eliminate all other vegetation with the exception of the odd lone ombu tree. The timber from this tree is of no use in construction or furniture making. It was allowed to survive by mankind because of its value as a landmark in an otherwise featureless countryside and because its long horizontal branches with a thick 6 0 the Great, a Taffe became Chancellor of Austria and an O'Higgins rose to become viceroy of Peru, while several others from this area held less important though still very senior positions throughout the Catholic European establishment. Many of those Irish, including all of the above mentioned, became national heroes in their adopted countries and were never seen as a threat to the established powers of Europe. While this is a tribute to their ability to integrate into the local community it may well be a major reason why relatively little research, on that highly important Irish emigration, has taken place to date. The Irish in the new European Outreach. While some Irish rose to the highest rank in their adopted countries many Irish, or their European born children, re-emigrated to the New World colonies, often sent there as military or civil administrators. Arriving in America as part of the European colonial system they have, to date, been ignored as a separate group by academic research on both sides of the Atlantic. It is not possible in this chapter to report fully on even Spanish-sponsored, Irish remigration of that period. However, a brief examination of Irish emigration to Argentina during the period of Spanish colonization is necessary to give some insight into why Irish immigrants were so sought after in Argentina following that country's independence. It is also necessary to give an understanding of the general milieu into which the nineteenth century Irish migrants settled on arrival in Argentina. 6 1 The First Irish in Argentina. The very first Irish, recorded as having set foot on what was to become Argentina, were from Galway. They were part of the crew on Magellan's voyage to discover a route to the Pacific through the straits which still bear his name, in 1520. Three set out on the voyage. One was named Guillen who was a 'grumete' or galley boy on the 'La Concepcion'. He died on January 25th of that year and so never saw Argentina. The other two were brothers, William and John, whose surname name is unknown. William was grumete on 'La Trinidad' John was 'paje' or trainee sailor on the same ship4. John and William are recorded as having served at the first Mass celebrated on Argentine soil on April 1, 1520, at the mouth of the river Santa Cruz in Patagonia5. While they were probably the first Irishmen to set foot on Argentine soil they did not settle there. They were ordinary seamen, recruited in Galway by the Spanish Navy. The first recorded Irish to settle in Argentina were members of an expedition to conquer and claim the Rio de la Plata for Spain. Led by Pedro Mendoza, they sailed from Cadiz in 1535 arriving in the River Plate at the end of the southern summer February 15366. Among those first emigrants were two brothers called John and Thomas Farel7, natives of San Lucas de Barrameda, Spain8. Other Irish names which appeared in Magellan's expedition were Colman9, Lucas10, Galvan11 (a very common Argentine name12) and Martin13. The name 'Martin' occurs frequently throughout Europe as well as Ireland and Spain and it is therefore impossible to be certain which, if any, Martins were Irish. Other Irish names appear among 6 2 sixteenth century conquerors, such as Juan Fays (probably Hays) and also the first woman, Isabel Farrel, (possibly a relative of John and Thomas Farel) the wife of a Captain Hernando de Sosa, a colonist in Corrientes14. Mendoza's expedition numbered about sixteen hundred and its members were mostly German in origin15. It was financed by German banks, as Charles V of Spain was also Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which included a large part of Germany. The expedition brought with them cattle, sheep, horses and pigs. These were among the first of these species believed ever to reach the American continent. Mendoza built a fort on the southern bank of the River Plate. To honour the sailors of Cadiz who brought the expedition safely to their destination he incorporated their patron saint, 'Our Lady of Good Airs' into the name of the new settlement. Thus 'Puerto Nuestra Senora Santa Maria del Buen Aire'16 was founded. Early Irish settlement in Argentina. The expedition was beset by problems from the moment it arrived at the River Plate. In addition to landing in February at the end of the growing season which left them unable to sow crops for several months, they were trying to settle among the most warlike tribes in Argentina. Lacking sufficient provisions to sustain the entire group until the next harvest, they tried to exact tribute from the indigenous population which ensured constant conflict from the beginning. A small group (which included at least one of the Farels together with 6 3 Isabel Farrel and her husband) began exploring the river systems feeding the River Plate in search of a more peaceful place to settle. In 1537 they founded the settlement of Asuncion de Paraguay on the east bank of the Parana river about 2000 km north of Buenos Aires. By 1541 two thirds of the settlers of Buenos Aires had perished. The survivors abandoned the site leaving everything behind and joined their comrades in Asuncion. The animals abandoned from this settlement (and other settlements in the north east of the country) thrived in the Pampas and became the foundation stock of the 'native' Argentine horses, cattle and sheep. These herds spread rapidly across the Pampas as they had few natural enemies to restrict their growth in numbers. About forty years later Buenos Aires was re-established from Asuncion on its present site on a more defendable area a few miles further up the river. The Farels decided to stay in Asuncion and exercise their right as one of the original settlers to acquire lands near there. Murray17 states that in 1588, Rafeal Farel a son of one of the original settlers, acquired lands and Indians near Asuncion in Corrientes Province just one year after it was founded. Corrientes is bounded on its west side by the Parana River which cuts it off from the main landmass of Argentina. It was, therefore, safe from attack from the plains tribes. In addition Corrientes was bounded on its eastern side by the Uruguay River which formed the furthest limits of Portuguese expansion. It was therefore important, from a strategic standpoint, for the Spanish to have the area permanently settled with sufficient numbers of its own citizens to enable it withstand further Portuguese expansion. There was no such pressure on Spain 6 4 however, to populate the vast Pampas lands west or south of the Parana/River Plate system with the result that very little settlement took place there until the eighteenth century. When word of the fate of Mendoza's expedition reached Spain, together with the realization that there were no precious metals in that region, Spanish interest quickly waned in the River Plate area. The result was that during the next century only a few thousand Europeans settled in what was probably the most remote and backward part of the Spanish empire at that time. Those who did settle there during this period were from 'humble origins'18, and would have been confined to mule breeding and collecting ox hides for sale in Potosi. The vast bulk of Irish emigration to south America via Spain at that time appears to have been from the elite class19 and they in turn made up only a very small percentage of the overall Latin American immigration. It is assumed therefore that very few Irish emigrated to Argentina during this period. Significant numbers of Irish names do not begin to appear until after 1776 by which time the Bourbon family had ascended the Spanish Throne. Some Spanish colonial settlement, however, did occur during the sixteenth, seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth centuries, the period between the settlement of Mendoza and the ascent of the Bourbons. The importance of that form of settlement, which mostly occurred in the north west, was that it established the pattern of land tenure throughout Argentina. The Growth of Buenos Aires City. With the ascent to the Spanish Throne of the Bourbon Kings the system of government in 6 5 Argentina changed radically. In 1776 Charles III divided the Viceroyalty of Peru in two, creating the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata to administer the southern portion of the Empire. Buenos Aires became the capital of this new Viceroyalty and, significantly, the silver rich Potosi region, though in decline by then, chose to be governed from Buenos Aires rather than Lima. This change in the political status of Buenos Aires meant that for the first time trade with Cadiz was unrestricted. Those changes created a release of pent up demand for goods of European manufacture previously either forbidden or prohibitively expensive. To pay for the goods a sudden demand was created for slaves to provide a labour force to produce tradable agricultural goods. Eighteenth Century Irish Immigration. The changes brought about by the Bourbons necessitated a surge of emigration, from Spain, of civil and military personnel to govern the new Viceroyalty. A number of those officials were born in Ireland. Many of the Irish were to attain important positions in the administration of the country. One such Irishman to figure prominently in the new Viceroyalty was Michael O'Gorman. O'Gorman was born in Ennis in 1749, he was educated in France and then went to Spain where he completed his studies, graduating in medicine20. He left Spain for Buenos Aires in 1777, travelling under a Royal Order placing him in charge of the Sanitary Commission. In 1780 he founded the faculty of medicine in the city and remained Professor of medicine until his death in 1819. Another Irishman to arrive in 6 6 Argentina towards the end of the eighteenth century was Thomand O'Brien from Wicklow. O'Brien held the rank of Captain under General San Martin. He was highly regarded by San Martin and when San Martin became president later, O'Brien rose to the rank of General in the army of the new republic. The New Enlightenment. At about the time the Bourbons ascended the Spanish throne the ideas known as the 'New Enlightenment' began to take hold throughout the colonies. Under this system the French economic theory of Physiocracy, which stressed commercial agricultural production as a measure of a nation's economic wealth, was an important plank in this theory. This encouraged the estancieros to put a much greater effort into improving the breeding and processing of their livestock which greatly added to the value of the herds roaming the pampas. Slaughterhouses were required to process cattle which up until then were slaughtered on the plain where the skin was removed, with the rest of the carcass abandoned to rot. An extra labour force, both skilled and unskilled, was required to obtain this extra value as were new technologies. Between 1790 and the early eighteen hundreds 22,500 slaves were landed in Buenos Aires21. This was to provide for the unskilled element in the labour force. Possibly because of the large Irish trade in beef and leather between Galway and Spain, the new Viceroyalty looked to Ireland for the technology and skill to complement the African and Brazilian slave labour. 6 7 One hundred Irish butchers and tanners were brought to Buenos Aires in 1785 and more were recruited over the next twenty years22. The new skills introduced by these Irish immigrants laid the foundation of the Argentine beef industry23. Very little is known, as yet, of those Irish immigrants or their origins. They appear to have been unmarried and being Catholic they assimilated into the local community of co-religionists. No research has been carried out, to date, on those Irish emigrants or what became of them on landing in Buenos Aires. None of them, as far as I can tell, reappear later as merchants, estancieros or factory owners. Nothing is known either of how they were recruited in Ireland or what their social position was vis-a-vis the slave population and the owners of the meat processing factories. This research was unable to directly connect this emigration with the nineteenth century emigration though the suspicion remains that the Clare emigration may be connected to it in some way. It can be asserted however that those men were the first of a new type and class of Irish emigrant who was emigrating in search of work in the New World, which was itself developing to meet the growing demands of the European industrial revolution. In that sense they fit in to the nineteenth century models of Irish emigration rather than the model of Irish Catholic emigration to Europe and Spanish America which took place during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Irish Merchants in Buenos Aires. Another major consequence of the New Enlightenment was a sudden upsurge in trade from Buenos Aires. This sudden growth in trade was hampered by the unavailability of suitable 6 8 shipping. To overcome this shortage, the local merchants were permitted to purchase slave ships from third countries and, later, neutral ships were allowed to trade in the port. Irish merchants were particularly well placed to take advantage of the changing conditions. The Lynchs, among others, appear in Buenos Aires at about this time. Another of the better known Irish merchants in Buenos Aires at that time was Thomas O'Gorman a cousin of Dr. Michael O'Gorman the Spanish Protomedico. Thomas arrived in Buenos Aires from the French colony of Mauritius in about 1792. Mauritius was then a major collecting point for slaves for the Buenos Aires trade and a very important customer for the 'frutos del pais' as well as Argentine silver. O'Gorman was a former officer in the French Army and had connections in London and possibly Providence in the USA. Upon landing in Buenos Aires he quickly established himself among the important Porteno merchants by virtue of his cousin's prestigious position among the elite. He often acted as a middleman, going to the United States to purchase ships on behalf of other major Porteno merchants engaged in the slave trade. Other Irish names such as Cullen24 appear for the first time in Argentina around then. Free Traders. By the mid-1790s Buenos Aires had developed a considerable merchant fleet. In the city, guilds were forming and a substantial artisan class was growing up around the port. The situation however deteriorated as rapidly as it had advanced. 'Free Traders' gained access to 6 9 the port. The Free Traders were merchants trading from neutral ports who were allowed to trade in the Port as Spain was forced, for domestic reasons, to switch allegiance from England to France. Spain was no longer able to protect her own shipping and realized that by allowing Free Traders to operate in Buenos Aires they would quickly undermine the growing strength of the local merchants and industry. When conditions improved Spain hoped to restore the old Spanish monopolies and avoid the competition from a new and vigorous colony. Irish Free Traders in Buenos Aires. The Free Traders came from all over Atlantic Europe. They were technically confined to carrying the same goods as the merchants but they were fluent in several languages and had better access to low priced manufactured goods from England and Hamburg, in short they were much more efficient smugglers. They were therefore quickly able to undermine and finally destroy the fledgling merchant investment by the Porteno merchants in Buenos Aires, who were beginning to develop an industrial base there, in a manner remarkably similar to the way free trade with England quickly ended the infant Irish industries. Those Porteno merchants who could, quickly switched most of their assets into modernizing their estancias around Buenos Aires turning them into commercial enterprises devoted to primary production only, though many did continue as merchants, all-be-it in a much smaller way. The Consequence of The New Enlightenment. 7 5 C H A P T E R 5. THE PROCESS OF NINETEENTH CENTURY IRISH SETTLEMENT IN ARGENTINA Introduction. Having won the goodwill of the entire Argentine nation, at a time when that country was desperately in need of the very labourforce that Ireland could supply, it was not unreasonable that Ireland became an obvious place for Argentine government, the portenos and merchants to look to as a source for immigrants. Nineteenth-century emigration, from Ireland to Argentina, therefore, was the result of a calculated strategy which was devised in Argentina by a number of groups, all of whom contained Irish members. All of the groups involved in encouraging Irish immigration had the common aim of promoting the economic welfare of the Buenos Aires region. A few had, in addition, the romantic notion of recreating the perfect Gaelic society there. Those groups formed a coalition to promote Irish immigration and designed a very specific settlement model for the Irish immigrants. To that extent it was different from emigration from Derry to Canada and New England, or Waterford and Newfoundland which began as a spontaneous outward movement, from Ireland, along established trading routes to the New World. The groups within the coalition were made up of the Irish elite, the Portenos and the 'English' merchants. Each party had 7 6 different reasons for encouraging Irish immigration. However their individual motives and objectives in promoting Irish immigration were not mutually exclusive. As a group therefore they were able ensure that the resources, in organization and cash, were put in place to promote recruitment in Ireland. To better understand the different agendas of the various groups promoting Irish immigration a short outline of the motivation of different groups is necessary. The Origins of the Irish Governing Elite. By the end of the eighteenth century the Irish governing elite in Argentina, while claiming noble Irish ancestry1, came from fairly humble backgrounds in Ireland. At that time, virtually any Irish youth of ability, with the resources to travel to and maintain himself, could receive an education in an Irish College in Europe. One such was at Salamanca in Spain. Some of the students educated in Spain, who were of exceptional ability, became senior administrators or army officers in the Spanish Service2. The achievement of Ambrose O'Higgins is an indication of how an emigrant of humble background emigrating to Spain could achieve the highest rank of authority as Viceroy of Peru3 . That type of emigrant, who did so well under the Spanish, was very conscious that similar opportunities for advancement were denied to them in their own country because they were Catholic. Their view of Ireland therefore, was of a country whose people were deliberately held back from reaching their true potential, by a foreign power, because of their 7 7 steadfastness to their faith. They believed, given the opportunity, Ireland could become as prosperous as any nation on earth while at the same time maintaining its Gaelic, Catholic values. The alternative to expelling the British foreign power from Ireland, which had been tried and failed many times, was to allow Irish, with those core values, a new beginning in a Catholic country where sufficient land was available to allow them acquire and own their farms free of rents and landlords. Argentina fitted this requirement perfectly. The elite emigrants believed, given the proper leadership in Argentina, new emigrants would build a true Gaelic society