HOW THE CELTS CHASED THE LIFE OF O’REILLY IN CADIZ
YOU’LL sometimes overhear English-speaking tourists at the Alhambra in Granada discussing the signpost to Generalife. They’re puzzled how an insurance company has managed to blag itself an office in the middle of one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.
I was particularly interested on one occasion to witness two Americans discover that Generalife — pronounced ‘henneral-eeffy’ — is derived from the Arabic ‘Janna alArif’, the Gardens of the Architect, and nothing to do with third party, fire and theft. Pleased, because I had been similarly mystified, but not brazen enough to ask. You can thus imagine my caution, when, as I strolled through the ancient cobbled lanes of Cadiz, a few hundred kilometres to the west of Granada, I spotted a street with the name ‘O’Reilly’.
But this time there was no need for correction.
It seems that the Irish of Cadiz arrived some 300 years ago, on business. In 1717, a trade monopoly between Spain and its huge New World empire was granted to Cadiz — consequently the port became a magnet for merchant adventurers. The opportunity was not lost on the Irish. Those who emigrated were Catholics, mainly from the south-east. Back home, they were barred from business by the Penal Laws; but dynamic, Catholic Cadiz posed no such restrictions.
These new Cadiz citizens formed a tight community, and O’Reillys, O’Donnells, Hennesseys and Crowleys flourished, and played a vital part in Atlantic trade.
Historian Felipe FernándezArmesto of Oxford University said: ‘Until recently the activities of these Irish merchants were almost unknown to scholarship, yet their place in the commerce of the day was primordial in importance... and their enterprises touched almost every inhabitant of the Atlantic shore from New England to Brazil and from Waterford to Guinea.’
Sadly, these Irish merchants have all but been forgotten by history.
So, what better way to celebrate them than to sit in the old square of Cadiz, glass of sherry in hand, and watch the sun set over the Atlantic. Raise your glass to these Irish exiles who would have watched the same sun sinking below the horizon, knowing that it would soon be setting thousands of kilometres away — over an Ireland they knew they were unlikely ever to see again.