The death of Pope Francis today: ‘The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds’

Pope Francis died in Rome earlier this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Pope Francis died in Rome early this morning, Easter Monday (21 April 2025), at the age of 88, was from a far country. It would be impossible to add to outpourings of grief and tributes that are being paid to him all day since the news was announced.

There are others I know who have met him and who are saying all the things I would like to say myself. It is a symbol of his commitment to ecumenism that he went out of his way to meet King Charles just a few days ago, even though the king’s state visit to the Vatican had been cancelled due to the Pope’s final illness.

And it is indicative of the appalling tasteless and hectoring approach of the Trump/Vance/Musk regime that JD Vance could bully his way into seeing the Pope virtually on his deathbed a day before Pope Francis died. I can just imagine Vance pontificating to the Pope about he thinks it is to be Catholic, and the Pope gently rebuking him, reminding him of what true Christian values actually are, and about the hope and love that are at the heart of the Easter message.

Pope Francis shares a light moment during a visit to All Saints' Anglican Church in Rome

Pope Francis’s papacy was very different from those of his two predecessors, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. And it would be remiss of me to let this moment pass without saying something about the values that marked his Papacy.

He chose the name Francis after Francis of Assisi and as a reminder to never forget the poor, to protect creation and to seek peace. Throughout this papacy, he was known for his humility, for living simply, for his commitment to social justice and his conservatism on church teachings.

His casual informality was one of his hallmarks. He wore a simple white cassock instead of the red ermine-trimmed cape favoured by previous popes, and wore the same simple iron pectoral cross he wore as Archbishop of Buenos Aires rather than the gold ones that bedecked his predecessors.

Many had feared that the spirit of the reforms and advances made by Pope John XXIII had been reversed by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but since 2013 Pope Francis has put the Catholic Church back on track, and has admitted that he was ‘completely inspired’ by John XXIII.

His papacy was an attempt to move power from the centre of the church to the margins and the marginalised. Perhaps the single greatest achievement of this papacy has been the synodal process he launched in 2021, trying to return the church away from clericalism and urging priests to become ‘shepherds with the smell of the sheep on them’, grounded in their flock.

He chose to live simply and modestly in the Santa Marta guesthouse at the Vatican rather than in the Papal Palace. But all this made him an outsider in the Vatican, a champion of the marginalised, those on the periphery, and the excluded, and he faced determined internal opposition within the Vatican and within the Curia, which he criticised for abuses, clericalism and careerism.

His style was one of ‘the frayed edges’, allowing for and demanding compassion at all times. ‘Who am I to judge?’ he responded when he was asked in 2013 about the church’s attitude to gay people. ‘If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?’

Shortly after his election, he declared: ‘The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars. You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds … And you have to start from the ground up.’

He told victims of a clerical sexual abuse scandal: ‘I ask forgiveness of all those I offended …’

At times, he was messy in his use of language, speaking off-the-cuff and leaving it to his communications staff to clarify later what he meant. But he was never afraid to be wrong, to admit it, and to ask forgiveness, in public.

His encyclical Laudato sí (2015) on care for our common home has made creation and the environment an important agenda item in all theological and ecumenical dialogue.

He had strong views on migration, and one of his first acts as Pope was to visit to the small island of Lampedusa between Italy and Tunisia where thousands of people attempted to enter Europe, many drowning in the Mediterranean during the journey. He condemned global indifference to the plight of migrants and refugees and cast a wreath into the sea in memory of the many people who had drowned trying to reach refuge and safety.

His firm teachings brought him into direct conflict with the Trump regime in Washington and he condemned the forced deportations in a letter to the US Catholic bishops two months ago (February 2025), when he warned that the forceful removal of people purely because of their illegal status deprived them of their inherent dignity and would end badly.

He appeared in his wheelchair yesterday to bless the people gathered in Saint Peter’s Square on Easter Day. He died this morning in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. His appointment of so many cardinals from around the world is going to strongly the election of his successor.

As he would say at the end of his prayers, ‘Good Night and Sleep Well.’