which would become a shining example to the world and proof of the superiority of Irish culture and values. A number of Irishmen who held such opinions were in very influential government positions in Argentina, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They were, among others, Dr. Michael O'Gorman, General Thomand O'Brien, and an internationally respected surgeon of the time, Dr. John Oughagan, who appears to have acted as the secretary to this group. The Portenos. Another important group in the coalition were the portenos, the original merchants in the port of Buenos Aires who by then had become estancieros. Among the most powerful of the portenos were the Lynchs, O'Gormans, Dogans, Cullens, O'Ryans and Butlers4. This group together with the majority creole estancieros, needed labourers and shepherds to develop their estancias and slaughterhouses to European standards. While the estancieros were willing to improve their cattle herds they were unwilling to go into wool production. Sheep 7 8 farming being a low status industry traditionally associated with the gaucho class. As there was an unlimited supply of unused land beyond the estancias which was still inhabited by hostile native tribes, the estancieros welcomed settlement in those areas by immigrants. Sheep farmers, therefore, could provide a buffer between the natives and the estancias as well as supplying those goods which the estancieros were unwilling to become directly involved in themselves. In fact they promoted such settlement to the extent that they were willing to finance the stock purchase necessary to graze the new 'camps5' while allowing the settler earn equity in the stock by contributing his labour. In this way the estancieros ensured that the land beyond their estates was settled by European 'small holders'6 a social class unlikely to threaten their interests in the future. In addition the estancieros, who were often merchants also, benefitted from the profits derived as shareholders while not demeaning their status by personal involvement in the gaucho enterprise of sheep farming. Already familiar with the Irish ex-soldiers together with the butchers and tanners bought out at the end of the eighteenth century, they were very anxious to recruit labour of similar calibre and were therefore eager to employ immigrants, especially Catholics, from an already proven source. The fact that they were helping their fellow countrymen was an added bonus. The Merchants. The merchants in the Port of Buenos Aires from the time of independence spanned the political/religious spectrum from Protena merchant such as Patrick Cullen and Patricio Lynch, through to free trader John Dillon, to Anglo-Irish 'Armstrong & Co'., to English 7 9 merchants some of whom founded a very powerful Lodge of Free Masons in the city. With such a wide spectrum of religious affiliation and political perspective, the merchants spun a seamless garment which at one extreme was highly Catholic and pro-Argentine nationalist (possibly even in favour of the restoration of the Spanish monarchy) while at the other, was virulently anti-Catholic and determined on the creation of a secular government based on British law, not unlike that of the United States7. The merchants however never allowed their political differences interfere with their primary objective, that of increasing trade through the port of Buenos Aires. On the contrary, they used this wide spectrum of political and religious belief, to show a Protestant face to the British Government and a Catholic Nationalist one to the Argentines, in order to promote their own interests to the greatest possible degree. For the merchants, Irish emigrants provided a close-by and lucrative outward cargo from Liverpool. Furthermore when the Irish arrived in Buenos Aires they immediately became consumers and producers of the very goods traded by the merchants. The merchants, of all political and religious hues, therefore, had every incentive to encourage Irish emigration to the River Plate. Irish Ex-Soldiers. The Irish ex-soldiers, the residue of the British army left behind after the failed invasion of the River Plate in 1806/7, were never part of this elite/merchant group. They were however 8 0 seen by all sections involved in promoting immigration as a sample of the type of immigrant available in Ireland, the very type of emigrant so badly needed in Argentina. It is therefore valid to consider them here. The ex-soldiers fell into two groups. Those who were condemned to internal exile (presumably the prisoners) and those allowed remain in Buenos Aires (presumably the deserters). The soldiers who were exiled, were sent to Cordoba in central Argentina and to the Andes Region around Mendoza and Salta, where they played no part in encouraging further Irish immigration. Those sent to Salta and Mendoza were apparently satisfied with their condition as they raised their own regiment of militia to fight for independence in gratitude to the Argentines for their good treatment. Some of the exsoldiers who remained in Buenos Aires, according to tradition, settled in the city among the free Negroes in the area of San Telmo. This district is among the oldest in the city and is located along the river bank8. Those soldiers are believed to have worked deepening the port and using the stone which came in the ships as ballast for building along the docks. The remainder of the former soldiers who remained in Buenos Aires opted to work on the Creole estancias around the cities. It was those latter emigrants who appear to have played a major role in starting emigration from Ireland. The merchants were delighted with the urban settlers and the portenos were equally happy with the rural settlers. The Origin of The Westmeath Connection. One soldier, turned rural settler, was John Murray from Streamstown, Co. Westmeath who obtained work on a creole estancia9, where he worked his way up to the position of 8 1 mayordomo. By 1880 the Murrays had moved to Santa Fe province where they settled on a large estancia, purchased for them by their former employers in gratitude for their loyal service. The Murrays still own that estancia and remain one of the principal Irish land owners in southern Santa Fe. While there is no direct evidence linking Murray with Irish emigration, the first recorded Irish emigrants who landed in Argentina in the nineteenth century did come from Streamstowm. They were John Mooney and his son-in-law Patrick Bookey10. Mooney and Bookey arrived in Buenos Aires in 182711. What is certain is that Mooney and Murray, coming from the same parish and being about the same age, even if they did not serve in the same regiment, would have known each other from childhood and Murray's success could have been very influential in encouraging others from the same area to emigrate to Buenos Aires. Therefore the initial link that was established between Westmeath, the largest sending area in Ireland, and Argentina was through British military contact, though the growth and expansion of emigration from that area was due solely to the opportunities created by trade and commerce. The First Links with Wexford. Emigration, from Wexford began at about the same time, however it did not have an obvious, direct, military origin. In 1826, the Liverpool bank of Dickson and Montgomery sent Patrick Browne to the River Plate to take charge of their interests, in place of his brother 8 2 who was returning to Liverpool from that position12. Patrick quickly realized that he would make his fortune in the salt beef business rather than as a bank manager and began his own business soon after his arrival. He sent back to Forth and Bargy for labour to work first in his salting houses, for usually about a year, and then to herd sheep on a shares basis for him. Thus emigration from Wexford began mainly from commercial contact between Wexford, Liverpool and the River Plate13. The Need for Irish Immigrants. The necessity to recruit immigrants to Argentina following the country's independence in 1815 was due to a general shortage of skilled labour in the country which was heightened as Spain banned emigration of its citizens to Argentina in retaliation for the former colony declaring independence. By 1820 British investment in the country was being inhibited by the shortage of skilled labour. The problem of finding suitable labour had become so acute that the Argentine government was forced to intervene directly to encourage immigration. The Process of Creating Irish Immigration to Argentina. Because Argentina was just one of a number of destinations competing for the growing number of Irish emigrants leaving for the New World, the government and the Irishelite/merchant coalition had to market the River Plate region, in Ireland, as an attractive destination. In 1826 it was decided to send Thomand O'Brien back to Ireland to recruit Irish immigrants. Thomas Armstrong, the merchant also visited Ireland at the same time. His visit 8 3 was private, though when one considers the type of person who emigrated from Armstrong's home area in Ireland it is highly likely that his decision to visit Ireland at that time had much to do with recruiting labour more suitable to the merchants' immediate needs rather than the long term perceived needs of the Argentine Government and the Irish elites whom O'Brien was representing. The fact that two different classes of immigrants were being recruited from the very beginning, to fulfill different roles in Argentine society, was to have a significant bearing on the way the Irish community was to evolve during the century. Written Communication The visits by O'Brien and Armstrong were followed up by letters from prominent members of the Irish community to the Archbishop of Dublin with the object of influencing him to put the Irish church behind emigration to Argentina rather than to the United States. The letters assured the Archbishop of the sponsors' determination to maintain Irish Catholic values, in familiar rural settings, in the Irish immigrant community. Their letters contrasted their proposed model for rural settlement with the reality of the Irish in the urban environment of the United States, many of whom were abandoning Catholicism. Dr Oughagan14 wrote to the Archbishop on June 28th 182815 that...'North America is not a country proper for Irish settlers--These, their identity, their ancient faith, and the peculiar cast of their national character, in the mixture of many nations, is totally confounded and lost for ever'. In promoting Argentina he wrote, 'Thanks to Providence a very different destiny awaits them here. It would seem that Heaven had at length interposed to protect some few of her faithful 8 4 followers and created this new world, as the land of promise where harassed Irishmen may "pause from toil" and Christianity devastated of all its secters and impurities may flower again and become infallible....' Dr. Oughagan went on to state that 'this country, fertile and vast beyond limits, abounding with all that nature can furnish....will welcome (the Irish) with special preference and instead of being the drudges for the rest of mankind, may set themselves down in societies in various parts of these boundless plains.....'. This letter clearly shows that the Irish elites were determined that the immigrant Irish would never become an urban community as they had done in the United States. From the beginning they saw the Irish as forming isolated rural ethno-centric societies well away from the city, where the ancient Ireland of 'saints and scholars' which had been suppressed in Ireland, would, given the direction of an Irish clergy, re-create itself and flourish once again in the New World. At no time was there any attempt by the Irish elite to recruit Irish labour to meet the equally acute need for an urban workforce. From the beginning the Italian immigrants were almost alone in supplying that demand. Pre-selection of Irish Immigrants. The Irish elites in Argentina, when agreeing to promote Argentina as a destination for Irish emigrants sent back one of their own to select only the type of emigrant that would suit their purposes. Part of O'Brien's remit was to recruit only 'moral and industrious' emigrants16. They came initially, from the more commercial areas in Ireland, e.g. Forth and Bargy and the margins of commercial areas in Leinster, mainly from around Streamstown in Co. 9 1 could expect to encounter in a potential destination and would go some way in explaining the rapidity with which the Irish were able to adjust their emigrating intentions in the light of changing conditions thousands of miles away. 9 2 1. In order to be admitted to the priesthood or the army officer corps, or an equivalent civil service position, the applicant had to be (a) a citizen of Castile and (b) be of noble family. For historical reasons all Irish noblemen were automatically given citizenship of Castile. Proof of nobility required a certificate, from the British administration in Ireland, that the applicant was of a noble family. By the eighteenth century such a certificate was available virtually on request. 2.These positions in Spain were reserved for the sons of noblemen from the province of Castile. However all Irish noblemen were automatically granted Castellan citizenship. 3. O'Higgins grew up on a 20 acre farm in Co. Meath at the beginning of the century. Through his uncle, who was Parish Priest in Summerhill, he was sent to Spain for an education. His exceptional mathematical ability, in trigonometry especially, gained him a commission in the Spanish artillery corps. He was posted to the Rio de la Plata where he was given the task of surveying a route through the Andes to connect Mendoza with Santiago. Prior to this all communication between Buenos Aires and Santiago was by sea, which entailed sailing south from Buenos Aires, around the Cape and then north as far as Valparaiso, a long and hazardous undertaking, or the equally hazardous overland rout, through Bariloche in Patagonia. O'Higgins' rise in the Viceroyalty was swift, within a few years he was governor Chile and later became Viceroy of Peru, a post reserved for citizens of Castile by law. Much of his outstanding contribution to the southern part of South America is overshadowed by that of his English educated son Bernardo, born to an Chilean woman, who as liberator of much of South America fall outside the scope of this work. 4. Murray, (1919) The Story of the Irish in Argentina, 37 5. 'Camp' is an Irish-Argentine term derived from the Spanish word 'Campo' meaning 'Countryside'. It is exactly the same term in Argentina as the word 'Prairie' in North America and 'Outback' in Australia. 6. The term 'small holder' is relative. In Argentina a small holder would own less than about 1,750 hectares of land. Later on during the century the term 'estanciero' came to cover anyone with a holding in excess of 1,000 hectares in the Irish districts. The vast majority of Irish 'estancieros' were to fall into this group owning between 1,000 and 1,750 hectares of land. As will be shown later this was the minimum size of holding necessary to ensure the 9 3 settlement of a land owning family. 7. They were successful to the point that all foreign religious orders were expelled from the country in 1822 and their property confiscated. This law was enforced until 1828 and was a major reason for the fall of Rividavia in that year. It was not until the 1850's when Fr. Fahy found, and was allowed exploit, a loophole in the law that the orders were able to return in numbers. For a fuller account of this episode see Ussher 1952 Fr. Fahy. 8. The only written source that I could find for this statement was in the general tourist literature for the district. The Tourist Board's source was not referenced and despite considerable effort on my part could not be traced. It is however widely accepted among the citizens of Buenos Aires and rings true to the extent that penniless deserters unable to speak the language and without skills would in all probability begin their new life in the poorest area of the city. 9. I was given this information by his great granddaughter Sra. Elana Murray of Santa Fe, in Dublin in July 1993. 10. Thomas Murray, (1919) The Story of the Irish in Argentina,78 11. It is possible, though by no means proven, that Mooney was also a soldier who returned to Ireland as part of the recruitment drive for emigrants to Argentina which took place in 1827 and on returning brought out his daughter and her husband to continue his business. Mooney and Bookey were the most important employers of Irish labour in their saladeros in the early years of Irish emigration. It is unlikely that ordinary emigrants would surpass, in wealth, in a very short time the many merchants who were investing and working in the country for the previous thirty years. 12. The Brownes, a very prominent Catholic gentry family in Forth and Bargy, would certainly have known the Beresford family, the predominant Protestant family in that whole region who also live in the same area despite holding the title Marquis of Waterford. William Beresford the illegitimate son of Lord Waterford, having been responsible for the invasion of the River Plate and having been held there for a short period after the invasion was well aware of the commercial potential of the region. The Brownes, being Catholic, but of the class that moved very much in AngloIrish Circles (Castle Catholics) would have been an ideal choice for a British bank setting up offices in the River Plate. While I have been unable to make a positive connection between Beresford's 9 4 return from the River Plate and the Brownes' arrival, shortly afterwards, it does highlight the point, when considered along with the origins of the Westmeath emigration, that initial British military and commercial contact in the River Plate, as in other regions of the world were really the two arms of a single process. 13.The statement that the Westmeath connection originated from military contact and the Wexford connection was due to commerce is made here in the context of the first personal contact between nineteenth century emigrants with potential emigrants in their respective sending areas. Overall the military and commercial origins of nineteenth-century Irish emigration to Argentina overlap and intertwine to a large degree. The Armstrong Co., one of the foremost merchant houses in Buenos Aires in the 1820's, and the company which did more than anyone else to foster immigration from Ireland, had very strong connections with Westmeath/Offaly where the emigration began. However the Armstrongs were an old military family. Thomas Armstrong's father, also Thomas Armstrong, was a Colonel and the R.M. for the Streamstown area at that period. In addition very many of Beresford's troops would have been stationed in Athlone which is Armstrong's local town. It is virtually certain that Gen. Beresford knew Col. Armstrong, father and brother of the owners of Armstrong & Co. because part of the Beresford family were until, very recently, also a very prominent family around Mullingar. Armstrong & Co., was founded shortly after Beresford escaped captivity in Argentina and returned home. The Brownes being Catholic did not have a British military tradition but a branch of the Browne family is Protestant and hold the title Marquis of Sligo, their family seat is in Westport. They were a Naval family. Incidentally Westport is quite close to Foxford where William Brown (without the 'e') came from. Research currently being carried out by John de Courcy Ireland on William Brown indicates that William is very probably also related to the Sligos by blood at least if not 'officially'. The Waterfords and Sligos would certainly have known each other and it is not impossible that the Waterfords and/or the Sligos had some influence in the Brownes' appointment by Dickson and Montgomery to Buenos Aires where a Catholic would have been a much more acceptable ambassador of English capital than would a Protestant. 