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 IRISH

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IRISH

mission at All Hallows College, Dulilin, and estab- lished libraries, reading rooms, schools, and other means for improving the Ufe of the colony.

An Irish Passioiiist, Father Martin Byrne, prepared the way for a foundation of his congrofjalion, the pio- neers oi which, Fathers Timothy Paced i and t'lenient Finnegan, arrived at Buenos Aires from the laiited States, 14 December, 18S0. In 18S1 Father Fidelis (James Kent Stone), became the superior of their community, which in a short period was increased to fifteen priests and six novices, mostly Irish Amer- icans. Their fine monastery of the Holy Cross was dedicated on 10 January, 1SS6, and the splendid church attached to it in "lS97. In 1S97 Father Fi- delis establisheil another house of the Passionists near V'alparaiso, Chile, and built and had dedicated on 19 May, 1S98, the church attached to the mon- astery of St. Paul of the Cross at Sarmiento.

For many years the Irish colony at Buenos Aires in- cluded the famous statisticianMiehael G. Mulhall (q. v.). In the same field was William Bulfin, editor of a Cath- olic weekl}', " The Southern Cross ". Born near Birr, Kings County, in 1862, he arrived at Buenos Aires in 1884, and spent several years in ranch and commercial hfe, during which, over the pen-name "Che Buono", he contributed "Tales of the Pampas" and "Sketches of Buenos Aires " to various magazines and publica- tions. In 1892 he joined forces with Michael Din- neen and became a member of the staff of "The Southern Cross ", which had been estabhshed in 1874, and finally its proprietor and cliief editor, in which capacity he was a leader of the thought and progress of the Irish Argentine community. He died in Ire- land during a visit there, 2 February, 1910. Another weekly paper circulating in this section is the " Hiber- no-Argentine Re\'iew". It is estimated that the Irish form about one per cent of the population of Argentina. As the official statistics record them in the table of natives of Great Britain, positive figures from that source are unavailable. The unmistakable names show, however, that they are well represented in all the walks of political, commercial, profes- sional, and social Ufe.

Chile and Peru revere the memory of a famous Irishman, Ambrose O'Higgins (q. v.), the "Great Viceroy" (1720-lSOl) of Peru, and his son, Bernard (q. v.), the Dictator of Chile (1776-1842). In more recent years, Peru and Chile owed much to the enter- prise of another Irishman, William R. Grace (q. v.). In 1851 he began his extensive business at Callao, Peru, with his partner, Jolui Bryce. General John Mac- Kenna, born 20 October, 1771, at Clogher, Co. Tyrone, Ireland, was sent when a boy to his uncle. Count O'Reilly, at Madrid, and graduated from the military academy at Barcelona, in 1787. In 1796 he went to Peru, where he became one of the leading government functionaries. He was on a public work in Chile w'hen the revolution against Spain broke out in September, 1810, and espoused the patriot cause in which, under Bernard O'Higgins, he did remarkable service. He was killed in a duel on 21 November, 1814. Vicuna MacKenna, the statesman and historian of later years, was his grandson. Other Irishmen notable in South American history are Generals John Thomond O'Brian, Daniel Florence O'Leary, and John Dever- eux. O'Brian was born in the south of Ireland in 1790 and reached Buenos Aires in 1816. He was with San Martin's army during the campaigns of Chile and Peru, and at the conclusion of the war, in 1821, turned his attention to mining, at which he essayed some remarkable engineering feats. He visited Europe in 1847 as a diplomatic agent and tried to direct Irish emigration to South America. He died at Lisbon in May, 1861.

In January, 1819, General John Devereux, who is styled the " Lafayette of South America", because he had offered his sword and fortune to Simon Bolivar,

the Liberator of Bolivia, was commissioned by the latter to go to Ireland and enhst an Irish legion for the aid of the revolution. He landed nearly 2000 men in South America in January, 1820. The legion won the decisive battle of Carabobo on 24 June, 1821. Among its officers wa.s Colonel (afterwards General) Daniel Florence O'Leary (b. at Cork, 14 Feb., 1801; d. at Rome in 1868), often employed by Bolivar on important tliplomatic missions. His memoirs, letters, and documents, compiled by his son, were published by the Venezuelan Government. General John O'Connor, who claimed to be a descendant of the last King of Ireland, raised a regiment of volunteers and brought them to Peru at his own expense and fought all through the campaign of Venezuela and New Granada. After the end of hostilities he was made Minister of War in Bolivia and died in 1870 at an ad- vanced age. Among other Irish soldiers of note in these wars might be mentioned Major Thomas Craig, Major John King, Colonel Charles O'Carroll, Lieut. Colonel Moran, Captain Charles Murphy, and Lieuten- ant Maurice O'Connell. All through these Latin re- publics there are hundreds of families, the grand- children of these men, who bear these and other Irish names, but who are as Spanish in language and charac- ter as any of their compatriots of pure Spanish descent. In Argentina this condition is especially notable.

SouTHEY, History of Brazil (London, 1810; Spanish tr., Rio de Janeiro. 1S62); Gay, Historia fisica y politica de Chile (San- tiago, 1S44-1865); Simon B. O'Leary. Memorias del General O'Leary (Caracas, 1879); Dawson, South American Republics (London, 1903); Markam, History of Peru (Chicago, 1893); Arana, Historia General de Chile (Santiago, 1884-85) ; Marion McM. Mulhall, Explorers in the New World (London, 1909); FitzGerald, Ireland and Her People (Chicago, 1909-1910); VvEBBrCompendiumof Irish Biography (DuhVm, 1878); Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1894); Diet. Nat. Biog., s. vv.; The Standard, The Southern Cross (Buenos Aires), files. Also the bibliographies for the articleson the several Latin American countries.

Thomas F. Meehan.

Irish College, in Rome. — Towards the close of the sixteenth century, Gregory XIII had sanctioned the foundation of an Irish college in Rome, and had assigned a large sum of money as the nucleus of an endowment. But the pressing needs of the Irish chieftains made him think that, under the circum- stances, the money might as well be used for religion by supplying the Irish Catholics with the sinews of war in Ireland as by founding a college for them at Rome. The project was revived in 162.5 by the Irish bishops, in an address to Lfrban VIII. Cardinal Ludovisi, who was Cardinal Protector of Ireland, resolved to realize at his own expense, as a useful and lasting memorial of his protectorate, the desire ex- pressed to the pope by the Irish bishops. A house was rented opposite Sant' Isidoro, and six students went into residence 1 January, 1628. Eugene Cal- lanan, archdeacon of Cashel, was the first rector, Father Luke Wadding being a sort of supervisor. Cardinal Ludovisi died in 1632; he was of a princely family with a large patrimony, and he made provision in his will for the college; it was to have an income of one thousand crowns a year; a house was to be purchased for it; and he left a vineyard at Castel Gandolfo where the students mi^ht pass their vUleg- qiaiura. To the surprise of his heirs no less than of Father Wadding, the cardinal's will directed that the college should be placed under the charge of the Jesuits. Both the heirs and Wadding suspected that provision and disputed it; a protracted lawsuit was finally decided in 1635 in favour of the Jesuits.

On 8 Feb., 1635, they took charge of the college, and governed it till 1772. A permanent residence was secured, which became the home of the Irish students until 1798, and is still the property of the college; it has given its name to the street in which it stands. The Jesuits foimd eight students before them; one of these, Philip Cleary, after a brilliant