The O'Higgins of Chile
In certain parts of Spanish America today O’Higgins is a name still remembered and honoured to an extent that would surprise the great majority of Irishmen who have never heard of the once famous Viceroy of Peru or of his son, the founder of Chilean independence.
For a century and a half, before the main stream of Irish emigration was absorbed by the expanding economy of the United States, Spain was the country that offered the fairest prospects for able and ambitious Irishmen, some of whom rose to occupy the highest posts in the army, commerce, and even political life.
The reigns of Charles III and IV saw an Irishman, Richard Wall, Foreign Minister, and his compatriots, such as O’Reilly, at the head of the army; but no career was more remarkable than that of Ambrose Higgins, who was born in Ireland around 1720 and died eighty years later in the vice regal palace of Lima as don Ambrosio O’Higgins, Baron Vallenar and Marques de Osorno.
Nothing is known with certainty of O’Higgins’ origins. He himself claimed descent from Shean Duff O’Higgins “styled Baron Ballinary in the county of Sligo and Kingdom of Ireland, descended from the Ancient and Illustrious House of O’Neil.”
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