14. Murray and Ussher spell Oughagan's name 'Oughan' I am using the spelling Oughagan himself used when writing to the Archbishop of Dublin. It may well be that Oughagan used different spellings of his names at different times just as Fr. Fahy spelled his name 'Fahey' on occasion. 15. The original letter is in the archive of the Archbishop of 9 5 Dublin. A photo copy is in my possession. 16. Murray The Story of the Irish..., 53 Murray places the term 'moral and industrious' in quotation marks which indicates that he is quoting directly from an un-named source very probably the original document. 17. I came to this conclusion from several field trips to Westmeath/Longford and Wexford where I visited numerous relatives of Irish-Argentines that I met in Argentina. They in turn brought me around their localities pointing out farms which others had emigrated from. The great majority of the emigrants were recorded in Coghlan. With the exception of Ballymore in Westmeath almost all of the farms were still medium sized prosperous holdings usually still in the hands of relatives of the original emigrant. 18. All letters to the Archbishop of Dublin quoted in this chapter can be seen in the archive of the Archbishop of Dublin. Photocopies of all quoted correspondence are in my possession. 19.The term 'Yankee Irish' was used to describe the Irish immigrants who entered the country from the United States following a period of settlement there. The Yankee Irish immigrants were generally agreed to have arrived during the 1820's. While Murray agrees that the majority of Irish rural settlers were from Westmeath and Wexford his research would indicate that the artisans who remained in the city came from various parts of the country. 20. A low class drinking house 21. I was able to establish by field work in the Ballymahon area that relatives of Thomas Armstrong have lived near Keena, a small village just outside Ballymahon, since about 1780. It would have been most unusual for a Protestant gentry family such as the Armstrongs not to have been on the board of governors of the local workhouse. Furthermore a family member was the workhouse doctor there at the beginning of this century, so in more recent times, at least, the Armstrong family were demonstrably connected with the workhouse. Circumstantial evidence therefore points to a very high probability that Thomas Armstrong had access through his relatives to governors of the Ballymahon workhouse and through this connection he was able to recruit labourers willing to work on a permanent basis in the slaughterhouses and on the estancias of the merchants. This would also explain why John Brabazon, in his journal, recorded a lower class of emigrant coming from that area and not from any other. What cannot be shown however is if 9 6 Thomas Armstrong and his associates, or the workhouse, or both, paid the fares of those emigrants. The Armstrong family was unaware of their connection with Argentina, when visited by me in August 1993. Protestant emigrants from the Westmeath area, in almost every case, appear to have become Catholic within a generation (or at the most two) of settling in Argentina. Their becoming Catholic appears to have led to an immediate severing of all contact with their Irish roots. 22. This 'small sum' rose substantially as the century progressed. the representative of the British Consul in Rosario, Santa Fe writing in the Wexford People, June 18, 1864 suggests 'a small sum' of £400-£800. It should be pointed out however that immigrants were sometimes able to borrow some of this capital locally, as will be shown in more detail in a later chapter. 23. The family are unsure as to the exact amount but they believe it to be in the region of £100. This information was given to me along with a photo copy of the original agreement by the grandson of John Cunningham, in Mullingar in November 1991. 24. Coghlan, (1987) Los Iralndeses............,208 25. Coghlan (1982) El Aporte de los Irlandeses....,344. 96 C H A P T E R 6. THE ROLE OF THE IRISH CHURCH IN THE FORMATION OF THE COMMUNITY Introduction. The various groups interested in promoting immigration into Argentina, as was shown in the previous chapter, were determined that the Irish would fulfill a specific function within the country. That of settling on and developing the great, almost uninhabited, grassland area, the size of France, which lay beyond the city of Buenos Aires. The Irish elites in particular were determined to create a prosperous Irish farming community which would remain ethnically separate while fully participating in, and benefiting from, the economic development of the country. They saw this Irish community, while obedient in every way to the laws of Argentina, as a separate, self-governing entity operating within a model designed by them and run by the Irish Church. The Irish Argentine Settlement Model. The settlement model created by the Irish elite in Argentina was fundamentally different to the settlement model in the other great grassland colonies which were under direct British rule. The British model reflected the British, Protestant, ethic of the self-reliance of the individual. It was up to the individual communities to create their own infrastructure from the bottom up. First came the settler with his deeds for his quarter section. This he and his 97 family tamed by their own efforts alone. As they progressed the settler combined with his neighbours to bring organized law and order, religion and local government to their region. They combined with other regions to bring a state structure and the various states combined to form a federal government which encompassed the whole territory, whether this was Canada, the US, Australia or New Zealand. The settlement model which the nineteenth century Irish found on entering Argentina was by contrast one which operated from the top down and while individual effort brought success or failure to the individual immigrant, at every level the immigrant operated within an established structure based on cooperation and the pooling of the group's resources so that the wealthy, to a great extent, subsidized the poor and the experienced immigrant resourced the new arrival. The role of implementing this plan and ultimately regulating the community was to be entrusted to the Irish Catholic Church for two reasons. Firstly the Irish immigrant would only accept Irish Priests because of language and the fact that the practice of Catholicism in Argentina was completely different to the established practice in Ireland. Consequently Argentine priests fulfilled a different role in the community to Irish priests. Secondly the elites believed that it was Irish Catholicism that had preserved the true Irish culture against centuries of attack in Ireland, and therefore Irish priests were best placed to ensure its survival in that part of the New World which the Irish elites had already ensured was largely sympathetic to its continuance. The Archbishop of Dublin held similar views on the role of the Church in forming Irish society, and after Catholic Emancipation in 1829 set about trying 98 to create a similar society in Ireland. It is not surprising therefore that it was to the Dublin Archbishop that the elites turned when they went in search of an ally in Ireland to implement their plans in Argentina. The elites and the Church, however were not alone in the desire to form a successful immigrant community. The business community in Argentina saw the Irish Church as a highly efficient vehicle which could operate at no cost to the merchants but would ensure that the immigrants remained an economically viable group able to produce sufficient goods for the merchants to trade. The merchants were indifferent to the way in which the Irish community was organized as long as it fulfilled its economic role. The Church, for its part, realized that an economically strong community was crucial if their plan was to succeed and saw the merchants as essential in providing the markets for the goods produced by the emigrants. Finally the government was satisfied that a Catholic community with a long history of resisting Protestantism was settling in their country, as this greatly lessened the chances of conflict between the new immigrants and the existing community. There were many advantages for the immigrants themselves in placing the Irish Church at the centre of their community. The problems of isolation of individuals spread out over such a large area are obvious. The provision of some method of communication to maintain contact and a sense of community between the tiny and disparate Irish groups was essential for economic and social reasons. The Irish, after all, were attracted to Argentina to provide 99 the raw material for the merchants to process and export. Communication and a sense of community among the Irish was therefore necessary to allow commerce expand and to attract more emigrants. It would also give the Irish already there the confidence to build and expand their enterprises in the knowledge that they had markets and a secure future in the country. A church with Irish priests who spent their time travelling through the countryside seeking out and bringing their fellow countrymen together at regular intervals was the ideal vehicle for such a communication network. One can readily understand why a church which provided such a service to a scattered community living in an alien world, would quickly establish itself as the central unifying force in that community. The 'Irish Church' was the link between the individual and his neighbours, his commercial outlets in the city and above all a direct link with home in Ireland. Without the Irish priests working with the Irish community it is questionable whether Irish settlement in Argentina would have succeeded or ever reached the levels it did. All groups therefore, not least the emigrants themselves, had a common interest in cooperating closely to ensure the welfare of the Irish community and each group, from its own perspective, saw the an Irish Church in Argentina as the ideal medium through which the Irish community could survive and prosper. The Implementation of Irish Settlement. From the beginning the elites were determined that this Irish community would have their 106 the event of his death, was passed on to his heirs quickly, un-taxed and without, often huge, legal fees. In addition because Fr. Fahy 'owned' the immigrant's property the immigrant could not be easily cheated out of it by unscrupulous conmen or by gambling etc., of which there was plenty in the camp at that time. Under all of those conditions it was perfectly logical for an immigrant, who was himself unsure of the customs in a strange country, to entrust all his financial and legal affairs to the one man best equipped to deal with that side of his business especially, as there is no record of Fr. Fahy ever charging for this service. That left the immigrant free to concentrate on the side of the business he knew best, finding good pastures and raising his sheep while at the same time avoiding all the costs, in time and aggravation as well as cash, normally incurred when transacting business at that time in Argentina. The Benefits of Common Ownership to the Individual. The practice of, the great majority, of the immigrants holding all of their assets (their sheep and their cash and later their land) in common, in Fr. Fahy's name, had advantages for the whole Irish community, which were unseen by the emigrant at one level, yet taken for granted by him at another. Because all the Irish property was, in law, owned by Fr. Fahy he was considered to be the wealthiest man, by far, in Argentina. The emigrants soon came to believe this also. Therefore when land or sheep came to be bought and sold among the Irish, the price was fixed between the emigrants themselves, and as they all banked with Fr. Fahy, he was informed of the position during his next visit to that part of the country. Cash rarely 107 changed hands. If an emigrant did not have the cash to close the transaction he 'borrowed' the difference from Fr. Fahy and agreed the repayments with him. The seller left the cash with Fr. Fahy certain that it was secure with a man a rich as he. All of this capital (plus the cash from the sale of sheep and wool to the merchants, by the Irish) was held in the Banco Provincia, Thomas Armstrong's bank. Armstrong therefore had a huge surplus available for investment in expanding the industries which were required to process the rapidly expanding Irish production. The effect of this tax free and fee free status was that the Irish had a considerable economic advantage over all other communities in the country when it came to acquiring and holding property. As this was an unintended benefit from the point of view of the Argentine government it was a remarkable achievement of Fr. Fahy that he was able to carry it off for almost thirty years, ending it only when forced to by the (by then) established Irish families. The Benefit of Common Ownership to the Group. Another equally important effect of this policy of holding the entire capital base of the Irish community in common was that the surplus cash of the established emigrants was available, through Fr. Fahy, to finance the expansion of new emigrants. Cash which was surplus to the immigrants' needs was reinvested through the Banco Provincia in building up the infrastructure necessary to transport and process the ever growing production of the region. 108 This system as it evolved under Fr. Fahy is a very good example how he was able to adapt given local structures to achieve the overall goal. If the existing rules had been rigidly applied in their original unmodified form, the Irish would have carried the costs of tax, legal fees and bureaucratic delays on all transactions. The extra costs involved would have led to lower production by immigrants and would have greatly impeded the very rapid rural development of the Irish community. Furthermore the Irish Church, Fr. Fahy's first priority, would not have been able to root itself so deeply within the Irish community. By fully understanding the cultural mores of both the Irish and Argentine population Fr. Fahy was able to evolve his own structure which fully met the requirements of the elites and immigrants without alienating the host community. Thomas Armstrong and he were, therefore, able to achieve the goals set them with the full cooperation of all sides, albeit by a very liberal interpretation of the rules and the trust placed in them. The Irish Communication Network. Fr. Fahy's immense local knowledge of the Irish community also ensured that the Church was the medium of all communication effecting the Irish throughout the province. With his constant travelling through the countryside he became aware almost immediately of the quality and potential of new areas of land as they were opened up. He was thus able to direct his congregation to suitable new areas where they could quickly expand their business, more often than not providing the 'loans' to finance this expansion. He knew who was looking for labourers, so when the next boat of emigrants arrived he was able to direct them immediately 109 to jobs in the country. By doing this he was removing the temptations of city life from the new immigrant's experience as well as earning their gratitude for finding them work and the gratitude of the employers for finding them labour. This had the double effect of strengthening the rural communities and preventing the growth of a viable Irish community in the city. By such efforts on their behalf Fr. Fahy soon gained the complete confidence of the Irish community throughout the province in all matters affecting their lives and won them over in the same way that he had all the other groups with whom he dealt. The Expansion of The Irish Church. As the Irish community grew and spread over an ever greater area, more priests were required to minister to them. The education of twelve priests was paid for by the Irish community, to the Archbishop of Dublin, who oversaw their education in All Hallows in Dublin. Fr. Fahy was insistent that they were especially well-educated and paid extra to All Hallows for this. He even supplied Spanish textbooks to All Hallows so that the new priests could speak some Spanish before they arrived in the country. By speaking Spanish when the ordinary immigrant could not, meant that the 'Padre Ingles' was also the interface between the Irish and the local establishment. It also meant that the Irish priests were able to socialize with the local community though the local clergy speaking only Spanish could never form the same relationship with the Irish. Fr. Fahy kept the new priests under his personal control by making them his assistant chaplains. As chaplains they 110 would have been equal in rank to him and therefore would have been responsible directly to the Archbishop in Dublin. As well as diluting Fr. Fahy's control, this would have created difficulties with the See of Buenos Aires, whom it must be said cooperated in every way possible with Fr. Fahy. When the new priests arrived they spent some time in Buenos Aires with Fr. Fahy. Those he wished to keep he appointed as his assistant chaplains in heavily populated areas of the camp, initially around Chascomus and Dolores in the south and later north west of the city in Mercedes, San Antonio de Areco, Chivilcoy and other newly settled areas to the north west around the old military forts. When a new priest was given an area the boundary on the city side of his parish was fixed. The rest of his parish stretched as far as he furthest Irish settler lived. As the Irish population grew in the assistant chaplain's area another assistant would be appointed further out, and then the first priest would have defined boundaries for all of his area. This method of creating new Irish assistant-chaplaincies continued until large scale Irish settlement ceased. The first task of each new assistant chaplain was to raise funds from the community to build a local church. The existing Argentine churches were never used by the Irish community except on very rare occasions such as weddings or funerals. They continued to hear the 'Irish Mass' on a centrally located Irish estancia until they had the funds to build their own church. The church building also contained a library stocked with books in English. Local Irish 111 newspapers such as the Wexford People and The Westmeath Examiner were also subscribed to by the libraries. The library was probably one of the few places in the camp where an immigrant was sure to find a complete pack of cards where he could play a game of forty five2. The card game allowed the immigrant to socialize freely with friends and neighbours of both sexes all and ages. Each little Irish church therefore became the local 'social centre' for emigrants for thirty or forty miles radius, where they would meet to hear Mass, read the local papers from Ireland, play cards, pass around letters from home and from their brothers and sisters in the United States and Australia or Canada and discuss current happenings with their neighbours. The libraries closed the circle within the overall model to the extent that the Irish community in rural areas of Buenos Aires province were insulated as much as possible from the real world of Argentina. They were able to continue to speak English, socialize exclusively among themselves, and with the libraries supplying Irish papers remain intellectually back in Ireland. The Irish community in Argentina was therefore often better informed about conditions in Ireland, the US, Canada and Australia than they were about conditions in much of their adopted land. Therefore, provided there was a reasonable sex balance and the community remained fairly concentrated in particular districts there was no incentive whatever to assimilate into the wider community. Part of this infrastructure was a complete health and welfare system run by the Irish Church to take care of members unable to look after themselves, such as widows and orphans, together with an education system which was the model for other emigrant communities. 