Father John-Paul Sheridan presents a box set of ‘Treasures of Irish Christianity’ to Pope Francis in Rome

Following the Stations of the Cross in Lent 25: Millstreet 8: Jesus meets the Holy Women

Station 8 at Saint John’s Well, Millstreet, Co Cork … Jesus meets the Holy Women (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In my meditations and reflections in Lent this year, I am being guided by the Stations of the Cross from three locations. The idea for this series of morning Lenten meditations comes from reading about Peter Walker’s new exhibition, ‘Imagining the Crucifixion,’ inspired by the Stations of the Cross, which opened in Lichfield Cathedral last month and continues throughout Lent.

Throughout Lent, my meditations each morning are inspired by three sets of Stations of the Cross that I have found either inspiring or unusual. They are the stations in Saint Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, at Saint John’s Well on a mountainside near Millstreet, Co Cork, and in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield.

In my meditations, I am drawing on portions of the Stabat Mater, the 12th century hymn of the Crucifixion (‘At the cross her station keeping’) attributed to the Franciscan poet Jacopone da Todi. Some prayers are traditional, some are from the Book of Common Prayer, and other meditations and prayers are by Canon Frank Logue and the Revd Victoria Logue of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

For these two weeks, I am looking at the 14 Stations of the Cross at Saint John’s Well in a forested area on the slopes of Mushera, outside Millstreet in north Co Cork.

Saint John’s Well is 8 or 9 km south-east of Millstreet, on the slopes of Mushera, on the Aubane side of the mountain, opposite the entrance to Millstreet Country Park and a short distance from the Cork/Kerry border. The Stations date from 1984 and were designed by Liam Cosgrave and Sons, Sculptors, of Blackpool, Cork.

Millstreet 8: Jesus meets the Holy Women

In the eighth station by Liam Cosgrave in Millstreet, we see Jesus carrying his cross on his own, without the assistance of Simon of Cyrene or the pushing and pulling of the soldiers taking him to his death.

But three weeping women meet Jesus on his way along the Via Dolorosa through the streets of Jerusalem. On the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, Station VIII is beside the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Saint Charalampus, where it is marked by a cross and the Greek word NIKA, meaning Victory, carved into the wall.

Three months ago [December 2017], Time magazine named the #MeToo movement, the Silence Breakers and the voices that launched a movement, as ‘Person of the Year.’

Who are the women who bear the suffering of the world and for you offer hope to the world today?

I can think of Rosa Parkes, the Greenham Women in the 20th century, or the suffragettes who secured the vote for women 100 years ago this year.

I think of former President McAleese, who went ahead with her speech in Rome on International Women’s Day on Thursday [8 March 2018], despite Cardinal Kevin Farrell’s efforts to stop her speaking in the Vatican because of her support for the ordination of women. It is not just the Vatican, but all sections and traditions in the Church, that need to sit up and listen to her prophetic words.

I think of the women’s protests across the US in January, worried not just about President Trump’s politics and policies, but the culture of sexism and misogyny that underpins this Trump presidency.

I think of the Women in Black, an anti-war movement around the world, including the women who have held constant silent protests in Cambridge on Saturdays since 2002.

I think of the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, who continue to protest in the Plaza de Maya 40 years after they first protested in Buenos Aires.

Whose voices are you listening to today?

Whose tears do you see being shed for the world today?

From Stabat Mater:

Lord Jesus, crucified, have mercy on us!
For the sins of His own nation
Saw Him hang in desolation
Till His Spirit forth He sent.

Meditation:

Tears. Wailing. Daughters. Mothers. Grief.
Women beat their breasts and mourn openly,
for the Son of Man, but his concern is for them and their children
in the days of woe yet to come.

Prayers:

Son of Man, you told the women of Jerusalem to weep not for you but for themselves and their children. Give us the gift of tears for our own sins, that we may mourn the ways in which we fall short of the glory of God that we may truly repent and return to you. This we pray in the name of Jesus, our crucified Lord, the King of Glory, the King of Peace. Amen.

We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you.
Because by your holy cross You have redeemed the world.

Jesus, as you carry your cross, you see a group of women along the road. As you pass by, you see they are sad. You stop to spend a moment with them, to offer them some encouragement. Although you have been abandoned by your friends and are in pain, you stop and try to help them.

A prayer before walking to the next station:

Holy God,
Holy and mighty Holy immortal one,
Have mercy on us.

Breaking the Silence … whose voices are being heard today, whose tears are being shed for the world?

Tomorrow: Station 9: Jesus falls for the third time.

