Irish Brazilian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Irish Brazilian Irish Brasileiro |
|---|
| Total population |
|
125,000[citation needed] |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Brazil:
Mainly Southern and Southeastern Brazil |
| Languages |
| Irish, English, Portuguese |
| Religion |
| Catholic |
| Related ethnic groups |
| Other White Brazilian, Irish people |
Irish Brazilian (Portuguese: Irish Brasileiro or Hiberno-brasileiro) is a Brazilian person of full, partial, or predominantly Irish ancestry, or a Irish-born person residing in Brazil.
[edit] History
The first Irish settler in Brazil was a missionary, Thomas Field S.J. (1547-1626), born in Limerick, who entered the Jesuit Order in Rome in 1574. Fr. Field arrived in Brazil in late 1577 and spent three years in Piratininga (present-day São Paulo). He then moved to Paraguay in the company of two other Jesuits, and over the next ten years they established missions among the Guaraní people. Thomas Field, who died in Asunción, is credited with being the first priest to celebrate the Roman Catholic rites in the Americas.
Around 1612 the Irish brothers Philip and James Purcell established a colony in Tauregue, at the mouth of the Amazon river, where English, Dutch, and French settlements were also established. Huge profits were made by the colonists from trading in tobacco, dyes, and hardwoods. A second group arrived in 1620 led by Bernardo O'Brien of County Clare. They built a wood and earthen fort on the north bank of the Amazon and named the place Coconut Grove. O'Brien learned the dialect of the Arruan people, and his colleagues became expert navigators of the maze of tributaries, canals and islands that form the mouth of the Amazon. The first recorded Saint Patrick's Day celebration was on 17 March 1770 at a church built in honour of the saint by Lancelot Belfort (1708-1775). The church was located on his estate, known as Kilrue, beside the Itapecurú River in the state of Maranhão in northern Brazil.[1]
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