112 Because Fr. Fahy was banker to the Irish community he knew exactly how much each member of the community could afford to contribute to those charities. And the emigrant was in a very weak position to refuse, considering his respect for, and his personal obligations to, Fr. Fahy. Thomas Armstrong's Role. The fact that Thomas Armstrong was banker to Fr. Fahy and had huge assets at his disposal for re-investment in the Buenos Aires economy enabled him to become one of the leading business figures in Buenos Aires. He was a founder of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, a director of the Banco Provincia which he made, in effect, the central bank of Argentina3. He was also the director and substantial investor in the major railway company and served on the boards of most of the major stock companies in the city. His connections with the creole community were also beyond reproach. He was married to Justa Villanueva the daughter of the Alcalde (chief officer under Spanish rule) of Buenos Aires of 1807. Being such a powerful business figure and because of his wife's connections Thomas Armstrong was also a very influential if unseen force in the political life of the country. He was the business counsellor and close friend of 'almost every Argentine governmental administration from the Directorship of Rodriguez to the Presidency of Avellaneda'4 acting as 'honest broker' (amigable componedor) between the British and Argentine Governments in their commercial affairs for over 40 years5. 113 Thomas Armstrong and Fr. Fahy forged between them a link which made them probably the two most influential people in the country outside of political life and, such was their mutual trust and close friendship that no demarcation line existed between them in obtaining their objectives. Their influence overlapped to the point where Fr. Fahy was considered to be the wealthiest man in Argentina, while Thomas Armstrong's work on behalf of the Irish was legendary. To quote Murray6, whose dislike of the English was surpassed only by his contempt for the Anglo-Irish, 'He lived and died a Protestant, but no man ever did more to help and advance his Catholic fellow-countrymen than he'. Neither, Thomas Armstrong or Fr. Fahy, without the other's help and commitment, could ever have established and maintained the Irish as the highly organized community that they became. Without their combined efforts it is very unlikely that the Irish would have become such a prosperous rural community in that country. The 'Irish' Church soon became recognised generally, as a separate entity by both the Argentine population and the 'Foreign Residents' including the Irish in Argentina. In guides and directories, which were commissioned by both independent sources and the Argentine Government during the nineteenth century, complete religious freedom was stressed, and it must be said practiced, by both the authorities and the population generally. To underline this fact and for general information the guides published principal clergymens' names and address for the various denominations in the country. Fr. Fahy was always listed as Irish chaplin as was the fact that the Irish had their own separate 'English' Church organization. 114 Fr. Fahy, happy in the belief that the Government and the business community, through Thomas Armstrong's influential position, was safely in his pocket, was able to concentrate on directing and leading the Irish community to a prosperous future based on the values and principles of the Irish Catholic Church. The Government and business community were willing to afford Fr. Fahy every cooperation in his quest, secure in their belief that through Thomas Armstrong's monitoring his every move, 'The Rev. Mr. Fahy' and by extension every Irish immigrant in the country was safely in their pocket. All sides, therefore, worked closely to benefit the Irish, happy that ultimate control rested with them. Such was the closeness of the understanding between Armstrong and Fahy and their joint commitment to the Irish immigrant community that the conundrum of who really was in charge was never put to the test. Despite all his efforts Fr. Fahy's networking would come to nought unless he succeeded, in what was his primary function, of forging the Irish immigrants into a distinct Irish Catholic community. His parish, when he arrived in the country extended about 250km in length and was about 100km wide. The Irish even by 1842 were scattered all across it, though the great majority of those in the countryside, were located to the south of the city. Most of those at that time were 150km to the south around Chascomus. To visit all of the Irish community required a great deal of travelling and rough living. Fr. Fahy, in the early days therefore, had to divide his time about equally between the country and the city. He would send word on 115 ahead to each district stating when he would be in a convenient place, usually an Irish estancia. There he would say Mass for all the Irish that were in that district. Those that did not turn up for Mass on the estancia he would search out and visit. In that way he not only came to know his parishioners he also learned a great deal about life and how to succeed in the countryside. The knowledge he gained on a visit to one immigrant he was able to pass on to another so that he soon established himself among the Irish community as a very shrewd advisor in temporal as well as spiritual matters. The Irish model of settlement therefore depended completely on the ability of Fr. Fahy, with the full cooperation and assistance of Thomas Armstrong, to devote his entire energies to caring for the Irish immigrant community. Because of the models unique features it demanded at its centre a person who, firstly understood, and was in sympathy with, how it operated. Secondly the person at its centre had to have no outside commitments such as a family, that person had to be willing to devote a lifetime's work without any personal gain while seeing others prospering greatly from their efforts. That individual had to have sufficient education to deal with the complex issues of an immigrant community in an alien environment and have the personality to deal as an equal with every level of society, both immigrant and native. It was logical therefore, given the Irish and Argentine culture, to place an energetic priest at the centre of such a community. Given that Argentina was dependant on British capital, much of which was antipathetic to Catholic priests in general and Irish Catholic priests in particular, it was a master stroke of Fr. Fahy and the good fortune of the 122 1871 he had handed over clear title to the assets he had held in trust to the owners. Thomas Armstrong made up the undisclosed shortfall out of his own funds. Thomas Armstrong died within four years of Fr. Fahy. The deaths of those two men ended an era of Irish emigration to Argentina. The grand coalition that they put together, though never formally ended, no longer worked to the benefit of the majority Irish community. Sectional interests began to replace the common goal. The capital previously held in common was now held individually. Each estanciero made his own arrangements with individual merchants. A new emigrant had no Fr. Fahy to turn to, to borrow the funds to purchase land. If he had the money he had to cope with the local bureaucracy and pay his taxes, like everyone else. He no longer had the advice, based on the knowledge of the entire community, on where to settle or purchase land. In short the old settlement model which was so hugely successful was being quietly abandoned, and was being replaced by a version of the English model, in that individual effort alone from that point on was the arbiter of success. However the new immigrant was not given the means to establish himself as he had been in the true British colonies. The Irish community changed radically after the deaths of those two men. Though Fr. Fahy is still revered almost as a saint by the Irish in Argentina today Thomas Armstrong is completely forgotten. The expansion of the Irish community ceased with their deaths. Rather than building on their success and continuing their work of settling the Argentine Pampas 123 with prosperous Irish farms, those who followed and who claimed to be working in their name, through a combination of lack of vision among some and sheer self interest among others, set themselves a completely different agenda. Theirs was one of consolidating the existing position rather than continuing with the work of expanding the Irish community. Just as all, including Argentina, had benefitted from the work of Fr. Fahy and Thomas Armstrong, all, with the exception of a few very rich Irish families, were to loose out heavily, in the long term, by this change of direction in community settlement. 124 N O T E S 1. Murray 1919, The Story of the Irish........, 266 2. The shorter versions of this game 'twenty five' and 'fifteen' are still played in rural Ireland. 3. The Banco Provincia failed in the late 1870's about five years after Armstrong's death. By that time most of the Irish community appear to have withdrawn their assets from it and were therefore largely unaffected by its failure. As it falls outside this work I don't know to what extent the Irish contributed to its failure by withdrawing their assets. The current Banco Provincia in Argentina has very little connection to Armstrong's bank other than the name. The Banco Nacional would be its real successor as it was formed out of the ashes of Armstrong's Banco Provincia. I am grateful to the Argentine Ambassador to Ireland Sr. Juan M. Figurerro for supplying me with much of the information for this note. 4.Murray 1919 The Story of the Irish...., 394 5.Coghlan 1987 Los Irlandeses......,12 6. Murray, 1919. The story of the Irish....., 394. 1 24 C H A P T E R 7 T H E J O U R N E Y T O A R G E N T I N A. Introduction. 'Dec. 12 1845. I arrived here in the big Filomena 300 tons registered, Captain Robert Bell, a good fellow, we arrived here after 3 months voige from Kingstown Ireland to Buenos Aires; we ankird in the outer roads; and come the next day to the beach in a boat. Then we were met by a one chafter cart when we got on the disvalci or coach we went up to a boarding house that was kept by Michael (surname unreadable) where we were met by my brother and other friends from the old country.' Extract From the Diary of John Brabazon. Those were the opening remarks of John Brabazon when beginning his account of his life in Argentina. They are typical of Irish emigrants descriptions in that they list the name, weight, captain, and date of arrival of the ship. Where they boarded the ship and the account of the journey out are never mentioned. Brabazon was also very typical of Irish emigrants in that he emigrated to a destination where his close family members and friends had already emigrated to; he was met on the quay side and brought to reliable lodgings. He speaks in the 1 25 plural 'we were met..., 'we went up to....' implying that he had emigrated as part of a group. The only detailed account by an Irish emigrant, in my possession, took place in 1892 when Thomas Murray1 emigrated to Argentina. Murray's account is very similar to accounts written by English travellers between 1880 and 1900 and those of the Mulhalls which appear in various editions of the Handbook series. The most popular time to begin the journey appears to have been in August or September. The emigrant left Europe during the autumn months and arrived in Argentina at the beginning of their summer. Every account except Murray's record the weather as being extremely rough at the outset with the passengers suffering terribly from sea sickness. Once past the Bay of Biscay however the weather becomes calm and presumably by then the passengers had acquired their sea legs so that the rest of the journey was remarkably uneventful. Boredom and irritation by fellow passengers being interrupted occasionally by sight of land or the occasional stopping off at a port on the way. Route Taken. The shipping route appears to have remained largely unchanged throughout the century despite the introduction of steamers. The ships continued to sail as close to land as possible for the duration of the voyage. The major effect that steam power appears to have had was that it reduced the length of the journey from around three months to about thirty days. The simplest method of recording the route taken by the emigrants is to follow closely Murray's record of this voyage Murrays Account of the Voyage. Murray's account commences on the 1st. of September 1892 when his ship (un-named) left the port of Liverpool. ' 4 O'clock pm passing Land's End rough sea and a cold evening. The next morning, at 9, the French coast is in sight. By 7.P.M. that evening they are in the mouth of the 'Garrone' (Gironde) and 'cast anchor at a place pronounced by the sailors as "Poliack"' 1 26 Figure 7:1 The route taken by Thomas Murray in 1892. 1 27 (Pauillat) at 10.PM. and rest here for the night. Murray then describes the passengers on board without numbering them. A Scotsman whom he describes as being 'long lean and garish and dangerously cunning' Englishmen whom he 'thinks will turn out nice fellows' and then goes on to report 'Naturally my own countrymen are to me most enjoyable'. The ship sails at 3p.m., on the 3rd., with additional passengers 'men women and children chiefly from France and Spain with a few Arabs, very strangely dressed, Shabby looking things they are all eat together on deck'. On Sunday the 4th., Murray records strong gale and heavy sea, 4pm. in sight of Spanish coast'. At 'nightfall' the ship anchors in Corunna. They leave Corunna on the 5th., at 10 a.m. on a 'beautiful morning' with 35 new passengers. Sailing 'close to the coast' the docked in Vigo at 8 pm., that evening. They left Vigo at 10 the next morning with no new passengers. The ship arrived in Lisbon on the 6th., at 3 p.m., and departed on the 7th., at 11pm., with a further '30 or 40 passengers'. Murray at no time suggests that passengers disembark in these ports though there is no reason why some should not. Why Arabs and Spaniards would travel to Bordeaux (Paulliat) to make a longer and more expensive journey to Buenos Aires is not explained. One cannot rule out therefore the possibility that some at least of those passengers were travelling from France to the Iberian Peninsula so that the overall number of passengers on the ship may very well have remained the about same throughout the voyage. The 8th of September Murray records as 'the first whole day without seeing land'. On the 10th the ship passes in 1 28 sight of Tenerife but does not dock there. The 11th. is Murray's 'Second Sunday on se' - feeling more homesick today than any (time) since I left Ireland'. Just after midnight on the 13th they docked in St. Vincent on the Cape Verde islands to take on fresh water and they leave again at 'half past four'. On the 16th they are 'supposed to be crossing the line (equator) -weather altogether different from what we expected, no heat at all often felt it much hotter in Ireland'. They arrive off the coast of Brazil on the 18th., sighting St. Ferdinand Island (Fernando deNoronha). On the 22nd the ship rounds Cape Frio which Murray records is 'Something like Howth Head'. On the 23rd they are in quarantine on the Rio Grande so presumably some passengers are entering Brazil. On the 24th Murray 'went through fumigation' He stated that it was a 'frightful ordeal... it reminds me of hell, although I have not seen that place, unless it be that part of ....(word unclear) around the docks. But accounts I have read and heard of hell say that it is a place of terrible torture and that it has a sickening bad smell, also that the concern in run by black fellows. Our fumigation at Rio Grande was in every way similar to this. We leave tonight and I wont be sorry'. The 25th was Murray's fourth Sunday on board, it was spent anchored off Rio de Janeiro. Murray writes 'Rio is as Patterson says of Kilorglin " a beautiful place to view"'. The ship sailed from Rio on the 26th and arrived in La Plata at nightfall on the 29th. On the 30th., all passengers were landed on Flores Island where they were quarantined for eight days. 1 29 The 'quarantine part (of the island, was) about half a square mile in extent. The other part is kept as a hospital and a burying ground. The public have no access to this part'. Murray complains, as do other writers of the period of the dreadful conditions experienced in the quarantine station. 'the treatment given to people is an outrage to humanity'. The third class passengers in particular appear to have been deplorably treated. The food 'was the dirtiest slop ever offered to a human being'. The plates and spoons were never washed. Two blankets, again unwashed and 'full of vermin' were issued to each passenger. The third class passengers numbered 'over a hundred' and were from 'almost every country in Europe and many parts of America'. Some were 'well and tenderly reared and others were the lowest of the low'. Every night they were all herded into one long shed 'without regard for age or sex and without the light of even one candle'. Murray writes that it was 'pitiable nay killing, to see the condition of some of those poor people, delicate women young girls and little children. He stated that there was no sickness of any sort on board their ship and therefore there was no need for those precautions in their case. He goes on to blame the authorities on the island together with the government of Uruguay and above all the English shipping companies for allowing their passengers to be so 'outraged and persecuted' during their quarantine. The passengers set sail again on the 8th., at noon, arriving in Montevideo at 6.30 pm., and left immediately for Buenos Aires where he landed on the 9th., The journey took thirty nine days in total. 1 30 On the 10th., Murray attended the Irish Mass at the great Irish church of Holy Cross in the city. There he met a number of Irish people. On the 11th., he obtained a 'protection' (his foreign status papers) from the British consulate. On the 12th., he departed Buenos Aires by the 7am., train and arrived at his destination 'Creevy's house' at 5pm. that evening. His journey appears to have been typical of the Irish emigrants' experience throughout the century in all but the quarantine. He sailed from Liverpool, stopped off at several destinations along the European Atlantic coast and at least one of the Atlantic islands before sailing for the nearest point on the Brazilian coast. Murray's ship then sailed down along the coast of Brazil, stopping only at Rio de Janeiro and continuing on until it reached Montevideo before entering Buenos Aires port. On landing Murray immediately headed for the Irish Church where he contacted other Irish immigrants and within a few days left the city for a rural destination in an Irish district. Quarantine does not appear to have been enforced until the 1880's by which time the Irish emigrants had ceased arriving in significant numbers. The conditions experienced by those immigrants would certainly have greatly impacted on female emigration from Ireland especially as by then females had better alternatives for employment in the United States. However the Irish were sufficiently well organized and wealthy in Argentina to change those conditions if they wished to continue Irish emigration to Argentina. Those conditions therefore may have added to the growing reluctance of the Irish to emigrate to Argentina in 1 3 7 N O T E S 1. Thomas Murray may have been a relative of the author of The Story of the Irish in Argentina but he was a different Thomas Murray. 