Yesterday’s reflection

New Che stamp recalls school days, bedsits and songs from Greece

The new €1 stamp issued by An Post … memories of Gormanston, Greece and bedsit parties

Patrick Comerford

An Post, the Irish postal service, has issued a €1 stamp featuring the face of Che Guevara, a leading figure in the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s who was murdered 50 years ago on 9 October 1967.

The stamp’s design is based on the famous image of Che Guevara by the Dublin artist Jim Fitzpatrick – a poster that decorated the many bedsits and flats that hosted late-night and weekend parties I attended in the 1970s.

Despite protests in the US, the stamp is appropriate for An Post – not only because Jim Fitzpatrick’s image is now rated among the world’s top 10 most iconic images, but because Che Guevara came from an immediate Irish background.

The revolutionary who helped Fidel Castro overthrow the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista was born in Argentina. His father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, was a civil engineer of Irish descent and once said: ‘In my son’s veins flowed the blood of Irish rebels.’

Che Guevera was murdered 50 years ago this month in an ambush in Bolivia. Jim Fitzpatrick later produced his iconic image that became one of the most famous images of the 1960s.

Jim Fitzpatrick is best known for his elaborately detailed work inspired by the Celtic tradition. But his most famous single work is his iconic two-tone portrait of Che Guevara created in 1968 and based on a photograph by Alberto Korda.

Jim and I went to the same school, Franciscan College Gormanston, Co Meath, between Drogheda and Balbriggan – although he was many years ahead of me (he is now 73), and our time there did not overlap.

His motivations for producing his poster of Che Guevara were personal and political – he was 16 when he met the revolutionary leader, and he was a left-wing activist by the time he produced his first Che image five years later.

Che Guevara visited Ireland on many occasions, and Jim Fitzpatrick met him on one of those visits to Kilkee, Co Clare, in 1963. Jim was then a teenager in school at Gormanston and was working on a summer job at the Marine Hotel pub in Kilkee, the town where his mother was born.

One morning, Che Guevara walked into the bar with two Cubans and ordered an Irish whiskey. Fitzpatrick immediately recognised him because of his interest in the Cuban revolution.

Knowing about the story of Irish people in Argentina, Jim asked Che about his roots. Che told him that his grandmother was Irish – his great-grandmother Isabel was from Galway and there were other family members from Cork.

Later, Jim was in Germany in 1967 when he first saw the famed photograph of Che Guevarra by Alberto Diaz Gutierrez (known as Alberto Korda) in Stern – it was also published that summer in Paris Match. Korda had taken the photograph, ‘Guerrillero Heroico,’ at a rally in Havana in 1960.

Che Guevara was captured soon after and was murdered in October 1967. Jim Fitzpatrick’s black and red screen-printed poster version was produced soon after and was based on a high-quality photo of Korda’s original photograph.

The poster was a two-colour screen print, with the yellow star on the beret coloured in by hand with a magic marker. The eyes were given a slightly more upward gaze, creating a saintly appearance, and he gave his subject more hair because long hair was then a symbol of rebellion.

In recent days, I have also been listening again to Maria Farantouri’s version of Hasta Siempre, Comandante, or simply Hasta Siempre, a 1965 song by the Cuban composer Carlos Puebla. In the 1960s and the 1970s, this song became one of the many anthems in the resistance to the colonels’ regime in Greece.

The lyrics are a reply to Che Guevara’s farewell letter when he left Cuba to promote revolution in Congo and Bolivia.

The lyrics recount key moments in the Cuban Revolution, and the song, which gained in popularity after Che Guevara’s murder, has been covered by many artists. There are more than 200 versions of this song, which has been covered by many singers. Although Victor Jara never sang this song, many attribute the Carlos Puebla version to him by mistake.

The title is a part of Che Guevara’s well known saying ¡Hasta la victoria siempre! (‘Until victory, always!’).

Maria Farantouri is one of the finest Greek singers of the 20th century, and she celebrates her 70th birthday next month on 28 November.

During the colonels’ regime in 1967-1974, Maria Farantouri recorded protest songs in Europe with Mikis Theodorakis. In 1971, she recorded Songs and Guitar Pieces by Theodorakis with the Australian guitarist John Williams, which included seven poems by Federico García Lorca.

She has recorded songs in Spanish, including ‘Hasta Siempre Comandante Che Guevara,’ Italian, and English (‘Joe Hill’), as well as works by Greek composers.



