Was it a last laugh or a cruel cynicism of the times? General Mariano Montillo got in touch with the British Colonial government in Jamaica and sold 300 mutineers into the virtual slavery of the British Army. The deal was cast on June 4, 1820, and General Montillo, himself, pocketed the proceeds!
Back in Dublin Daniel O'Connell, the Irish lawyer and fervent orator on behalf of Irish Independence from Britain, wrote to Bolivar in 1820 that he saw Bolivar's war with Spain as paralleling the Ireland's own struggle with England. He roused moral and financial support for Bolivar and sent his 15 years old son, Morgan, to fight for South America's liberation and Bolivar's grand vision for the continent. Captain Morgan O'Connell arrived in Venezuela on June 12, 1820 and became the Irish Legion's youngest officer.
Morgan O'Connell reached Margarita just eight days after the Irish mutineers had been packed off to Jamaica. Bolivar didn't mention the fact to his good friend's son but afforded him all the privileges of his rank and at each successive reception to welcome the new arrival, toasts were raised to "Daniel O'Connell, the most enlightened man in Europe". Morgan soon found that he was being "kept out of harm's way" out of respect for his father and, after a year bored with partying, he left South America intending to return home.
O'Connell quickly found "adventure" on the return voyage : he survived tropical fever and was shipwrecked twice. He ended up stranded in Cuba and was rescued by an Irish schooner captain, who turned out to be a long-lost Irish cousin, although several times removed.
After his new-found cousin was killed during a fight with his boatswain, Morgan switched ships to a Danish vessel under the command of an Irishman from Cork. He finally got back to Ireland aboard a British warship in January 1822. O'Connell's return to Ireland marked the end of the Irish Legion as an independent unit of Bolivar's Liberation Armies.
Irish soldiers, however, went on to distinguish themselves in The Liberator's service : Colonel Francis Burdett O'Connor's Irish Lancers, reformed after the mutiny at Riocacha and the sale of the mutineers to Jamaica, were finally given horses and rode to successfully beseige the ports of Cartagena and Santa Marta, leaving 690 Spanish royalists dead. O'Connor personally accepted the surrender of the city. He went south with his surviving Lancers to fight the Peruvian campaign with General Antonio Jos� de Sucre. As the latter's Chief of Staff, he set the military strategy for the decisive Battle of Ayacucho.
By 1824, the Irish Lancers had been so decimated by death and disease that there was only one survivor, a trumpet-boy called Patrick, who was stricken with a fever in Recuay in Peru and died there on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. O'Connor went on with Sucre to liberate Upper Peru and help establish Bolivia as a new and separate nation. He was promoted to General, became a Bolivian citizen and living out his life as a farmer with a Bolivian wife and family.
Just three years previously, 1821, had seen the decisive battle on the plains of Carabobo where many Irish lives were slaughtered for Venezuela's liberation. The misnomered "British" Batallion took the initiative to rout the royalists (who had pinned down Bolivar's cavalry), themselves with tremendously bloody losses.
In supreme sacrifice for Venezuela, the Legion lost all of its officers before, led by an Irish Sergeant Farrier, they could enter Carabobo with the patriot forces. Honoring the dead and wounded, Simon Bolivar re-named the Legion "The Carabobo Batallion" and conceded the exclusive and perpetual privilege to parade with mounted bayonets.
That is what Venezuelans are celebrating today...
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
Back in Dublin Daniel O'Connell, the Irish lawyer and fervent orator on behalf of Irish Independence from Britain, wrote to Bolivar in 1820 that he saw Bolivar's war with Spain as paralleling the Ireland's own struggle with England. He roused moral and financial support for Bolivar and sent his 15 years old son, Morgan, to fight for South America's liberation and Bolivar's grand vision for the continent. Captain Morgan O'Connell arrived in Venezuela on June 12, 1820 and became the Irish Legion's youngest officer.
Morgan O'Connell reached Margarita just eight days after the Irish mutineers had been packed off to Jamaica. Bolivar didn't mention the fact to his good friend's son but afforded him all the privileges of his rank and at each successive reception to welcome the new arrival, toasts were raised to "Daniel O'Connell, the most enlightened man in Europe". Morgan soon found that he was being "kept out of harm's way" out of respect for his father and, after a year bored with partying, he left South America intending to return home.
O'Connell quickly found "adventure" on the return voyage : he survived tropical fever and was shipwrecked twice. He ended up stranded in Cuba and was rescued by an Irish schooner captain, who turned out to be a long-lost Irish cousin, although several times removed.
Irish soldiers, however, went on to distinguish themselves in The Liberator's service : Colonel Francis Burdett O'Connor's Irish Lancers, reformed after the mutiny at Riocacha and the sale of the mutineers to Jamaica, were finally given horses and rode to successfully beseige the ports of Cartagena and Santa Marta, leaving 690 Spanish royalists dead. O'Connor personally accepted the surrender of the city. He went south with his surviving Lancers to fight the Peruvian campaign with General Antonio Jos� de Sucre. As the latter's Chief of Staff, he set the military strategy for the decisive Battle of Ayacucho.
By 1824, the Irish Lancers had been so decimated by death and disease that there was only one survivor, a trumpet-boy called Patrick, who was stricken with a fever in Recuay in Peru and died there on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. O'Connor went on with Sucre to liberate Upper Peru and help establish Bolivia as a new and separate nation. He was promoted to General, became a Bolivian citizen and living out his life as a farmer with a Bolivian wife and family.
Just three years previously, 1821, had seen the decisive battle on the plains of Carabobo where many Irish lives were slaughtered for Venezuela's liberation. The misnomered "British" Batallion took the initiative to rout the royalists (who had pinned down Bolivar's cavalry), themselves with tremendously bloody losses.
In supreme sacrifice for Venezuela, the Legion lost all of its officers before, led by an Irish Sergeant Farrier, they could enter Carabobo with the patriot forces. Honoring the dead and wounded, Simon Bolivar re-named the Legion "The Carabobo Batallion" and conceded the exclusive and perpetual privilege to parade with mounted bayonets.
That is what Venezuelans are celebrating today...
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
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