2. Some Irish disembarked in Montevideo and then crossed the river to Buenos Aires. A few appear to have landed in Quilmes, now a suburb of Buenos Aires, but then a small port about 5 miles south of the city. 3.John Brabazon writing in a diary, which he kept, about his life in the Pampas between 1845 and 1855 a copy of which is in my possession. 4.I have discussed this theory with Dr. John deCourcy Ireland who, as part of his work on Adml. William Brown, researched trade from Buenos Aires, to both Liverpool and the United Stated and he fully agrees that the likelihood is that much of the early Irish emigration to Argentina would have been via the US because of the trading links then existing. 5.Westmeath Guardian Newspaper advertisement August 10th. 1865. 6.FREEMAN T.W. (1957) Pre-Famine Ireland , 40. Freeman also makes an un referenced statement on p.40. that fares to the US fell to 15/= after the Famine. 1 38 C H A P T E R 8. T H E S E N D I N G A R E A S. Introduction. In this chapter the sending areas in Ireland are defined from the data provided by Coghlan. In addition the sex ratio of those emigrating within the sending areas is also analyzed. As the database was constructed from the residual, settled Irish population which appears in Coghlan's 1987 genealogy, the findings must be seen as referring to that section of the Irish emigrant community. Nevertheless, as the great majority of Irish who emigrated to Argentina during the nineteenth century never returned to Ireland, it can be reasonably assumed that when leaving Ireland, all the emigrants intended to remain in Argentina and only re-emigrated from there when the country failed to live up to their expectations. This assumption is a plausible one when it is remembered that the fare to Argentina was considerably more expensive than that to the United States and Canada and furthermore internal continental migration to the US was much more difficult and expensive than migration from Canada to the US. Therefore while the database records only the Irish who settled in Argentina permanently and formed a community there, the same push and pull factors can reasonably be assumed to have applied 1 39 to both shortand long-term Irish emigration to Argentina. When considering emigration from Ireland to Argentina it is important to remember that Ireland was the first grassland region incorporated by Britain into her colonial mercantile system. The province of Leinster is Ireland's premier grassland area and Westmeath and Wexford, are located at opposite ends of the province. The Westmeath area is bounded by the River Shannon on its western side, which cuts it off from the province of Connaught while to the north it forms part of the boundary with the province of Ulster and it is bounded on its southern side by the bog of Allen. Thus the main sending area is located in the north western edge of the province. Approximately 100 miles to the south east, on the opposite corner of Leinster, lies the second major sending area, Forth and Bargy in Wexford. This area is located in the very southeastern toe of the Ireland, roughly, south of the road connecting Wexford town on the east coast to Wellingtonbridge on the south coast and consequently is bounded on three sides by the sea. As the two populations were located on the margins of the premier grassland region, expansion into surrounding areas of good land was therefore impossible. Improving farmers from those regions, consequently, had to look beyond Ireland for additional land if they wished to continue to pursue a rural farming lifestyle. Both areas were aware of the opportunities for acquiring land which existed in the grassland region of Argentina, because the main sponsors of the emigration on the Argentine side (Thomas Armstrong and Patrick Browne) came from those areas. 1 40 Fi g ure 8:1. Distribution of Nineteenth Centur y Irish Emi g ration to Ar g entina. 1 41 It would appear also that, in the beginning at least, Armstrong and Browne were very probably the only sponsors of emigration from those two areas to a grassland region within the British colonial system. Consequently, during most of the early part of the nineteenth century Argentina was the only option open to intending emigrants, if they wished to continue their current rural, farming lifestyle. Between those two centres of Irish-Argentine emigration are several counties with well established traditions of emigration to all of the other grassland areas of the British colonial world, while at the same time just a handful, possibly only the members of one extended family emigrated from those intermediate counties to Argentina. This is further evidence that nineteenth century mass emigration from Ireland was a mosaic of small personal, family and neighbourhood contact with specific regions of the New World rather than a general unplanned out movement of population to random destinations within the British Empire. Findings from the Database. The database records people emigrating to Argentina from thirty one of the thirty two counties of Ireland, Donegal being the only exception. (see table in Appendix 1) The neighbouring counties of Tyrone, Leitrim and Monaghan only produced one emigrant each while Fermanagh, located in the centre of this group of counties produced just three emigrants. This region, in contrast to Leinster contained much of the poorest land in Ireland together with a much higher population concentration. What the data base does highlight 1 42 however is that by far the heaviest concentrations of emigrants to Argentina were from the regions in Ireland where the population was skilled in the use of fertile land while, due to their location, they were unable to expand within their surrounding area. Consequently the population from which the emigrants came proved to be very acquisitive of land when they had the opportunity in Argentina and furthermore they had the skills necessary to gain the maximum economic returns from such a rich resource. An excellent match therefore existed between needs of the main sending communities and their destination The numbers, together with the ratio of males to females, emigrating to Argentina varied enormously throughout Ireland. By far the heaviest concentration (61.05%) of permanent settlers came from the Westmeath area. The emigrants from this 'Wexford' region accounted for 15.59% of the total who emigrated from Ireland and settled in Argentina. As the two areas, when combined, account for 76.64% of the total, settled, emigration they were the only regions where Argentina was seen as a major counter attraction to other competing destinations in the British colonial mercantile system. In fact up to about 1880 'Buenos Aires' rather than 'America' was very probably the destination of first consideration for the core region between Ballymahon and Ballymore in the Westmeath area1. The Westmeath Area The Westmeath area comprises the region north of the Brosna River, east of the Shannon and 1 43 south of the town of Edgeworthstowm (Mostrim). This area incorporates north-west Offaly, the western half of Westmeath and southern Longford. The reason north Offaly and south Longford are included is because, together, they form part of the natural hinterland for the towns of Mullingar and Athlone. This hinterland formed the emigration area for the 'Westmeath' emigrants, with the greatest number of emigrants, about 6% of the total from Ireland, coming from Ballymore, which is located roughly in the centre of this hinterland. The area where the heaviest emigration to Argentina occurred was the point where the central grassland region touches the Bog of Allen to the south, Connacht to the west and the drumlin counties of Ulster to the north. This fact can be seen in the topography of the countryside. It is a land of little lakes and eskers, patches of bogland interspersed with veins of first class land. This area is bounded on its east side by Mullingar, a market town connected to Dublin by canal, rail and road, and thus integrated into the commercial life in Ireland from the middle of the eighteenth century. Mullingar, with its easy communications with Dublin to the east and its strategic midland location was thought sufficiently important to Britain to have a large military barracks maintained there. On the western side, Athlone, located on the Shannon, was a major water route connecting the centre of Ireland to the rich Golden Vale of Munster and to the Atlantic, for that reason Athlone also had a large British military presence. The result was that because of its good communication network and strategic importance, this region was very much in contact with 1 44 the outside world, notwithstanding the fact that this part of Ireland was geographically furthest away from any sea port and potential outside influence. For the local inhabitants, British military service was a realistic, if not always voluntary, alternative to life on a tiny patch of land. Service in British regiments, opened up to the general population of this area, a knowledge and an interest in parts of the world that would otherwise have been denied to it. In addition, because of its good communication network, and the high quality of the land around Mullingar, it became a major collecting point for cattle, sheep, wool and horses for British military campaigns overseas. Thus the larger land holders were incorporated into the British colonial mercantile network, in direct competition with the great grassland regions of the New World, and were therefore acutely aware of its potential. All levels of society therefore were becoming ever more aware of the opportunities and conditions in the British colonies and quasi-colonies like Argentina. Provided they were given a realistic chance to avail of the economic opportunities in other parts of the world, and had the resources to get there, many of the inhabitants were more than willing to emigrate. Wexford. Wexford is a maritime county located in the south east corner of Ireland, and like Westmeath, its major economic activity was, and still is, agriculture. Emigrants left for 'Buenos Aires' from all over county Wexford. The core area was however, much smaller. It 1 45 was confined to the Forth and Bargy region. Figure 8:2. The Two Main Sending Areas. 1 46 2 45 N O T E S 1. The Argentine embassies in Dublin and London were contacted by me as well as the military archive in Belgrano, Buenos Aires city, together with several private contacts with individual senior military and government officials in an effort to acquire maps for 1855 and 1869. In addition the Argentine ambassador in Dublin 1991/3, Sr. J.M. Figurerro, a former Army officer and foreign minister made every effort on my behalf also, for which I wish to thank him. 2. I have been unable to examine the records to verify this claim. It is however universally believed by the Irish community. Even if not literally true, for such a claim to be so widely believed shows that the Irish came to own a vast area of land in northern Buenos Aires within seventy or eighty years of mass immigration. 3. This is a direct quotation from a private briefing, which I have had sight of, by a retiring Irish ambassador in Buenos Aires to his successor. It was written in the 1950's. The Ambassador's sources were the sons of the families directly involved in bringing out the immigrants. 4. This information was given to me by his granddaughter Senora Luisa Duggan de San Martin y Herras, during my visit to Buenos Aires in October 1990. 5. The valuation of Duggan's estate, which is widely accepted in Argentina, was given to me in conversation with his grand nephew Mr. Lawrence Feeney in Mullingar in January 1993. 2 45 C H A P T E R 1 3. LIFE FOR THE IRISH IN THE CAMP. Introduction. No work on the Irish who emigrated to Argentina during the nineteenth century would be complete without some description of the life they led and the conditions the emigrants experienced when they arrived in Argentina and how they adapted to those conditions. While their experience merits a much deeper study than is proposed here, nevertheless to understand the emigration more fully a brief outline of the immigrants' lives is essential to show their experiences and the type of character an individual required to enable him to survive and prosper in Argentina, especially during the pioneering days. All of the illustrations used in this chapter, unless otherwise stated, are taken from Tito Saubidet (1958) Vocabulario y Refranero Criollo Lifestyle of an Immigrant in Zone 3. Until 1833 the area under the control of the Buenos Aires' Government was comprised of the countryside north of a line which ran along the bank of the Rio Salado from the Atlantic inland through Lake Chascomus until it reached San Miguel del Monte (Monte). It then turned north-west to Junin and on to San Antonio de Areco. From this point the line ran roughly north-east until it came to within a few kilometers of the Parana River where it again turned north-west following the river at this distance until it reached San Nicholas de Arroyos. The towns of Carmen de Areco (then known as Fortrin), Rojas were at that time just military forts, deep in Indian country, protecting the road from Cordoba (1). Figure 13:1 Irish Settlement Area in Argentina. Source: Murra y, 1919 the Stor y of the Irish...... Early Rural Settlement. In 1833 all of the territory between the Salado and Parana Rivers, which until then was considered Indian territory, was annexed by Rosas who was by then Dictator of Argentina. The fertility of the soil improves as one progresses north of the city. The most fertile land is 2 46 2 47 located in northern Buenos Aires and southern Santa Fe Provinces within the flood-plain of the Parana River (See chapt 3.) The Irish, therefore, had every incentive to migrate northwards as the land was cleared. Not only was the quality of the land improving, the distance from Buenos Aires was reducing as its hinterland was being cleared of Native Americans. Thus they had the double benefit of better land and closer access to markets. The Irish followed immediately behind the soldiers renting the land from the government or from soldiers who were given it as grants and did not wish to farm it. The first of the new lands to be settled were located around the military forts which served as the centers of communication for the surrounding countryside. These centers were to become important towns in the province of Buenos Aires. Later emigrants settled the land in between these towns so that a certain amount of 'leapfrogging' took place in the settling of these regions, though the progression was steadily northwest. These towns today are still settled by families bearing Irish names. San Antonio de Areco settlers have mostly Wexford names such as Casey and Devereaux whereas nearby in Suipacha, Westmeath names Lawlor, Kelly, Garahan, and Geoghegan still predominate. The Irish had an advantage over the native Argentinean when it came to settling the new grassland areas. A native born Argentine was subject to military service between the ages of seventeen and forty five, though in practice boys as young as 12 or 13 were conscripted into military service. Yet a condition of the land grant was that it had to be worked by the owner. 2 48 Therefore even when the Creole owner wished to retain his land he was in practice obliged to use Irish immigrants as shepherds. A point to note here is that the Argentine born children of Irish emigrants, who were legally Argentine citizens, regularly avoided military service because very many could only speak English or at best very poor Spanish and were able to convince the authorities that they too were immigrants. By remaining as 'immigrants' the settlers were barred from voting and thus were excluded from influencing political direction in Argentina. This non-combatant status saved the immigrant community from the bloodletting which was almost continuously raging around them. It had a negative effect also in that it prevented assimilation and integration of the various immigrant communities into a single group which had common aims and aspirations as was the case in the United States. The result was that the immigrants, together with their Argentine born children and grand-children, continued to see themselves as Irish, there to exploit the country. This attitude was universal among the European settlers. It meant that each group competed (or conspired) with each other to extract as much as they could from the country while putting as little as possible back in the form of re-investment for the future. This attitude among Argentines, which is only now beginning to change, was at the root of many of their economic and political difficulties. Land Ownership. With the estancia/hacienda system of agriculture already established, settlement on the North 2 49 American model proved impossible to implement, except for a few, little more than token, settlements during the latter half of the century, despite an almost unlimited supply of suitable land. Some attempts were made to settle areas of land especially in the very north of the province and just over the border in the state of Santa Fe in the 1870's and 1880's - some by Irish owners. A major reason for the poor success of this type of settlement was poor communication and accessibility to markets due largely to government neglect due to constant political upheaval along with a lack of support for those colonists involved during their start-up years. In addition the Irish, in particular, preferred to play for the much higher stakes that were on offer in the province of Buenos Aires. The estancias, because of their size, were more able to financially withstand the political upheavals. They also had sufficient land to enable them to withstand natural catastrophes such as drought, flooding and locust infestation. Also, as the settlements were governed from the top the settlers did not have the freedom to establish their own communication and commercial systems as they did in British colonies or the in United States. Early Sheep Farming Once the early Irish immigrants had mastered the language and customs of the country, they moved out of the city and began herding sheep in the Chascomus district about seventy five miles south of Buenos Aires city. The reason for choosing this region was the greater the distance from Buenos Aires the cheaper and more freely available the suitable land became and prior to 1833 Chascomus was the most distant area under the control of the Government 2 50 of Buenos Aires, close to a constant water supply. The sheep were herded on a "shares" basis often for the same merchant for whom they had worked in Buenos Aires. Some emigrants worked for native Creole estancieros. This system, which was unknown in South America outside the province of Buenos Aires, was very similar to both the Metairie system of France and to the system of tenure in Ireland under the native Brehon Laws. It is not known how the system originated around the port of Buenos Aires. Being beside the only port with European contact it is probable that the system came from Europe, whether that was France or Ireland I have been unable to establish. The system operated as follows. Flock owners with about two thousand sheep would go into partnership with the immigrant. Under the contract the owner would agree to supply the flock for a specified number of years (usually four). In the very early days the shepherd obtained his share in return for his labour and the financial cost of maintaining the flock, renting pasture etc. When the agreed number of years had expired the shepherd and the owner would divide the flock, the owner getting back his 2,000 sheep plus an agreed percentage of the increase (usually 50%) as well as his share of the price obtained for the wool clip during the contract period. By this time the flock, under good management, would have grown to 10,000 in number. The shepherd would then having returned the 2,000 original sheep to the owner and dividing the remaining 8,000 equally with him, become the 2 51 sole owner of up to 4,000 sheep. He would then divide his flock into, say, two flocks of 2,000 and hire shepherds on a similar type of contract to one he had worked. In this way one emigrant brought out his brothers and later his cousins and neighbours and so a highly regional specific chain migration began. There is evidence in folk memory that the established Irish drove much harder bargains with the new immigrants than did the Criollo estanciero. The Irish flock-owner expected the emigrant to purchase his half share in the flock while keeping the other conditions mentioned. As the sheep became more valuable the Irish owners in particular modified the arrangement so that if the new emigrant did not have the cash to purchase his share he became a "Tercero" (a one third man) rather than a "Medianero" (a halves man). The tercero however was provided with grazing, stock pens, etc. free of charge by the flock owner at the beginning. Those conditions were dropped in the mid 1850's as sheep and wool continued to rise in value. At the end of the contract period the new immigrant could become a medianero by using the share he was then due, to buy his half share in a new flock. This had the effect of doubling the period of years that the shepherd had to work for the owner to achieve the same return as the earlier immigrant. Many of the immigrants who arrived after about 1855, were to move directly into the countryside to find employment as shepherds. By the late 1850's when sheep became very valuable and shepherds more plentiful, many of the established herd owners began to employ shepherds on a wage basis. 