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Adventurers, Emissaries and Settlers: Ireland and Latin America
27-30 June 2007, National University of Ireland, Galway

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Abstract

Mr. Edward Wall: an Irishman in the River Plate (1756-62)

Diego Téllez (Universidad de La Rioja)

This paper will analyse the role of the Irish in the River Plate, in present-day Argentina and Uruguay , from the beginning of Spanish Colonisation in 1535, with Mendoza ’s foundation of Buenos Aires , until the Independence in 1810.

Although not significant in numbers, the Irish played an important role in colonial Argentine society. Clerics, soldiers, doctors… they occupied different and relevant positions before the massive arrival of Irish in the nineteenth Century, the best well known Irish immigration in this part of the World.

It is important to know about these precedents and explain why Irishmen were so important for the Spanish Monarchy in this lands in this period of History. Particularly important is the Eighteenth Century, when Irish like O’Reilly or O’Higgins rules Spanish colonies, and other like Richard Wall, rules the hole monarchy.

So it will be study the role of men like Michael O’Gorman, protomédico of His Majesty, Eduardo Wall, commandant of the Dragons of D. Pedro de Cevallos in the campaign against the guaraníes (1756) and in the conquest of La Colonia del Sacramento (1762), Colonel Carlos Murphy, commissioned by the same Cevallos to fight the Comuneros in 1766, Thomas Craig, defender against English during the 1806-07 invasions period, Thomas Falkner, cleric in the Patagonic lands, etc.

The Society for Irish Latin American Studies