Sir, - I have been following the correspondence on Alexander O'Reilly, the Irishman in the service of Spain, with great interest.
Although he is known in New Orleans, where he arrived in 1769 to quell a revolt against the then governor, Antonio de Ulloa, following the Spanish annexation of Louisiana, as "Bloody O'Reilly", many of his policies as governor of Louisiana were decidedly liberal for the times. Although he did little to change the conditions of negro slavery, he ordered immediate freedom of all Indian slaves without compensation to their owners - a measure that could not have endeared him to the plantation owners - and appointed a freed mulatto called Pedro Simon to command a coloured militia.
A favourite with Charles III since he had saved the emperor's life, his rise in Spain was swift. In 1772 he was created Count O'Reilly and later marquess. He married a high-born Spaniard, Rosa de las Casas, and was himself related to the Plunkett family. He died after a long and distinguished military career in the service of Spain in Bonete, on the road to Alicante, on the 23 arch, 1794. He is buried in the cemetery in Bonete.
More interesting to me than his military career is the fact that he was a friend of another Irishman, Dr Michael O'Gorman, born in Ennis in 1736. They met in Paris where O'Gorman was studying medicine. It was certainly due to his friendship with O'Reilly that O'Gorman went to Spain where, under O'Reilly's command, he was in charge of military hospitals in Galicia. Again due to O'Reilly's influence, Michael O'Gorman accompanied a Spanish expedition to Argentina (then called La Plata) where he was appointed first and only protomedico by the Spanish viceroy. He established the first medical school in Buenos Aires and also in Montevideo (then part of the viceroyalty of La Plata). Some of his correspondence with Alexander O'Reilly is in the archives of the Faculty of Medicine in Buenos Aires.
Michael O'Gorman (who, incidentally dropped the O' of his name in Spain and is known in Argentina as Gorman) was an ancestor of Camila O'Gorman, who was executed by the dictator Rosas for her love for a priest with whom she ran away. He himself died before Camila was born and is buried in the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires. - Yours, etc.,
Susan Wilkinson, Summerhill Gardens, Toronto, Canada.