COUNTY VIEW: The Galway priest and the Argentine scandal

Inside the main gate of the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires stands the imposing monument marking the burial place of Admiral William Brown, father of the Argentine Navy. Fifty metres further on, another burial stone marks the grave of another Connacht man, Fr Anthony Dominic Fahy, who had arguably as much influence on Argentinian society as his more famous Foxford-born colleague.
Anthony Fahy was born in Loughrea and ordained in Rome in 1831. After a number of early health setbacks, he was offered a post as chaplain to minister to the spiritual needs of the growing Irish community in Argentina, to which he sailed in 1843.
Before long, his work on behalf of his countrymen became all encompassing. He made himself available in every possible capacity – pastor, financial adviser, marriage counsellor, judge, interpreter, employment agent and matchmaker. In that role, he arranged for a large number of marriageable young women from his home parish of Loughrea to emigrate to Argentina.
He also wrote home earnestly urging more Irish people to emigrate to his new country, a land of welcome and opportunity. Above all, he was responsible for a huge change in the cultural and economic fortunes of the new immigrants. He encouraged the poorer labourers who lived and worked in the city of Buenos Aires to consider moving out to the pampas, the vast plains ‘lying idle, eager for hands that were ready to cultivate’. He urged them to save their money, invest in land and raise sheep in the countryside, often accompanying them to the bank to open savings accounts so they could achieve their goals.
Many of today’s prominent Argentine families carry Irish names and can trace their lineage back to Fahy’s far-sighted vision of how his flock could improve themselves.
Fr Fahy also made it his business to cultivate friendships with the leading citizens and ruling elite of Buenos Aires, a policy that led him to becoming embroiled in a high-profile and controversial scandal.
Camille O’Gorman, a young woman of aristocratic and influential parentage, had fallen in love with a young priest, Ladislao Gutierrez, and become pregnant. The two eloped and made their way to Goya, a town in the far north, where they posed as a married couple. The country’s ruler, Juan Manuel de Rosas, a ruthless and brutal dictator – and, as it happened, a close friend of the O’Gorman family – issued a warrant for their arrest.
In Goya, the couple’s cover was betrayed when they were recognised by an Irish priest, Fr Michael Gannon. They were returned to the capital and imprisoned, and Rosas signed an order for them to be executed. There was no trial or no judicial hearing. Rosas consulted his friend, Fr Fahy, who concurred that the sentence was appropriate for ‘a priest who had sullied the church and the wayward girl who had led him astray’.
Earnest pleas to Rosas fell on deaf ears, even from his own daughter, who was a close friend of Camille O’Gorman. The day before her death, the prison chaplain visited her cell to perform an emergency baptism of her unborn baby. On the morning of August 18, 1848, Camille, eight months pregnant, and Gutierrez, were taken to the courtyard, tied to two chairs, blindfolded, and executed by firing squad.
The people of the city were horrified and repulsed by the barbaric act; panic seized the population as to what the brutal tyrant might do next. Rosas’ authority never recovered, and four years later, he fled to England to die in relative poverty.
Fr Fahy, however, somehow escaped the recriminations of his flock. He continued to dedicate himself to the needs of the Catholic community, until his early death in 1871 from the effects of the yellow fever plague.