Almost 40 years after its first visit to Ireland the Argentinian navy's tall ship Fragata Libertad is to pay tribute to an Irish-Argentinian hero when it sails into Rossaveal, Co Galway, today.
The 94m ship was due off Connemara last night and is on a nine-day visit to Ireland to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of the Argentinian navy's founder, Admiral William Brown.
The highlight of the visit will be its participation in a national military ceremony on Dublin's Liffey banks next Friday, attended by the Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea and Admiral Jorge Omar Godoy, commander-in-chief of the Argentinian navy.
Coincidentally, Admiral Godoy was a 22-year-old midshipman when he sailed to Ireland on the Libertad 39 years ago and took the ship back into Killala Bay on another trip to Ireland in August, 1998. The three-masted vessel, with a crew of 300, will be escorted into Galway early tomorrow by the Naval Service patrol ship LE Róisín. It will be open to the public throughout the weekend at Galway docks, while concurrent festivities in Admiral Brown's honour take place in Mayo.
The full programme includes the world premiere tomorrow of Wandering Rocks, a homage to Brown composed by Sebastian Catanga and performed in Castlebar by artists from Argentina, Ireland, Mexico and Spain. On Sunday a new Admiral Brown museum will be opened in Foxford, Co Mayo, by the chairman of Foxford Resources, Peter Brown, and the admiral's descendant, Guillermo Brown. The Argentinian navy will also take on the might of Straide and Foxford United in a soccer match.
The ship is due in Dublin next Thursday, and there will be a wreath laying ceremony on Friday. It will be open to the public in Dublin from Thursday to June 26th.
William Brown was born in Foxford, Co Mayo, on June 22nd, 1777, and emigrated with his father to America at the age of 10. After his father's sudden death, young William was forced to take to the streets to beg.
He was enlisted on the crew of a US navy ship and was pressed into service in the British navy at the age of 19. His life at sea took him to Argentina where, as his biographer Dr John de Courcy Ireland, has said, he was "drawn into the maelstrom of Latin American politics in the dying days of the Spanish empire". He earned the title of liberator of the south Atlantic for his feats on the river Plate, and led a rebel fleet against the Spanish royal navy in March 1814. Brown didn't forget Mayo and returned during the Great Famine to give money for relief and to support Daniel O'Connell's campaign against the union with Britain.
After his death in 1857, over 1,100 streets, 420 schools, 320 plazas and two cities were named after him in Argentina.