Argentina: home to a World Cup final football team and the fifth largest Irish diaspora in the world.
Up to one million people in the South American country claim heritage from the Emerald Isle. But many from this branch of the extended family are yet to find their way home.
While an exact number is not recorded by census data, only a few thousand Argentinians are thought to live in Ireland – and many of them did not arrive in search of strengthening historic family ties.
Luciana Parisi, from Córdoba province, came to Ireland 10 years ago with her twin sister. “It’s such a random story,” she says. Her eldest sister came to Dublin for a year to improve her English, prompting the twins to make the same move after she returned to Argentina.
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“And we just never left,” Parisi says. Her eldest sister would later come back to Ireland, this time with their other sister, “and at some stage, my parents just thought ‘Well, if the four of you are all there, we should come as well.’ They sold everything and moved here,” she says.
She watched the World Cup semi-final on Wednesday night – when Argentina beat England 2-1 – in Flannery’s Bar on Camden Street. “I normally watch football at home,” she says, “but this game, I thought it was different – I wanted to be surrounded by Argentinians.
“I think this game meant a lot more to Argentinians than any other game. There was a lot of emotion, it felt culturally heavy. Even though it was just a football match, it meant so much more.”
She is speaking to The Irish Times while making coffee and delivering food in the family’s cafe, Alma, in Dublin 8. Two regulars come in, one orders a traditional Argentinian ‘dulce de leche’ coffee. Politics is quickly dropped for a customer-friendly catch-up.
In a separate Argentinian-owned cafe in Dublin 8, Bakeology, Manuel Gutiérrez Arana similarly alludes to the political tensions present on the pitch. “You know, we have a ‘special’ relationship with England, too,” he says, raising both eyebrows.
After the final whistle, several Argentinian players were seen on the pitch holding a banner that read “Las Malvinas son argentinas” (“The Falkland Islands are Argentinian”). A land dispute over the small archipelago in the South Atlantic sparked a two-month war between Argentina and the UK in 1982, culminating in a combined death toll of nearly 1,000.
“We’re all humans and we need to love each other,” Arana says, “at the same time, whenever we play against Brazil or England, those are games with a special rivalry. It’s impossible not to think about it; you just feel it.”
The feeling of national pride is not limited to football matches – in Bakeology, it seeps into nearly every item on the menu. “It’s all Argentinian,” says owner Benjamín Pugliese. “The only not Argentinian thing is the croissant, but we don’t bake them here.”
Pugliese comes from a small town, San Carlos de Bariloche in the foothills of the Patagonian mountains, and attended “Colegio San Patricio” (St Patrick’s College) for primary and secondary school.
“They talked about Ireland a lot in school,” he says, “the history, the culture. We celebrated St Patrick’s Day with a huge concert every year.”
Does he have any fun facts or interesting anecdotes off the top of his head? “No, I don’t remember. God, that was over 20 years ago,” he laughs.
Argentina will take on Spain in the World Cup final this Sunday, and the few proud Argentinians in Dublin hope “the luck of the Irish” will carry them to victory.