Aprendimos a quererte
desde la historica altura
donde el sol de tu bravura
le puso cerco a la muerte.

Aqui se queda la clara,
la entrenable transparencia
de tu querida presencia
Comandante Che Guevara.

Tu mano gloriosa y fuerte
sobre la historia dispara
cuando todo Santa Clara
se despierta para verte.

Aqui se queda la clara,
la entrenable transparencia
de tu querida presencia
Comandante Che Guevara.

Vienes quemando la brisa
con soles de primavera
para plantar la bandera
con la luz de tu sonrisa

Aqui se queda la clara,
la entrenable transparencia
de tu querida presencia
Comandante Che Guevara.

Tu amor revolucionario
te conduce a nueva empresa
donde esperan la firmeza
de tu brazo libertario.

Aqui se queda la clara,
la entrenable transparencia
de tu querida presencia
Comandante Che Guevara.

Seguiremos adelante
como junto a ti seguimos,
y con Fidel te decimos:

¡Hasta siempre, Comandante!

Aqui se queda la clara,
la entrenable transparencia
de tu querida presencia
Comandante Che Guevara.

English translation:

We learned to love you
from the historical heights
where the sun of your bravery
laid siege to death

Chorus:

Here lies the clear,
dear transparency
of your beloved presence,
Commander Che Guevara
Your glorious and strong hand
over history it shoots
when all of Santa Clara
awakens to see you.

(Your glorious efforts throughout history resound like a rifle shot awakening Santa Clara.)

[Chorus]

You come burning the breeze
with springtime suns
to plant the flag
with the light of your smile

[Chorus]

Your revolutionary love
leads you to new undertaking
where they are waiting for the firmness
of your liberating arm

[Chorus]

We will carry on
as we followed you then
and with Fidel we say to you:
‘Until forever, Commander!’

I wonder whether I’ll be cheering or crying for Argentina on Sunday

President Michael D Higgins of Ireland and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina shake hands at the Casa Rosada Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires last year … Argentina is home to the fifth largest Irish community in the world.

Patrick Comerford

Argentina faces Germany in Sunday’s World Cup final at the Maracana - the spiritual home of soccer in Brazil, after Brazil brutally eliminated by Germany on Tuesday night.

England made a very early exit from the World Cup, and Greece left a little later, with a little more of its glory intact.

So I suppose on Sunday evening I’ll be hoping for a win for Argentina.

The Irish-Argentine community numbers anywhere from half a million to a million, hich would make Argentina home to the fifth largest Irish community in the world. Many Irish families and their names have been handed down to this day.

Perhaps the most famous Irish person born in Argentina is the singer-songwriter Chris de Burgh, from Bargy Castle, near Tomhaggard, Co Wexford, who was born Christopher John Davison in 1948 in Buenos Aires where his father, Charles Davison, was a diplomat.

Che Guevara was also proud of his Irish ancestry. He was born in Argentina in 1928, a descendant of Patrick Lynch from Galway, who left Ireland and travelled from Bilbao in Spain to Argentina.

Irish emigrants from Wexford, the Midland counties of Westmeath, Longford and Offaly, and many other parts of Ireland arrived in Argentina mainly from 1830 to 1930, with the largest wave arriving in 1850-1870.

However, the first Irish people to arrive in Argentina were the brothers Juan and Tomás (John and Thomas) Farrel in 1536, who were part of Pedro de Mendoza’s expedition. Later, Ana Perichon de O’Gorman (1776-1847), was the renowned lover of the Viceroy of the Spanish colonies, Santiago de Liniers, First Count of Buenos Aires.

In the early 1800s, there was a wave of wars of independence across Spanish America, led by Simon Bolivar, Bernardo O’Higgins, Jose Artigas and Jose de San Martin. Admiral William Brown from Foxford, Co Mayo, played a prominent role in the war of independence in Argentina in 1816, and became the founder of the Argentine navy.

But the real waves of Irish emigration to Argentina begin in the 1820s, and those emigrants came mainly from Co Wexford and three Irish Midlands counties of Offlay, Westmeath and Longford. Most of the Irish emigrants to Argentina came from two areas: 16% were from Co Wexford and 61% were from a Midlands area along the Westmeath-Longford border and in north Offaly.

