Thursday, February 13, 2014

La Recoleta Cemetery

When I was a boy growing up in Ireland, our local town (Foxford, Co. Mayo)  had a bust of this rather imposing man  near the school. He was known to us as Admiral William Brown (aka Guillermo Brown) this strange man who went off to Argentina to found the Argentine Navy.  The Town Hall was also named after him. That was all we knew. It turns out that he is one of Argentina's national heroes. Creator and first admiral of the country's maritime forces, he is commonly known as the "father of the Argentine Navy".  He was instrumental in winning the Argentine War of Independence against Spain.  He subsequently fought and won the wars with Brazil and Uruguay. He is interred here at Recoleta Cemetery.


William (Guillermo) Brown
1777 - 1857

Ok. It says here he was born in Ireland, he was English in origin and Argentinian in service.  That looks wrong to me!  He emigrated to America and was press-ganged from an American ship to serve the British Crown in the Napoleonic Wars.  So yes, since England ( it wasn't the United Kingdom yet) owned American colonies and Ireland back then.....it's an easy mistake to call him English!   How very dare they!
N


EVITA

The beloved Evita (Eva Perón) is also interred here. La Recoleta Cemetery is among the ten most beautiful in the world. This short video from the cemetery entrance to her final resting place shows some of the splendor of La Recoleta Cemetary. 

If the quality is poor go to YouTube using this link  YouTube Link







1 comment:

  1. I'm guilty of using British and English interchangeably. It's almost the same thing ;)

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