2 52 The shepherds retained on the old system saw their percentage share become steadily smaller and the number of years of the contract increase. If in addition to herding he was also responsible for protecting a portion of the estancia he was then a 'puestero' or (sentry) 'post' man. Thus by 1860 Irish immigrants began to take over the role of the gaucho on Irish owned estancias, being responsible for the livestock on a portion of the estancia in return for a small portion of land where he was able to raise some sheep. Later immigrants were also in great demand to dig ditches and wells on already settled land. They earned on average £30 per year for this work (2). Life on the Pampa. Life was not easy for the immigrant, It wasn't just a matter of riding off into the sunset with two thousand of someone else's sheep and returning four years later a man of worth. Many never returned, or returned broken in body and spirit, sometimes insane from years of almost complete solitude. A broken leg or a fall from a horse frequently meant a lingering death from thirst or starvation. Life was cheap among the Gauchos and Indians. Usually they were not interested in killing the shepherd for his sheep, but for his provisions and clothes - a dead victim was less likely to seek to recover his possessions than a live one. John Brabazon recalls how his first wife Honoria and her sister were stabbed to death in Brabazon's home by a passing gaucho who was looking for food and money, while he was nearby tending his 2 53 sheep. The land too had to be tamed. Over vast areas the vegetation consisted of tall coarse grass which the sheep could not eat and thistles which were taller than a man on horse-back. The thistle-thorns got entangled in their wool and left it worthless for shearing, as the main value of the sheep was its wool: worthless wool meant worthless sheep and wasted effort. The emigrant had to search for a large area of land with sufficient suitable grass for his flock to graze. The land, particularly Chascomus, was generally more low lying and grew a finer grass than other areas but was subject to flash flooding in the spring months. Suitable land was also available further into the interior. However it was subject to prolonged drought in the summer. These were not annual occurrences but would take place usually once or twice in a decade. In a drought, rivers and streams dried up altogether and the sea of lush pasture which had stretched to the horizon and beyond shrivelled and died, leaving the shepherd to witness his flock, which was the culmination of his life's work, choke on the dust and blind themselves on the long thorns as they tried to eat the last of the surviving thistles. An emigrant could loose the result of ten or fifteen years hard work in a single night's thunder storm and flood, or in the south a blizzard, or watch them die of thirst over several weeks while he struggled vainly against the inevitable end. If the flock ran off, due to 2 60 and a ladder attached to the gable end to allow him avail of the roof as a vantage point to keep in visual contact with his sheep. There is some dispute in the folk memory about the claim that the immigrants had chimneys in their ranchos. Some, including Bulfin, argue that chimneys were not built. They describe a hole in the centre of the roof. This it is argued, was because the roof, made of rushes, soon became a haven for every insect in the region, the smoke rising up unhindered into the roofing material acted as an insect repellant and allowed the rancho to remain habitable. Such an argument is however largely academic as the tradition in Argentina, as in most fairly low latitude countries, was to build the cooking fire outside. Temperatures were usually such that shade was far more important than heating. Despite the fact that the Irish immigrants would have known well how to construct a weather proof dwelling from Ireland, William Bulfin once remarked, that the Irishman's roof kept the rain out in fine weather4. In wet, stormy weather the lambs were penned in the rancho for protection and to deter the ewes from running off leaving their lambs behind. The shepherd remained outside with the ewes during the storm, calming them, until it abated, so he only occupied the rancho on a fine night or during the extreme mid-day heat for siesta if his flock had sufficient water not to necessitate his working through the mid-day sun. The Construction of a Rancho. The rancho itself was built with sods of earth placed on top of each other supported by a frame of vertical posts reinforced by lateral tyings of wattle, and later wire, covering an area of about 4m x 2.5m (12'x 8')5. The sod walls were plastered by a mortar which was 2 61 traditionally made of a combination of horse manure and grass. However the Irish substituted the horse dung with a more convenient and simpler method for them. They cut the long pampas grasses with their wool shears, chopped it into smaller pieces and shook it to a depth of a few inches over the floor of a specially dug pit. Then they corralled their sheep as tightly as possible into the pit. The combination of urine, droppings and the chopped grass being trampled into the soft clay underneath, by the sharp hooves of the sheep, produced a sludge-like mortar which was then used to plaster both the inside and outside of the dwelling. The mortar would soon dry hard under the strong Argentine sun leaving a rock hard weather proof surface. Stronger grasses were used to cover the roof, which was thatched in a similar fashion to the method in Ireland except that the thatch was sewn on with the long tail-hair from the horse. Often the roof was extended beyond the walls of the house on the northern side to form a veranda as a protection from the strong summer sun. The height of the walls were directly related to the height of the occupant. All that was necessary was that he could stand upright suddenly without inadvertently driving his head through the roof. If, when the structure was complete, the floor rose too much in one corner or the roof sagged in the centre, it was just a matter of taking out the spade and lowering the floor in the offending place until the desired Fi g ure 13:3. Buildin g a Rancho. 2 6 2 height was obtained. 2 63 There was generally one opening into the rancho across which a horse hide was hung to serve as a door. The interior was sparsely furnished. The shepherd slept on wool, or a horsehide which was stretched across a timber frame if he could afford the timber. His blanket was a sheepskin. In the centre of the room, suspended by a rope was a bag which contained camp biscuit, underneath this, on the floor, an upturned chest was placed which contained tea, sugar and some yerba leaf which was made into a drink, in the same way as tea, called mate (6). This chest was always surrounded by a shallow channel or fosse which was kept filled with water during the summer months, otherwise black ants would carry off its contents in a matter of hours. This chest also served as a table. Figure 13:4 The Roof of the Rancho. A chair consisted of an ox skull whose large curved horns served as the back rest. On one gable wall about 2m above the ground an iron bar was driven in, which extended about 1m into the room. From this was hung his meat rations, usually a carcass of mutton. Other shorter pegs held his kettle, frying pan, cooking pot, candle maker, sheep brand, wool shears and a few odds and ends of riding gear. Against the opposite gable rested his ladder. The 2 64 floor consisted of trampled grass which, according to Bulfin, was shared with the odd flea together with the occasional passing frog or snake. The building was lit by a home-made tallow candle. The candle-stick was generally an empty gin bottle. If the occupant was an estanciero he would build a second, more modest, structure that was much more sparsely furnished, which served as the sleeping accommodation for his workmen. This structure consisted solely of a roof and four walls, the occupants' bedding was their riding tack. The estanciero, being a wealthy man, would have a horse-hide bed. This was, in all probability the only such luxury for at least twenty miles. Another difference in the estanciero's dwelling was that being a rich man he very probably had a strong wooden door which could be locked and barred from the inside. A few year's prosperity brought the planting of some trees, for shade, firing and pen construction, together with some improvements in the rancho. It was the following generation usually who built the fine estancia houses which still exist on the Irish estancias today. The original immigrant generally considered it far better business to invest his cash in more land and sheep. As the immigrant began to prosper and could afford to marry, he had to improve his home. The first sign of his improving wealth was a wooden door. The timber had to be imported into this vast treeless plain and was therefore very expensive. It was essential however to protect his wife from being attacked while she was alone in the house. Windows were the next addition followed by the extension, which was usually a little grander than the original building. It usually faced in the same general direction as the original house, though sometimes it was built at roughly right angles to it. Figure 13:5 The south side of the Clancy estancia house showing the original Rancho. Photo g ra p h for Fi g ure 13:5 and 13:6 taken b y kind p ermission of Sr. Oliver Clanc y . The Irish shepherd was not always an expert builder nor was he, unlike his Scottish counterpart, who usually arrived with more resources, noted for being house proud. As the family prospered further buildings were added until the estancia house formed a square enclosing a patio. The buildings on all four sides were one room wide. Windows were placed in the outer walls and a large door was built in the wall facing the patio. There was no connecting corridor between the rooms. One walked across the patio to get from the living 2 65 area to the sleeping area. An excellent example is the estancia house of Sr. Oliver Clancy, in San Antonio de Areco. The Clancys, unlike most Irish immigrants, retained a great pride in the fact that they succeeded from very humble origins in Argentina. They have preserved each section of their house through the generations exactly as the original builder designed it, with the one compromise that the original grass roof on the rancho has been replaced by corrugated iron. Simply walking around their estancia house one can clearly see the progression from rancho to fine estancia house. One fine enough for the president of Argentina to break his journey when travelling between his own estancia and Buenos Aires Figure 13:6 The front of the Clancy estancia house. Built around 1885. About 15 years later than the rancho. 2 66 2 67 in the 1890's. In the Clancy house the original rancho has two rooms with an inside door connecting the two. Only one room has a door into the patio. This was because the 'inner room' was the womens' bedroom and the 'outer room' was the mens'. The reason was that when a house was attacked by renegade soldiers or gauchos, rape as well as robbery was generally the motive. In the ranchos built for families during the 1860's-1880's the potential rapists had first to fight their way through the mens' quarters before gaining access to the womens' quarters. As the house grew larger each wing had a separate function. The imposing front of the house contained the reception area with one of the two wings built at right angles to the front comprising the sleeping quarters and the other the living quarters. The rear buildings which enclosed the square contained the kitchen and laundry. The patio itself was usually a flower garden where the owners and their guests could relax and eat during the warm weather. On the larger estancias the kitchens opened out onto a second patio. This was the vegetable garden with the staff quarters ranged around it. At the end of this part of the house, opposite the kitchen, was the dairy, the coach house the hen house etc. This sometimes opened onto a third patio which could be described as the farmyard with the traditional farm buildings arranged around it. The Dress of the Immigrants. The Irish immigrants also adapted their mode of dress to suit their new living and climatic conditions. They quickly copied the gaucho form of dress in almost every respect. The older men usually wore long beards which they occasionally clipped with their sheep shears, while most young Irish immigrants grew long Spanish style moustaches. They covered their heads with a wide brimmed hat and around their necks the wore a bright scarf. They also to began wear the 'poncho'. This rectangular woolen garment which was worn loosely about the Figure 13:7 The Chiripa and Bombachas. Photo g ra p h of bombachas taken with the kind p ermission of Sr. Eduardo Ga y nor. 2 68 upper body offered protection against the strong sun in the daytime and served as a blanket at night, while in a fight, if wrapped around the left arm it could defend its owner against stab wounds leaving the right hand and arm free for attack. The 'chiripra' or lower garment was of similar design and served a similar purpose for the lower body, one end was tied around the waist, meeting at the front and the garment was then brought up between the legs to the front and secured by means of a strong wide belt. Thus the legs were not restricted in any way by tight fitting clothes. This garment was not widely worn by the Irish. They preferred 'bombachas' which were lightweight trousers with very loose pleated legs. The bombachas have become the accepted form of dress for Camp dwellers especially the estanciero class in modern times. Figure 13:8. The 'Bota de Potro' or 'Boot from the Colt' 2 69 The boots were made from the skin from the legs of a young colt. As soon as the colt was 2 75 Irish centres and the abandoning of the new immigrants' welfare. Fr. Fahy's and Thomas Armstrong's successors never fully understood the broad agenda which had to be followed to ensure the success of the community in the first place and had neither the vision nor the intellect to be able to carry on their work. The original vision of creating a new Gaelic society with the spirit and values of the old pre-British Ireland based on the pooling of resources had long gone but so too had the ideal of creating in Argentina a real alternative for the thousands of Irish leaving Ireland every year to work in the industrial centres of the English speaking world. The successors to Fr. Fahy and Thomas Armstrong, like the much of the rest of society in Argentina lacked that pioneering vision that had been so much part of life a generation earlier. Britain was reaching her zenith as a colonial power and was by far the greatest investor in the Argentine economy. By definition almost the British system of doing things was accepted as superior to all other systems. It never appeared to occur to those in control of Irish society that the Irish Catholics, as a community manifestly failed to form successful rural settlements anywhere the British model of settlement operated whereas they had been hugely successful in Argentina operating their own model. From the early 1870's in Argentina, Capitalism and the creation of quick paper wealth rather than individual effort yielding long term prosperity became the economic goal for almost all, including the Irish, then in the country. With this shift in emphasis an overall decline in the general values of the community rapidly followed. This soon came to the point where the Argentine Church became very concerned 2 76 about both the general and spiritual welfare of the Irish community in the country. Because of the independence of the Irish Church, and the total allegiance of the Irish community to it, coupled with an acute shortage of priests in the Argentine community itself, meant that the Argentine Church was powerless to intervene directly. It did try indirectly, however, by writing to the Archbishop of Dublin, (three times without apparently any reply the three letters were almost identical) dated, Oct.5th 1877, March 27th and Aug 6th 18781. But by then Archbishop Murray was also dead and his successor Cardinal Cullen did not share the vision of the creation of a new Gaelic Age either. In the three letters signed by the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he writes 'It is a painful fact that the Irish people are changed from what they were once;'.. .......'ignorance is on the increase as, they (the youth) seldom or ever receive any religious instruction, added to the want of Catholic schools where the English language is spoken'.........'The position of members of Irish families, from the large fortunes they have amassed, calls for special attention. If they are left without religious instruction, it will not be difficult to foresee the future that awaits them. Vanity in some, insubordination in others, joined to their peculiar habits and customs, give room to vice among the more ignorant, especially those who have no religious principle, which I fear are not a few'.... He then requests priests and nuns, both to found schools and to augment the existing 10 Irish priests in their pastoral work, to go around the Irish community giving 'missions'. The Archbishop concludes his letter by writing 'Should your answer be favourable, as I expect it, on the first notice I receive, I shall see about furnishing the necessary expenses for the voyage out and also the installation of the missionaries in this 2 77 Archdiocese. In the same manner the requisite means would be provided for the Religious Ladies who would be willing to devote themselves to education'. It is to be noted that it was the Archbishop and not Fr. Fahy's successor, Canon Dillon, who wrote those comments to Dublin and looked for additional clergy and moreover offered to meet their expenses. Times had radically changed in the six years since the death of Fr. Fahy. In fact I have seen no request from the Irish chaplaincy for additional members, much less an offer to pay their expenses and provide living accommodation after Fr. Fahy's time. That is not to deny that some of the leaders of the Irish community were most anxious to continue in the traditional pattern. They themselves made an agreement with the Passionists, whereby the Irish community would finance and maintain Passionist priests to minister, especially retreats, among the Irish community. The Passionist order accepted the funding but sent out Italian and English priests claiming that the Catholic Church was a universal Church. This further split the Irish community and embroiled it in such deep divisions that eventually the dispute was sent to the Vatican in the early 1900's for resolution. The rural Irish in the main claimed that they had paid for Irish priests and were cheated while the urban Irish, mostly female domestic servants, in Buenos Aires backed their new English priest. The real damage of this split was that it cut off the, large male rural community from the largely female urban community. The men ceased to go into the city and the women were abandoned by the rural Irish. 