The Midlands dimension begins with John Thomond O’Brien from Co Wicklow, who also played a prominent role in Argentina’s war of independence. He returned to Ireland and in 1827-1828 tried to recruit Irish emigrants. He met John Mooney of Streamstown, near Ballymore, Co Westmeath, and so began the first great wave of Irish emigration to Argentina from the Midland counties.

John Mooney arrived in Buenos Aires in 1828, with his brother-in-law, Patrick Bookey, who soon became the owner of 900 acres with magnificent gardens and plantations, including two million trees. His model farm now belongs to the University of La Plata.

The Wexford connection with Argentina begins with the Liverpool-based shipping firm of Dickson and Montgomery. Their early representative in Buenos Aires was John Brown from Wexford, and in 1827, he was succeeded by his Wexford-born brother Patrick Brown (1806-1893). The arrival of the Brown brothers in Argentina in the 1820s marks the beginning of the significant wave of emigration from Wexford to Argentina.

A childhood photograph of Gloria Kehoe (1954-1977) … a prize-winning shorty story writer and direct descendant of Margaret Comerford from Co Wexford, she was abducted and murdered under the military regime in Argentina in 1977

The Comerford family name continued to be used for generations in Argentina by the descendants of two sisters, Margaret and Bridget Comerford, who moved from Co Wexford to Argentina in the mid-19th century and married into the Kelly and Sinnot families.

Margaret and Bridget were first cousns of my grandfather, Stephen Edward Comerford. Margaret was born in Co Wexford in 1836 and Bridget Comerford was born in Dublin in 1847. They were the daughters of Robert Comerford of Wexford Town and Bunclody and his wife Rose French.

Margaret Comerford (1836-1921) married James Kelly in the 1850s, Bridget (1847-1913) married James Sinnott in the 1860s, and both families emigrated to Argentina. Their children married into families with typical Co Wexford surnames such as Kehoe, Kavanagh, Redmond, Kelly, Richards, Doyle and Sinnott. The Comerford name continued to be used in these two family names in various combinations by their descendants in Buenos Aires and other parts of Argentina until late in the 20th century.

Luly Kehoe y Kelly and her husband Jack Richards y Doyle in 1939

Their descendants include: Dr Mario Alberto Dolan (1918-2002), who studied medicine with Ernesto Che Guevara and was the founder of the Irish-Argentine Society of New York; the Revd Luis Dolan CP (1921-2000), who worked as a missionary in villages and estancias in Argentina; the folk musician Gustavo Kehoe (b. 1958); and his sister Gloria Kehoe (1954-1977), a prize-winning short-story writer and partner of Adolfo Infante Allende (1940-1977) – Gloria and Adolfo were abducted by a navy death squad in 1977 and were murdered. Gustavo Kehoe has written a poem and a song dedicated to his disappeared sister.

Father Ned Kavanagh, a native of Gorey, Co Wexford, is an example of the many Irish priests and emigrants from Co Wexford who moved to Buenos Aires.

After his ordination in Maynooth in 1826, Kavanagh was a curate in Blackwater, Barntown, The Hook and Ballycanew before moving to Gusserane in 1844, here he spent the Famine years. When he was made bankrupt by the shopkeepers of New Ross, he resigned in November 1850 and emigrated to Buenos Aires, arriving in 1851. He died at Estancia San Francisco Bragada, Buenos Aires, in 1888.

Many of the Irish emigrants to Argentina were attracted by the hope of better living conditions and the possibility of becoming landowners in the Río de la Plata region of Argentina and Uruguay. Others arrived as merchants, teachers, artisans and mercenaries. They settled mainly in Buenos Aires and the coastal provinces.

Irish and Basque emigrants became the mainstay of the sheep trade in Argentina, and helped develop a wool-based economy. English was the household language of the Irish emigrants, and up to the third generation, the Irish rarely married outside the Irish community.

It is difficult to put an exact number on the Irish immigrants. The records are often flimsy and incomplete, and many Irish arrivals declared they were Ingleses because they were British subjects and spoke English. Some estimates suggest the total number of Irish immigrants in the 19th century was anywhere between 10,500 and 50,000. But in the 19th century, one in every two Irish emigrants to Argentina went back to Ireland or re-migrated to England, the US, Australia and other places.

Many Irish organisations and educational institutions were founded in Argentina in 1875-1890, including Newman College, Saint Brendan’s College and Saint Brigid’s College, as well as branches of the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein, and hurling clubs in Buenos Aires and Mercedes.

