It is generally accepted throughout Argentina that that nation had two founding fathers: General San Martin, who led an army in an epic crossing of the Andes in 1817 to strike at the economic and political heart of Spanish colonial power in South America; and William Brown, a hitherto obscure Irish merchant sea captain. Brown’s … Read more
Alexander O’Reilly was born in 1723 in Baltrasna, County Meath, and baptised on 24 October. Military tradition ran in the family; his grandfather John O’Reilly was a colonel in the army of James II, whose regiment—‘O’Reilly’s Dragoons’—fought at the siege of Derry. He died on 17 February 1716. His wife was Margaret O’Reilly of County … Read more
There have been many Irish expatriates, fighting the ‘good fight’, defending the oppressed in various parts of the world. So it is not surprising that one of them was a special hero, a new Robin Hood, who would be transformed into a legendary figure by modern writers and film makers. His name was William Lamport, … Read more
On 21 September 1601 a Spanish fleet of twenty-eight sail occupied the Irish port at Kinsale with about 3,300 men, disembarking in a badly victualled and furnished condition under the maestro de campo general, Don Juan del Águila. The nightmare spectre that had haunted the Elizabethan state ever since 1585 had come to pass. Earlier … Read more
It is not clear when Basque mariners first began fishing off the coast of Ireland but the ordinances of 1553 of the confraternity of fishermen of the Spanish Basque port of Bermeo indicate that men from there were already fishing in Irish waters by then. Furthermore, in a lawsuit over the fishing voyage of the … Read more