Many of the _partidos_ or districts of the various provinces of
Argentina may be compared to Irish counties, the railway stations
being called after the owners of the land on which they are situated.
Among the earliest families settled in Argentina in the farming
industries, we find Duggans, Torneys, Harringtons, O'Briens,
Dowlings, Gaynors, Murphys, Moores, Dillons, O'Rorkes, Kennys, Raths,
Caseys, Norrises, O'Farrells, Brownes, Hams, Duffys, Ballestys,
Gahans, and Garaghans. Dr. Santiago O'Farrell, son of one of the
earliest Irish pioneers, holds a foremost position among the
distinguished lawyers of the present day. An Irish engineer, Mr. John
Coghlan, gave Buenos Ayres its first waterworks. The British hospital
has at present for its leading surgeon a distinguished Irishman, Dr.
Luke O'Connor. A son of Peter Sheridan, educated in England, has left
the finest landscapes of South America by any artist born in America.
He died at Buenos Ayres in his 27th year, 1861. Among the public men
of Irish descent, fifty years ago, in Buenos Ayres, are to be
mentioned the distinguished lawyer and politician, Dalmacio Velez
Sarsfield, and John Dillon, commissioner of immigration. Dillon was
the first to start a brewery in Buenos Ayres, for which purpose he
brought out workmen and machinery from Europe. All of his sons
occupied distinguished positions. Richard O'Shee, president of the
Chamber of Commerce in Buenos Ayres, was born at Seville of an old
Irish family banished by William III. Among the many valuable
citizens of Buenos Ayres who perished during the cholera of 1868 was
Dr. Leslie, a native of Cavan, whose benevolence to the poor was
unceasing. Henry O'Gorman, for some years chief of police in Buenos
Ayres and afterwards governor of the penitentiary, was descended from
an Irish family which went to Buenos Ayres in the eighteenth century.
His brother, Canon O'Gorman, was one of the dignitaries of the
archdiocese, and director of the boys' reformatory. General Donovan,
son of an Irish Dr. Donovan of Buenos Ayres, had command of one of
the sections of the new Indian frontier.
The first Irish chaplain was Father Burke, a venerable friar
mentioned by Mr. Love in 1820 as over 70 years of age and much
esteemed. When Rivadavia suppressed the Orders in 1822, he allowed
Father Burke to remain in the convent of Santo Domingo. After his
death the Irish residents, in 1828, petitioned Archbishop Murray of
Dublin for a chaplain. Accordingly the Rev. Patrick Moran was
selected, and he arrived in Buenos Ayres in 1829. He died in the
following year, and was succeeded by the Rev. Patrick O'Gorman from
Dublin, who continued as chaplain during 16 years till his death in
1847.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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