Edward Mulhall from Dublin and his brother Michael founded the Buenos Aires Standard, the first English-language newspaper in Argentina, serving the Irish, English and Scottish families.

In the 1870s, there was a clear political division among emigrants, with the more prosperous descendnants of the earlier emigrants supporting Home Rule in Ireland, while the new post-Famine arrivals tended to be more nationalist. This led to the foundation of another English language newspaper in 1875, The Southern Cross, with Monsignor Patricio Jose Dillon as its first editor.

The 1880s saw a fresh influx from Ireland, but the “Dresden Affair” in the 1880s marked the end of mass Irish emigration to Argentina. The agents Buckley O’Meara and John Stephen Dillon, brother of the monsignor-editor, were sending 1,774 emigrants to Argentina in the steamer City of Dresden. Many died due to the conditions on board or died immediately after arriving in Buenos Aires. About 700 were takem to Bahía Blanca to establish the Irish colony of Napostá, but this too was a failure within a few months. The vast majority of these immigrants struggled to return to Ireland or moved on to the US.

The “Dresden Affair” became infamous and was denounced in parliament, press and pulpit. Archbishop Croke of Cashel later warned poor Irish people, if “they value their happiness …, never to set foot on the Argentine Republic however tempted to do so.”

However, later in 1889-1929, large numbers of urban labourers, middle-class professionals and merchants from Dublin, Cork and Limerick became emigrants to Argentina. By the 1920s, up to half the Irish emigrants to Argentina were members of the Church of Ireland.

With the decline in the sheep trade in the 1890s, Irish emigration to Argentina declined. Although a trickle of emigration continued, Italy became the primary source of emigration to Argentina in the 20th century. Today, the population of Argentina is 32 million, with 40% of Italian origin.

The descendants of the Irish Diaspora have contributed much to life in Argentina, without ever losing sight of their Irish heritage and ancestry.

Eamon Bulfin, who hoisted the tricolour over the General Post Office in Dublin during the Easter Rising in 1916, born in Buenos Aires in 1892. His father, William Bulfin (1864-1910) from Birr, King’s County (now Co Offaly, emigrated to Argentina at the age of 20 became editor and proprietor of The Southern Cross. He returned to Ireland in 1909 with his wife, Anne (O’Rourke) and their children Eamon and Catalina.

Eamon Bulfin later took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, and hoisted the tricolour on the flag poles of the GPO. He was sentenced to death by a military court martial, but the fact that he was an Argentine citizen, born in Buenos Aires, saved his life. He was deported in 1917 and was jailed jail for leaving Argentine with the intention of “deserting from military service.”

He was released in 1919, and Eamon de Valera appointed him the Irish Consul in Argentina during the War of Independence. In 1922, he returned to Ireland and lived near Birr, Co Offaly, where he died in 1968.

His sister, Catalina (1901-1976), who was born in Buenos Aires in 1901, also returned to Ireland. She married Seán MacBride (1904-1988), the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Minister for External Affairs, founder member of Amnesty International, UN Commissioner for Namibia and President of the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

General Edelmiro Juan Farrell (1887-1980), the grandson of Matthew Farrell, an emigrant from a Co Longford, was the de facto President of Argentina from 1944 to 1946, and he changed the course of Argentina’s history by introducing Juan Perón into his government. This paved the way for the subsequent political career of Perón, who succeeded him as President in 1946, and Farrell makes several appearances in Evita, in which he is portrayed by the British actor Denis Lill.

Eduardo Francisco McLoughlin (1918-1983), the grandson of a Co Wexford migrant, James MacLoughlin of Morristown, who was one of the first settlers in Venado Tuerto. He was Argentina’s Ambassador in London (1966-1970) and Argentina’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. He played a key role in discussions when the British Government was proposing to cede sovereignty of the Malvinas/Falklands to Argentina. The breakdown in those talks ultimately led to the Argentine military occupation of the islands and Margaret Thatcher’s subsequent war in 1982. He died a year later.

More recently, Diana Figueroa, wife of the late Juan Manuel Figueroa, a former Argentinian ambassador to Ireland, was born in Argentina but her parents were from Wexford.

I still keep in touch with some of my distant cousins in Argentina through Facebook. I’ll be hoping for some happy messages on Sunday night and Monday morning.