2 78 The consequence of all of this was that the rural community was first cut off from the city community and secondly the rural areas were cut off from each other. Successors with the vision of Fahy and Armstrong would surely have continued with immigration and used the resources of the Irish community to acquire the large tracts of land being offered for sale by the government, farther out in the Dry Pampa, subdividing it up among the immigrants rather than allowing it fall into the hands of the emerging oligarchy of which not a few were Irish who owed their prosperity to the very system created by Fr. Fahy and Thomas Armstrong. The fact was that the early emigrants had by then become established and realized that it was in their long term interest to assimilate into the elite of the wider community. At the same time they needed an Irish labour force, whom they could depend on to work their estancias. It was not in their interest to have their labourers leaving after a year or two to penetrate further into the Camp to compete with them in the marketplace for land and a share of the markets for the produce of this new land, nor was it in their interest to have new immigrants working for them who were imbued with the theories of Davit and the Land League in Ireland. By discouraging further immigration and fragmenting the Irish community they were able to control it and ensure that their own interests were protected. By the 1870's the wealthy Irish realized that it was in their interest to maintain the status quo, freezing the development of the Irish emigrant community in the process. The wealthy Irish had no opposition to this change as the old Irish elites had ceased arriving in the country following independence sixty years earlier and the Irish Church had no one of stature 2 79 capable of taking them on, while the merchants were quite satisfied to do business with the existing wealthy land owners. The only one not content with the new situation was the Argentine government who were most anxious to continue Irish immigration along the old model. To this end they chartered a ship The Dresden to go to Ireland and recruit further emigrants. The Dresden arrived in Cork in 1883. By then word had long filtered back to Ireland that Argentina was no longer the land of opportunity for the Irish. They attracted only a few passengers. To avoid sailing back with an almost empty ship the organizers recruited off the streets in Limerick and Cork. They attracted unemployed townspeople and not a few petty criminals and prostitutes who agreed to emigrate on condition that charges against them, in Ireland, were dropped. When the ship arrived back in Buenos Aires at Christmas the Irish would have nothing to do with it. The passengers were disembarked onto the quay side in the blazing summer heat and left without food or water over the holiday period. Some of the weaker ones, including children, died of thirst and sun stroke before they were allowed land. Their suffering was not over even then however as the Irish community still refused to accept them. They were then shipped to Bahia Blanca, a port on the borders of Buenos Aires province and Patagonia, to an institution run by Presentation nuns. This was the furthest possible point away from where the Irish were settled in the province of Buenos Aires. There they were left to fend for themselves as best they could melting into the local community. The treatment of those emigrants led to such an outcry in both Ireland and Buenos Aires that no further attempt was made to recruit Irish emigrants by the Argentine government. This episode brought to a final end all emigration from Ireland to Argentina 2 80 except for a few close relatives of existing emigrants who were able to secure their future. From that point on the existing status quo was consolidated. The new settlement model was no longer seriously challenged. It was a matter of organizing the community in a way that this position was maintained. There were now two Irish communities living side by side in Argentina often closely related by blood but divided by wealth. The wealthy Irish wished to retain a labour force with traditional Irish moral values while many of the labourers still preferred to remain in secure employment in an Irish environment, or lacked the funds to reemigrate. The merchants had no further interest in Irish labourers as Italians were willing to settle in the city and work for less wages, so it was left to the Church as developed by Fr. Fahy to maintain the balance in the community. To this end Fr. Fahy's successor Canon Dillon brought in further innovations. The best known was the founding of the Irish emigrant newspaper the Southern Cross, which still remains the newspaper of the Irish community in Argentina (though since the 1960's it is published mainly in Spanish). The newspaper replaced the local Irish newspapers in the camp libraries. In a real sense this newspaper was a reflection of the change in the Irish community since the time of Fr. Fahy. The Standard newspaper which was also founded by Irishmen, was run by the Mulhalls and financed by the Duggans, probably the wealthiest Irish family anywhere in the world at that time. Prior to the launching of The Southern Cross it had been the newspaper for all the English speaking community. However by the mid 2 81 1870's it was seen as the newspaper of the wealthy Irish immigrants only. The upcoming Argentine-born generation did not have the same interest in local Irish events as their parents. Therefore the Southern Cross was needed to reflect as well as to form the outlook of the first generation Irish-Argentines, while keeping the continuance of the perception of the Irish being a separate community. The Southern Cross was totally controlled by Canon Dillon and financed until it became viable, by the wealthy Irish community and reflected their views. Issues of land availability were never discussed for example, whereas Canon Dillon's Sunday sermon was regularly reported in full, often on the front page. With the loss of the old meeting places in Buenos Aires some means of contact had to be put in their place to preserve a common Irish identity among the disparate communities. While Irish land may have stretched unbroken from outside Buenos Aires to Santa Fe. The Irish labourers who worked on those lands were living in villages often fifteen to thirty miles apart. To maintain a social contact which was exclusively Irish a great emphasis was placed on Gaelic traditions among the Irish population. Hurling was fostered with each Irish community having its own hurling team and the 'Hurling Club' was founded in Buenos Aires and affiliated to the GAA in Dublin. Figure 14:1 The emblem of the hurling Club which is sited in the main entrance hall of the Building. Only the labouring Irish took part in such community activities. The wealthy Irish, who saw their future in assimilation into the wealthy British merchant and Creole class, preferred polo and joined the Jockey Club. So stratified had the Irish community become that no wealthy Irish would cross the door of the Hurling Club unless by special invitation and as an honoured guest. Even today this situation still pertains. Though the wealthy Irish continued to financially support the Church run schools, they sent their children to the Protestant St. Andrew's and St. George's for their education. Those who desired a Catholic education for their children sent them to the more expensive Colleges in Ireland such as Castleknock and Blackrock. 2 82 2 83 Ironically the ultimate losers in this system were the great majority of Irish estancieros, those with less than about 5,000 hectares of land. They could not afford to have their large families educated at St. Andrew's or St. George's, nor indeed would their children have been accepted. Consequently their children received little or no formal education. Being unable to speak Spanish they were cut off from the real changes taking place around them. Nevertheless they had the money to afford a lavish lifestyle. Being locked in an Irish mind set where their fathers and grandfathers came from twenty to fifty acres of land in Ireland they were content with their divided inheritance 200 or 500 hectares of land, which was after all 500 to 1,000 acres. Large as this may seem in a European context it could not support a lifestyle that a similar size holding in Ireland would ensure, and could certainly not support further subdivision by five or six in the next generation. The owners were not sufficiently educated or well informed to evaluate those changes. Consequently their children were, for the most part, not sufficiently educated to enter the professions where they could earn sufficient outside farming to maintain their new status and sustain the lifestyle they had been brought up in. As a result much of the land so hard won by the immigrants was sold off by the next generation to maintain a lifestyle they could not in reality afford. With the death of Thomas Armstrong the Irish did have not have the vision or the tradition to continue to invest their vast resources in the growing industrial base around the city. Thus their country was starved of the resources necessary to form a home grown industrial base. 2 84 Instead many of the Irish lived for a generation like princes. Conspicuous consumption was the order of the day, they bought the most expensive European consumer goods, while the wealthiest owned apartments in the swankiest areas of Buenos Aires, London and Paris, selling land whenever necessary to meet the bills. Their households and children were cared for by 'Irish', ie. first generation Argentine, domestic staff while their estancias were run by 'Irish ' labour. The good times lasted until the great depression and by the 1940's when Peron first came to power the era finally ended. A few of the shrewder and the very wealthiest families avoided those pitfalls by being better educated and ordering their affairs in such a way as to ensure that their farms were not split up on their deaths. They did this by investing their surplus cash in city property and ensuring that their younger children entered the professions. The O'Farells are one of the leading law firms in Buenos Aires today. The Kavanagh Building dominates the skyline of downtown Buenos Aires and was built by the Kavanagh family as an investment one of their daughters. Morgan Seeds, the international seed company, is another example of an Irish family diversifying and investing their assets and, in that case, creating a further asset and very well paid employment for their 2 91 had to work as wage earners for the owners of capital. Phase One Rural Settlement. Because Argentina was different to the other Irish destinations in the New World, in that it was not under British administration, the form of Irish rural settlement was also different. In Argentina there were almost no formalized colonization schemes run by the Argentine government, in contrast to the position taken by the British administration, of giving everyone a similar sized farm in a given area. This meant that an emigrant had to purchase his land, either from the government or a third party independently. Thus when an immigrant wished to settle permanently he was, typically, in the country for a number of years and was in direct competition with others wishing to occupy the same property. Even in areas where colonization along similar lines to those which were so successful in Canada were operated and where those land grants was undertaken by Irish Argentines such as Eduardo Casey, the Swiss, Austrians and French were far more successful colonists than the Irish immigrants. The Irish in Argentina were most successful as pastoralists eventually owning large tracts of land, devoted to livestock production, rather than traditional small units given out in the colonies where mixed farming was necessary for survival. The phase one settler in Argentina, however, did replicate the Canadian 'colonial' settlement pattern to the degree that, by and large, the immigrant opted whenever possible to settle in an area where his neighbours and friends from Ireland settled. Thus in San Antonio de Areco there is a greater preponderance of Wexford names while in the neighbouring area of Suipacha, Westmeath 2 92 names predominate. Another major difference between emigration to Argentina and elsewhere in the New World was that, there was a double filter on Irish emigration in Argentina. A potential immigrant had to be relatively well off before he could afford the fare to emigrate to Argentina and secondly he only remained there if he was successful in acquiring land. In the rest of the New World, with the exception of Canada once an Irish emigrant arrived he generally remained regardless of what success he achieved. Therefore the permanent settler in Argentina tends to consist of only those Irish immigrants who were particularly successful there. Other Factors Predetermining Irish Success in Argentina. In addition to the double filter, local circumstances in Argentina favoured the Irish immigrant over all other groups, especially between 1825 and 1870. The existing Irish elite in the country up until about 1827, were determined that before the Irish immigrants arrived there would be a system in operation whereby they would have a head start on other immigrant groups when it came to acquiring land. In addition the practice in Argentina of conscripting their own citizens while exempting foreigners ensured that the Irish had an advantage over native Argentines when it came to acquiring and holding onto their property. The way in which the Irish Church, under Fr. Fahy, implemented this system of land acquisition, further enhanced the chances of Irish immigrants out-competing other 2 93 immigrants in settling the land. Under this system the Irish were exempt from all taxes associated with the normal course of business in the country. All of their resources were held in common which not only ensured that it was available to the whole community as it was needed. In addition it enabled the community organize an infrastructure which equipped them to take best advantage of opportunities as they arose. Surplus cash was invested, through Thomas Armstrong's bank, in increasing the processing capacity for the expanding Irish production. It is not surprising that the Irish in Argentina were so successful when it is remembered that, by and large, only those emigrants who already knew how to accumulate capital arrived. Of the arrivals, only those who were successful remained and they had in place when they arrived the most efficient structure of all the immigrant groups to enable them to succeed. Such was the success of the model created by the elites and implemented by the Church that even today there is no section of the Irish community which could be termed working class. Pre Nineteenth-Century Irish Emigration. Prior to Argentina being a British colony it was under Spanish colonial rule for almost three hundred years. Because the Irish always identified much more closely than Britain with mainland Europe, they never saw themselves as an island community cut off from the Continent, forced to compete against the rest of Europe for survival. Consequently when the British overthrew the Irish elites during the seventeenth century, these Irish easily settled into 2 94 Catholic Europe and became part of the European ruling classes. The more junior members of the family left behind in Ireland very often accepted British rule, converted to the New Religion and retained the family lands. By accepting English titles and taking over family lands which were until then held in trust for all the clan, they were regarded as usurpers by the rest of the community. They were accepted into the English elites and became in turn just as important to English colonial outreach as their cousins were to the Spanish outreach. Bearing all this in mind, therefore, it should not be surprising that colonial elites with Irish names were found in the service of the French in Canada, the British in New England and the Spanish from the Sierras in north America to Tierra del Fuego in the south. In fact anywhere a major colonial power raised its flag on a new territory you can be sure that the Irish were not too far behind. When researching Irish emigration to Argentina therefore the first task was to go back through Spanish records to find the earliest Irish contact. Those records show that the Irish were among the very first Europeans to set foot on Argentine soil. Magellan's explorations brought the first Irish into contact with Argentina, while the first Irish settlers arrived with the first European settlement expedition to the River Plate, led by Pedro Mendoza. Because of the type of settlement favoured by the Spanish, there never was the opportunity for mass Irish emigration to Spanish America. European settlement, including the Irish, 2 95 consisted solely of the governing elite. Those that did settle were very much part of the Spanish colonial outreach. Despite their being relatively few in number, they comprised the elite and exercised a very large influence over the European human geographical impact on the areas in which they settled. This Irish influence was further increased with the ascent of the Bourbon kings to the Spanish throne. By then, however, it was not just the elites that were emigrating, from Ireland, to Catholic Europe. Any Catholic who could claim kin to those elites, a relatively easy condition to fulfill in a clan-based society, and who had the resources, could emigrate and become highly educated in specially run Irish colleges. On completing their education they were, by virtue of being considered citizens of Castile, eligible for all government and military positions in the Spanish Court on an equal basis with Castillian citizens. With the greater interest being shown by the Spanish Crown, at the end of the eighteenth century, in their colonies and the consequential increase in demand for Spanish administrators to represent them, a number of those highly educated Irish emigrants, from relatively humble backgrounds, arrived in Buenos Aires in the Spanish service. Thus when the British replaced Spain as the dominant influence in Argentina following independence early in the nineteenth century and incorporated Argentina into their colonial system, existing Irish emigrants were conveniently considered 'British'. 