The migrant experience through Irish eyes sketches of 19th century Argentina in the narratives of Marion Mulhall, William Bulfin and private letters collected by Edmundo Murray

Resumen

Between 1860 and 1930 about 6,000,000 Europeans arrived in Argentina, half of whom established in our country. The arrival of that massive migration wave took place at a very crucial point in the history of Argentina, since it was undergoing a huge process of national organization after the sanction of the 1853 National Constitution. By then, more than a third of the Argentine population was constituted by immigrants, which included the largest Irish diaspora within Latin America. About 40,000 Irish migrants left Mother Ireland by the late 19th century to establish in the Argentine countryside and main industrial cities associated with farming. Even though at the beginning Irish immigrants formed a rather close knit community with little contact with the locals, both in order to preserve their own culture and separate themselves from criollos and gauchos, they eventually proved to have had a very active social role in Argentina, founding institutions, associations and clubs that still continue today. Some of those Irish migrants that arrived in our country since the mid-nineteenth century were journalists and writers, which allowed them to register their observations of Argentine geographical space, traditions and local manners, from a European perspective and remarking socio-cultural differences and similarities between the diverse migrant communities and the local population. Besides, many Irish immigrants kept a frequent correspondence with their family and friends left in Ireland that has been carefully preserved by their relatives, which constitute a great source of knowledge on the Irish migrant experience. The aim of this paper is to explore representations of 19th century multicultural Argentina from the perspective of Irish migrants. It will be achieved through the analysis of Marion Mulhall’s travel book Between the Amazon and Andes (1881), private letters and memoirs from Edmundo Murray’s 2004 collection of private letters and memoirs Becoming Irlandés - Private Narratives of the Irish Emigration to Argentina (1844-1912) and stories from William Bulfin’s Tales of the Pampas (1997). These narratives offer rich insights of their migrant experience in Argentina and illustrate the initial cultural clash and the slow process of adaptation to the local manners, which evolved into new and richer cultural patterns for both local and foreign subjects.