Kirjahaku

In the early nineteenth century, thousands of volunteers left Ireland behind to join the fight for South American independence. Lured by the promise of adventure, fortune, and the opportunity to take a stand against colonialism, they braved the treacherous Atlantic crossing to join the ranks of the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, and became instrumental in helping oust the Spanish from Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Today, the names of streets, towns, schools, and football teams on the continent bear witness to their influence. But it was not just during wars of independence that the Irish helped transform Spanish America. Irish soldiers, engineers, and politicians, who had fled Ireland to escape religious and political persecution in their homeland, were responsible for changing the face of the Spanish colonies in the Americas during the eighteenth century. They included a chief minister of Spain, Richard Wall; a chief inspector of the Spanish Army, Alexander O'Reilly; and the viceroy of Peru, Ambrose O'Higgins. Whether telling the stories of armed revolutionaries like Bernardo O'Higgins and James Rooke or retracing the steps of trailblazing women like Eliza Lynch and Camila O'Gorman, Paisanos revisits a forgotten chapter of Irish history and, in so doing, reanimates the hopes, ambitions, ideals, and romanticism that helped fashion the New World and sowed the seeds of Ireland's revolutions to follow.

This is the first comprehensive study of John Thomond O'Brien, one of the most significant Irish-born figures in the history of modern South America. Born in Baltinglass, County Wicklow, in the late eighteenth-century, O'Brien emigrated to Buenos Aires in the second decade of the nineteenth century, hoping to profit from the burgeoning trade in textiles between Britain and Ireland and the River Plate. In 1813, in Buenos Aires, he enlisted as a cavalry officer in the armies fighting against Spanish rule. His actions on the battlefield, which contributed to the achievement of independence in Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay, and his close acquaintance with the two most famous generals of the war, Jose de San Martin and Simon Bolivar, brought him renown in South America and Europe. O'Brien criss-crossed South America during his colourful post-war career, spending time in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil and Uruguay. In the 1820s, he promoted Irish emigration to Argentina, launched the highest sailing ship in the world on Lake Titicaca and led the campaign of support for O'Connell and Catholic Emancipation among the Irish in Buenos Aires. In the 1830s, he explored the Amazon for gold and was imprisoned in Buenos Aires by the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. In the 1840s, he represented the Montevidean government in London and Paris. During the last decade of his life, before his death in 1861, he campaigned to have monuments erected across South America to the leaders of the independence campaign. O'Brien's compelling story mirrors that of a tumultuous period in Irish and South American history.

"Este libro es el primer estudio sobre Don Juan O'Brien, uno de los personajes irlandeses m s relevantes para la historia de las independencias sudamericanas. O'Brien, oriundo de Baltinglass, Irlanda, arrib a Buenos Aires a principios del siglo XIX atra do por el floreciente comercio textil entre ambos continentes. Al poco tiempo se vio envuelto en las batallas contra el dominio espa ol, siendo parte de los ej rcitos libertadores de la regi n. Particip en las independencias de Argentina, Chile, Per y Uruguay, relacion ndose con los generales m s famosos de ese per odo: Jos de San Mart n y Sim n Bol var. Vivi en Chile y otros pa ses de la regi n, fue un gran promotor de la emigraci n irlandesa a Argentina y protagonista de las m s diversas an cdotas