Westmeath council to mark centenary of Ginnell’s mission to Argentina

Westmeath County Council has teamed up with organisations and public bodies in Ireland and Argentina to mark the 100th anniversary of Laurence Ginnell’s appointment as the Dáil’s envoy in Buenos Aires with an online event.

On Thursday next, August 5 (9pm Irish time), the Asociación de Estudios Irlandeses del Sur (AEIS) and the Cátedra Extracurricular de Estudios Irlandeses de la Universidad del Salvador, Argentina will host the event on Zoom, in association with Westmeath County Council, the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, the Department’s Mná100 project, and the Embassy of Ireland to Argentina.

Ginnell and his wife, Alice (née King), arrived in Argentina on July 25, 1921 aboard the SS Martha Washington, and until the following April, 1922, worked to raise funds and generate publicity for the embryonic Irish government.

Delvin native Ginnell (1852-1923) was appointed by Éamon de Valera as envoy to all the peoples of South America, but with a particular focus on Argentina and its large Irish diaspora (many of whom could trace their roots to Westmeath and Longford).

With Ginnell’s experience in factional politics dovetailing with Alice’s ‘first-class’ knowledge of Spanish, the husband and wife team complemented each other well in carrying out the Dáil’s work. Ultimately, however, their mission ran aground with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921, not to mention Ginnell’s declining health.

Over the course of next Thursday’s online event, various historians will discuss Ginnell’s life and work, and will consider the detail of his mission to Argentina, including the delicate relationship with the then government of Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen in Buenos Aires.

There will be a contribution on the role of his wife, Alice (1882-1967) – a native of Kilbride, Mullingar – and of Anita Bulfin, daughter of the journalist and Offaly writer William Bulfin, former editor and proprietor of the Irish-Argentine newspaper, The Southern Cross.

Meanwhile, two Argentine historians will set out the political context of the time in Buenos Aires, including the complex political and economic relationship between Argentina and the British Empire.

The speakers will be introduced on Thursday night by Jackie O’Halloran-Bernstein, Ireland’s current Ambassador to Argentina.

The first speaker will be Dr Paul Hughes, Decade of Centenaries Historian in Residence with Westmeath County Council. Dr Hughes, who is writing a biography on Ginnell, holds a PhD in History from Queen’s, University, Belfast. He will present a summary of Ginnell’s career in the context of Ireland’s global revolution.

Dermot Keogh, Emeritus Professor of History at University College, Cork, will address Ginnell’s mission to Argentina. Professor Keogh is the author of the 2016 book, Irish Independence: the connection with Argentina, and is currently writing a comprehensive account of relations between Ireland and Argentina in the twentieth century.

Professor Keogh will be followed by historian Dr Ann Marie O’Brien, author of 'The Ideal Diplomat? Women and Irish Foreign Affairs, 1946-90' and researcher at the Irish Diplomatic Oral History Project, who will focus on the contribution of Alice Ginnell and Anita Bulfin. Dr O’Brien holds a PhD from the University of Limerick.

Also speaking about the contemporary political and economic context in Argentina will be Roberto Elissalde, a member of the AEIS Council, and Diego Barovero, President of the Yrigoyen National Institute. The event will be moderated by Justin Harman, President of the AEIS.

“Westmeath County Council, and I, at the conclusion of my term as Historian as Residence, are excited to join in this commemoration of an important event in the shared history of Westmeath and Argentina,” Dr Hughes said.

“The establishment of a formal Irish diplomatic presence in Buenos Aires during the revolutionary period was the beginning of a long friendship between the two countries, and people with roots in Westmeath and the Midlands have always been at the heart of that friendship.”

Registration for the event, which will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube, can be accessed at https://bit.ly/CicloIrlandeses