in Monterrey and Cerro Gordo, we fought on as Ireland's sons

March 17, 2018 2:18 PM

In the US and Canada, St. Patrick's is often remembered as a day of drinking and celebrating the achievements of the Irish diaspora in their new homelands. In Mexico, however, the holiday remembers another aspect of the Irish-American diaspora: the two hundred men of the St. Patrick's battalion, who deserted the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War to fight on behalf of the invaded state of Mexico. Anti-Catholic sentiment within the US Army may have played a role, as did Irish identification with the plight of the Mexican people. While Mexico ultimately lost that war and had to cede large swathes of territory to the increasingly expansionist United States, the men of the St. Patrick's Battalion are remembered fondly for their great effort and sacrifice.

Title borrowed from David Rovic's Saint Patrick's Battalion, which was the piece that let me know about this small piece of the history of the Irish diaspora. Previously on another bit of generosity in the annals of Irish and American history.

posted by sciatrix (9 comments total)

Ry Cooder and The Chieftains devoted a record to this story.
posted by nicolin at 2:32 PM on March 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

It’s Monterrey (two rs) :-)
posted by Omon Ra at 2:54 PM on March 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm not even Irish and I know most of the words to this song. I once knew all of them. Such a powerful story.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:02 PM on March 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Fixed spelling
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:59 PM on March 17, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, it's the Mexican-American War. The Spanish-American War was fought in 1898.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:12 PM on March 17, 2018 [5 favorites]

(also previously)
posted by mwhybark at 4:57 PM on March 17, 2018

One Man's Hero is a dramatization of the true story of John Riley and the Saint Patrick's Battalion, a group of Irish Catholic immigrants who desert from the mostly Protestant U.S. Army to the mostly Catholic Mexican side during the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848.
posted by bjgeiger at 7:02 PM on March 17, 2018

Forget the serpents, St. Patrick was a Scottish slave brought to Ireland, escaped, went back home, became a monk, then a priest, then a bishop, and flat out abandoned his bishopric to go back to Ireland despite the Pope telling him not to. It turned out that there were super-chill Christians already there to pave the way.

The result was a peaceful conversion of Ireland. Serious. No-one was tortured or killed, the pagan lords rather liked the idea of Jesus, to the point where Ireland was thirsty for martyrs. Since nobody was about to kill them for being Christian, they set about trying to kill themselves, the Green Martyrs! Hermits in the woods! Eschewing all human contact to pray for their countrymen! Away from all succor, surely they will perish, and... they were brought alms. OK, I'll hop in a sealskin boat and row west! Aaaaaand, I made it back, wrote a book, Christopher Columbus read it. Then they set about copying every codex they could get their hands on as their martyrdom, and this was martyrdom a proper monk in Christendom could get behind!

St. Patrick is an important Saint because he popularized Christianity in Ireland with peace, and Ireland is a major source of written history because of their unique take on martyrdom that resonated around Europe.

Note bene - some have recently tried to redefine Green Martrydom as heretical Prosperity Gospel bullshit. The opposite is true, from the 7th CE Celtic Texts: "Green martyrdom consists in this, that by means of fasting and labour he frees himself from his evil desires, or suffers toil in penance and repentance."
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:37 PM on March 17, 2018 [11 favorites]

Thanks for this post.

In the San Jacinto Plaza, in the San Ángel neighbourhood of Mexico City, there’s a bust of Riley, and there’s a plaque on the wall of the building opposite, listing the dead of the San Patricios. I noticed the plaque by accident one day (there’s a nice art market held at the plaza every Saturday and plenty of good restaurants nearby) - I’d always been curious about the history, and how many names were listed. It had never occured to me that many were executed by US forces at that precise spot.

You can see images of the bust and plaque here, and a closeup of the plaque here. The plaque reads “En memoria de los soldados irlandeses del Heroico Batallón de San Patricio, mártires que dieron su vida por la causa de México durante la injusta invasión norteamericana de 1847” (“In memory of the Irish soldiers of the Heroic Battalion of Saint Patrick, martyrs who gave their lives for the Mexican cause during the unjust North American invasion of 1847”).
posted by chappell, ambrose at 3:59 AM on March 19, 2018 [3 favorites]