The Irish and South America

or a number of years, many Irish volunteers so discharged elected to serve the newly emerging states in South America, such as in the armies of Simon Bolivar in the fight for the freedom of Colombia. Of the thousands who setout for South America, only hundreds arrived, as shipwreck and disease took a heavy toll. Of the hundreds, many were trained seamen, officers and other ranks, who had volunteered for -- or had been press-ganged into -- the British Navy. Long before the first arrivistes came to join in the South American wars of freedom from centuries of Spanish oppression, there were famous