The number and wealth of the Irish estancieros, or sheep-farmers, in Argentina have never been exactly ascertained, but after the old Spanish families they are the most important.  It would be impossible to give all the Irish names to be met with.  Some of them own immense tracts of land.  Men whose fathers arrived in Argentina without a shilling are today worth millions.  Their estancia houses display all the comforts of an American or English home; their hospitality is proverbial; and most of them have built on their land fine schools and beautiful little chapels, in which the nearest Irish priest officiates.

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.