2 96 They were in a position to use their influence to ensure that the immigration of labourers, who were needed under the British structure to further their industrial revolution, would include a large number of Irish among them. The Irish elites went further and set up a structure designed to ensure that the Irish element of the new labourforce were in the best position to gain control over the vast fertile land around the city of Buenos Aires. They did this by ensuring that the type of emigrant attracted out, the 'moral and industrious', were recruited from commercial farming areas in Ireland and by bringing out the Irish Church and delegating to it the task of organizing the Irish immigrants in such a way as to take full advantage of those opportunities on arrival. In that way the Irish governing elite then in Argentina intended to use the land based financial success of those emigrants to recreate their vision of the true, if English speaking, Gaelic Ireland in Argentina. The Irish elites were aided in their efforts to recruit Irish labour by the commercial interests in Argentina, namely the merchants and portenos, because they needed a labourforce capable of exploiting the Pampas without overthrowing the existing political structure. The desire for Irish labour was further enhanced by the fact that Irish butchers and the tanners who had been brought to Argentina towards the end of the eighteenth century had been effective in creating the existing beef and leather industry in the country and the Irish soldiers who remained behind after the British invasions of 1806/07 had also proved to be an ideal and 2 97 popular workforce. Allied to this was the fact that the Spanish banned Basque emigration following independence and Ireland was one of the very few alternatives that the Argentines had to recruit European labour on a large scale at that time. Because of the military and commercial contact that existed between Buenos Aires, Westmeath and Wexford, the first Irish emigrants of the nineteenth century were recruited from those areas. While the Irish emigrated to Argentina from all over Ireland during the nineteenth century, the Westmeath and Wexford areas remained the core areas supplying about 70% of all the emigrants during that period. Those two areas in Ireland were already integrated into the British colonial agricultural system and were already producing the type of raw material required as inputs for the industrial revolution. Much of the surplus population in those areas therefore had the all skills the Argentine groups deemed necessary to develop the Pampas region of Argentina. Furthermore there was an ample supply of ships, nearby in Liverpool, to transport the emigrants to their destination. For the shipping companies carrying emigrants to the colonies was a profitable outward cargo. The incentive for the British to encourage Irish emigration was that there was a rapidly increasing population in Ireland at that time with no prospects of employment. The country was in depression following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and its rising idle population was seen as a threat to the stability of the United Kingdom. When resettled in the colonies however the Irish were proving to be highly efficient producers of the goods the British 2 98 needed and high consumers of the goods they produced. It was in everybody's interest, therefore, to encourage a skilled surplus population in Ireland to emigrate to an area where those skills were badly needed and where the emigrant would also have the opportunity not only to contribute to the wealth of the area in which they were arriving but in the process achieve genuine and lasting economic prosperity themselves and cease to be a threat due to unemployment at home. That the Irish were anxious to participate in this overall plan there is no doubt, they emigrated to the New World at ten times the average European rate. However, despite their adoption of emigration to the New World as almost a rite of passage to adulthood during the nineteenth century, emigration for them was not a random choice. The record shows that the intending emigrant gave a great deal of thought to the type of life they wished to follow before they chose, from a menu of available options, the destination they felt gave them the best opportunity to achieve the lifestyle that they desired. The options that the emigrant had to choose from varied throughout Ireland and were based on prior knowledge built up by earlier emigrants from their area. Thus particular areas that were rapidly industrializing and could immediately absorb immediately very large numbers of emigrants such as Boston, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia soon established contact with very large areas throughout the country, whereas areas that were developing an agricultural economy which grew much more slowly, such as Canada, New England, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina attracted a much greater proportion of their emigrants from smaller specific areas 2 99 in Ireland. This was because emigrants in the main chose those areas where they themselves had family of near neighbour contacts. So that while the Irish as a nation emigrated to all the great grassland regions of the colonial world, emigrants tended to chose only those areas where they felt sure that they, as individuals, could continue to use the local networks their families had built up in Ireland over generations. For Argentina those trans-atlantic family networks began in Westmeath and Wexford. It was for that reason that Irish emigrants to Argentina originated mainly in those two small areas. It would appear from the records that about 40,000 to 45,000 actually left Ireland for Argentina during the nineteenth century, of that number 25,000 to 30,000 appear to have reemigrated, between 5,000 to 10,000 appear to have died in Argentina without marrying or disappeared into the wider community and the remainder, about 4,000, were to form what we know today as the Irish Argentine community. Those figures are very general because in the absence of accurate documentation in Argentina for most of the nineteenth century. They should therefore, with the exception of the 4,000 core population, be considered subject to major revision in the event of more information coming to light in the future. This work shows that the emigrant maximized their opportunities to increase their potential for success. The data base in this work illustrates that they emigrated, usually, in their early twenties, when their economic potential was highest. Single emigrants, became more prosperous than married emigrants this is why the great majority of Irish were single when 3 00 they emigrated. They were also well informed when deciding which destination to emigrate to and used this information objectively to choose which one offered them the best opportunity. As soon as conditions changed in a region they were able to react to that change by immediately re-ordering their preferences in choosing the destination most advantageous to them. Thus when the opportunity to acquire land in Argentina was greatest, the greatest number of Irish emigrated to there. Furthermore, when in a region, the evidence is that they continued to keep themselves informed on conditions in the other regions on their menu and if opportunity became greater in another destination, often in another country, then they immediately re-emigrated to there. This would indicate a deliberate policy by large families to maximize their overall potential by the strategy of encouraging individual members to emigrate to different destinations, in the expectation that the siblings would keep in contact with each other, as well as with home, and by first hand experience in several destinations the family could then collectively choose the most suitable final destination for all, or most of the family, and thus maximize the family's chance of success in the New World. This would explain to some degree at least, why some emigrants entered Argentina from Great Britain, Canada and the United States while others left Argentina for those destinations. 3 07 a number of reasons why there was substantial re-emigration by Irish men during the nineteenth century. The lifestyle of emigrants to Argentina was for a great number never the romantic existence portrayed in much of the records of the time. Life for the most part was hard, cruel and dangerous for the immigrant. Many overcame those difficulties and prospered but many did not. Loneliness was probably the greatest obstacle the immigrant had to face and overcome. It should be remembered that the literature of the time, which universally presents the picture of hard work and scrupulous honesty among the Irish, leading inexorably to prosperity and a happy home, may well be an accurate record for many emigrants during that period. It was far from being the whole story however, morality, under the conditions experienced by the Irish emigrants, was often very different from the morality which tends to be ascribed to them in retrospect. The loneliness from isolation eventually broke some immigrants' spirit, causing insanity, often aggravated by excessive consumption of alcohol, some then declined to the point where they were no better than the animals they looked after. Others were robbed and sometimes murdered for their property or their heirs cheated out of their inheritance by their more rapacious and unprincipled countrymen. Those are extreme cases of failure however and it would appear were the exception. Equally exceptional was the success of such families as the Duggans, The Hopes, the Hams the Gaynors etc. There was a wide spectrum on the scale of success and Irish emigrants were found on every point. 3 08 Overall however, the popular conception of an Irish emigrant arriving before 1865, and remaining in the country, acquiring a viable land holding and those who entered after 1870 working for those land owners is a reasonably accurate one. Each emigrant entering the country had a different experience and the main purpose of this work is to report on a wide variety of those experiences and to explain their background, in the hope that a better understanding can be achieved of why the Irish emigrated to Argentina and how they shaped and reacted to the conditions they found in the country. The very important Irish contribution to both British and Spanish colonial expansion, as distinct from nineteenth century-style Irish settlement in the British colonial world, have to date never been properly researched from an Irish perspective. It comes as a surprise therefore to many when they find Irish names at all social levels, in both British and Spanish records, playing a very important part in European colonial expansion from the very beginning of the European colonial outreach. Furthermore due to this lack of basic research even such distinguished scholars as Kerby Millar worked on the assumption, that because the nineteenth century patterns of emigration from Ireland to the New World did not exist prior to the Ulster emigration to Colonial America in the eighteenth century, that the Irish were not emigrating, when the Irish have in fact been emigrating and re-settling within the European world, old and new, since the beginning of the sixteenth century and probably, in the case of Europe, well before then. Where Millar is correct is that mass emigration on a sustained scale, did not begin until the Scotch-Irish began emigrating to North America. 3 09 Whether such mass emigration was possible before then, as he argues, is problematic and further research will have to be published on Irish emigration pre-1780 before that point can be resolved. Permanent emigration before 1870 however, as Chapter 4 shows, was certainly well accepted if not the norm, among non-inheriting members of the wealthier Catholic classes in Ireland. In fairness to Millar, an American scholar, even the existence of a large wealthy Catholic class in Ireland during the penal times has barely been acknowledged much less been researched or recorded. Millar is far from being alone in his assumption. Meinig too, due to the lack of the same basic research, ignores Irish Catholic emigration to Europe and its consequent hugely important effect on the eventual form and shape of the Americas, while showing the Protestant Huguenot movements within Europe and their equally important contribution to the human settlement of the Americas. It is not the function of this work to report on the overall Irish contribution to the general European outreach, or the possibly pioneering contribution of the Irish elites of that period to trans-Atlantic trade which was briefly mentioned in Chapter 4. Neither is it the function of this work to report on the role the Irish played in the unique achievement of bringing Argentina into the British colonial system while managing to deny British ambitions to rule in the colony. Those are subjects which urgently need serious study in their own right elsewhere. More research also needs to be carried out to measure more fully the effect Irish leadership's policy had on the failure of the Irish to urbanize in Buenos Aires. One major reason why the Irish in Argentina have not been studied until now is that they failed to form 3 10 a large urban community in Argentina and a deeper analysis of this failure to urbanize is required before nineteenth century emigration to there is fully understood. Comparative studies between the large Irish land owners in Argentina and Ireland would also be worthwhile. In this writers opinion a major factor why the Irish elites failed to capitalise on their opportunities post-1870 was because intellectually they were still back in Ireland. In Ireland it was not uncommon for the large land owners of Meath at least, to live in Dublin, have their children educated privately, often in England or send them to Blackrock College, Clongowse Wood Etc. They also failed to invest their capital in industrializing their country. Yet they had substantial capital reserves. It was the norm in small towns in the wealthy farming areas of Leinster and Munster with a population of less than 1,000 to have three, four, or even five English banks, with Irish names, competing for farming deposits. Both the Church in Ireland and Argentina was to a large extent controlled by the wealthy land owners. Cannon Dillon's classmates who were ministering in Ireland were also engaged in building monumental Catholic edifices which they equated with progress. It is very possible therefore that the Irish estancieros in Argentina were reacting to events as if they were in Ireland rather than in Argentina. Further evidence for this is the fact that they assumed that they had provided well for their children by passing on 400-500 acres to each of them. In Ireland a farm of that size would ensure a prosperous future for a child and grandchildren for many generations to come, whereas in Argentina a farm of that size offered little better than subsistence. It is possible therefore that the Irish community's 3 11 structure as constructed by Fr. Fahy and Thomas Armstrong, so insulated them from the realities of life in Argentina that they were taking their decisions as if they were large-scale farmers in Ireland. Without a comparative study however such conclusions cannot be sustained, but until such work is carried out one cannot judge to harshly the actions of the Irish landed elite in Argentina for ultimately failing themselves, their fellow countrymen and their country -Argentina-. Despite all of those limitations however, it has to be acknowledged that for those who knew about it in the nineteenth century, Argentina offered the best opportunity for an Irish person with little or no resources of their own to become prosperous land owners. Those who were able to overcome the difficulties they encountered, which were very similar to those encountered in all pioneering communities in the New World, the rewards more than justified their efforts. Their community spirit rather than the Protestant model of individual effort was largely responsible for their success. That fact alone makes this community unique among the Irish in the New world which everywhere else was ruled by Britain and following the Protestant model of development. The fact that they were so successful shows that an alternative model of settlement to the British one was available and its neglect by scholars who study Irish emigration is therefore all the more regrettable. As a community they became and have remained more prosperous than any other group in Argentina. It is hoped that the broad outline of why and how an Irish community was established in Argentina, which was reported on here, will stimulate this much needed research, not only 3 12 on the Irish in Argentina, but, on the wider issues raised here in order that Irish emigration in general, together with the Ireland we live in today, can be better understood by succeeding generations. A P P E N D I X 1 STATED ORIGIN FOR EMIGRANTS ORIGIN TOTAL % MALES % FEMALES % _________________________________________________________ IRELAND ONLY 1679 920 759 Co. of Origin 1984 1214 770 TOTAL 3663 2134 1529 _________________________________________________________ BREAKDOWN BY COUNTY FOR EMIGRANTS CO. OF ORIGIN TOTAL % * MALES % * FEMALES % * _________________________________________________________ Carlow 7 0.35 3 0.15 4 0.2 Cavan 10 0.5 9 0.45 1 0.5 Clare............71...3.58.......41...2.07......30....1.51 Cork 90 4.54 58 2.93 32 1.61 Donegal 0 0 0 0.0 0 0.0 Dublin...........49...2.47.......29...1.46......20....1.01 Galway 20 1.01 19 0.96 1 0.05 Kerry 36 1.82 24 1.21 12 0.61 Kildare..........10...0.5.........9...0.45.......1....0.05 Kilkenny 19 0.96 11 0.55 8 0.04 Laois 14 0.71 8 0.4 6 0.3 Leitrim...........1...0.05........1...0.05.......0....0.0 Limerick 17 0.86 12 0.61 5 0.2 Longford 290 14.63 189 9.54 101 5.1 5 Louth.............6...0.3.........5...0.25.......1....0.05 Mayo 10 0.5 8 0.4 2 0.1 Meath 10 0.5 8 0.4 2 0.1 Monaghan..........1...0.05........0...0.0........1 0.05 Offaly 57 2.88 31 1.56 26 1.31 Roscommon 18 0.91 12 0.6 6 0.3 Sligo.............7...0.35........7...0.35.......0....0.0 Tipperary 14 0.71 10 0.5 4 0.2 Waterford 12 0.61 11 0.55 1 0.05 Westmeath.......863..43.54......487..24.57.....376 18.97 Wexford 309 15.59 190 9.59 119 6.0 Wicklow 12 0.61 10 0.5 2 0.1 Antrim...........18...0.91.......11...0.55.......7 0.35 Armagh 2 0.1 1 0.05 1 0.05 Derry 3 0.15 3 0.15 0 0.0 Down..............4...0.2.........4...0.2........0....0.0 Fermanagh 3 0.15 2 0.1 1 0.05 Tyrone 1 0.05 1 0.0 0 0.0 * Percentage figures are rounded to 2nd decimal place, ther Source. 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