Irish Mexicans
The Irish community has spread throughout Mexico, becoming one of the foreign communities with deep roots in the country from Mexico’s independence to the present. It is the eighth-largest community of European immigrants to Mexican territory and one of the most significant in the Americas. Throughout their history, Mexico and Ireland have experienced many similar events despite the physical distance between them; because these events have had such a major impact on Mexico, it is often said that there is a real Irish presence on Mexican soil. The arrival of the Irish community dates back to the colonial period with the arrival of settlers such as Hugh O'Connor, as well as the viceroy of New Spain Juan O'Donojú. Later, the colonization policy promoted in 1845 by the government of Antonio López de Santa Anna to repopulate the northern states of the country was one of several triggers that contributed to the Mexican–American War.
The largest Irish community is in Mexico City, and in other states such as Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Veracruz, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Sonora and Guanajuato, where the Irish community in Mexico is notably visible through its civil associations. According to the 2020 census of INEGI, there are 339 Irish citizens residing in Mexico.
History
The Irish arrived in Mexico during the viceroyalty period. In the early 1600s, several Irish people who were shipwrecked on an English ship reached Veracruz, but the Inquisition mistook them for Englishmen and forced them to return to Europe. Many Irish soldiers and bureaucrats served the Spanish Crown in Mexico, such as Hugh O'Connor, originally from Dublin, who was governor of Texas and founded Tucson in what is now Arizona. William Lamport, or Guillén Lombardo, who is known as El Zorro, was expelled from England for being Catholic and, after settling in Spain, had to flee to Mexico, where he was outraged by the poverty of Indigenous people and enslaved people of African origin and fought for them. He was sentenced to death by the Inquisition in 1652.Another example of a person who helped motivate immigration and the growth of the Irish presence in Mexico was James Power, who founded a new Irish settlement under Mexican jurisdiction in the state of Texas. Because of his efforts, laws in Texas particularly favored Irish immigration.
Colonization of Texas and Northern Mexico
Since 1821, Mexico expressed its intention to colonize northwestern Mexico with Irish immigrants mainly in Texas, Coahuila and Nuevo Santander through grants to entrepreneurs, which gave rise to the Irish colonies founded at the end of the same decade in the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas. The organized arrival of Irish people in Mexico had begun in 1825. Added to these antecedents was the approval of the state colonization law in Coahuila and Texas on 24 March 1825, and the signing of 21 contracts for the establishment of settlers in its territory.The federal government had little money to spare for the military, so settlers were authorized to create their own militias to help control hostile native tribes. The border region of Chihuahua with Texas faced frequent raids by Apache and Comanche tribes. Hoping that an influx of settlers could control the attacks, the government liberalized its immigration policies, and settlers from the United States were allowed to enter Mexico.
After some debates, on 24 March 1825, the Congress of the State of Coahuila and Texas authorized a system of land grants to “empresarios”, who would recruit settlers and then bring them to the lands that had been granted. Quickly, officials in Saltillo, capital of Coahuila and Texas, were besieged by foreign land speculators who wanted grants in Texas. Approximately 3,420 land grant applications were submitted by immigrants and naturalized citizens, most of them Irish. Only one of the twenty-four empresarios, Martín De León, colonized his granted lands with citizens from the interior of Mexico; the others came mainly from the United States.
File:Map of Coahuila and Texas in 1833.jpg|thumb|Map of Coahuila and Texas in 1833 showing several of the land grants to Irish immigrants and others.
The government of Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1828 promoted the arrival of Irish settlers to the north of the country. El Refugio and San Patricio were areas of southern Texas and Coahuila colonized by the Irish. Leading this colonization were four Irish businessmen: James Power and James Heweston and John McMullen and James McGloin. These men made contracts to colonize the land with people who were “Irish, Catholic, and of good moral character”. Power and Hewetson were hired by the Mexican government to bring more Irish settlers to colonize the area. Power traveled to his hometown of Ballygarrett and eventually organized about 600 people to emigrate. By the mid-, the large number of Irish Catholic immigrants living in the United States increased anti-Irish sentiment. Because they were victims of prejudice, the Irish sympathized with Mexicans. Later, many of them deviated from their original plans to settle in the United States and crossed into Mexico. During the Texas war in 1835, many Irish settlers supported the Mexican government; many left voluntarily or forcibly to states bordering Texas such as Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Sonora and Durango, where the large number of Irish surnames such as Bay, Byrne, Walsh, Foley, Cuilty, Hayes and O'Leary is explained.
General Colonization Law
The Colonization Law was promulgated on 18 August 1824. It was a Mexican law whose purpose was to attract foreigners to increase the population, transform the country, and improve the economy. To achieve this, it was considered necessary to support the immigration of foreigners by offering certain conveniences such as land ownership to work it, and personal security for them and their property.During the government of Agustín de Iturbide colonization was a priority. He appointed a government commission, headed by Juan Francisco Azcárate y Lezama, to draw up a colonization plan. The commission recommended following the previous Spanish law, allowing foreigners to help colonize Coahuila, Nuevo Santander, Baja California, Alta California, New Mexico, and Texas.
The first states to issue a Colonization Law were Coahuila and Texas on 24 March 1825 in the town of Saltillo. The law consisted of 48 articles in a single volume, and its main objective was to increase the population in its territory, cultivate its fertile lands, raise and multiply livestock, and advance the arts and commerce. The law invited foreigners to become part of the territory of the state of Coahuila and Texas provided that they complied with the federal and state constitutions and submitted to the Catholic religion. Likewise, it set out the rules and methods to follow for their establishment in the new territory. As a consequence of the great scarcity of inhabitants, it stipulated that with 40 settlers a town would be established, while with 200 inhabitants there would be a municipal council. Where that number could not be reached, settlements would be added to other existing ones. Likewise, conditions were ratified regarding the location of each land according to federal law.
The State Colonization Law also proclaimed an exemption from contributions for 10 years, differing from federal law; this led to later conflicts, since when the federal government ordered the reduction of that period it was complicated for the state to modify it, and some confrontations occurred. Once this law was promulgated, the Mexican government ordered it to be made known abroad in order to reach a greater number of foreigners who might be interested in becoming part of Mexico. During this period, many Americans of Irish origin emigrated to Mexico, where land was cheaper; by 1830, Texas, fulfilling the objectives of the law, had a population of 7000 foreign residents and only 3000 Mexican residents.
Despite the enormous influx of settlers from the United States who moved to the state after the colonization laws were approved, most of the inhabitants of Coahuila and Texas were Mexican. In the Texas region, however, approximately 80% of the population were migrants from the United States or Europe, while in the border areas of the state, as in the rest of the Mexican border, there were more mixed marriages between Irish and Mexicans, mainly, than in the interior states. Although both the federal and state constitutions established Catholicism as the official religion, in border areas the rule was often disobeyed; according to the census conducted in Coahuila and Texas in 1828, a count of 66,131 inhabitants was recorded in the area of Coahuila and 4,824 inhabitants in the area of Texas.