The Mauritian debt of gratitude to Ireland
Written by Editor Monday, 28 March 2011 14:05
In memory of Michaela McAreavey (born Harte)
“……Here wast thou bay’d, brave hart;
Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand,
Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe. –
O world, thou wast the forest to this hart;
And this, indeed, the heart of thee.”
(William Shakespeare, “Julius Caesar”)
In a sense, Ireland gave us everything (from the British victory which led to the conquest of Isle de France in 1810 and which had weighed so much in the destiny of Mauritians since then to the poetical legacy of Robert-Edward Hart of Irish connection), yet we snatched the life out of her. How ungrateful and how inhuman!
Indeed, Mauritius has been served, in one way or another, by Irish ever since French rule. “Descendants of the ‘Wild Geese’, who had found refuge in France, arrived at Isle de France as early settlers under Governors Denis Denyon (1721-1725), Denis Brousse (1725-1727), Pierre Benoit Dumas (1727-1729, and in much larger numbers under Mahé de La Bourdonnais (1735-1746).” (1)
Governor Sir John Pope Hennessy, deemed to have been instrumental in initiating the first constitutional reforms of the island, in company of Lady Hennessy and son in Mauritius.
The term ‘Wild Geese’ has been coined to designate the Irish emigrants who left Ireland for political reasons in the 17th century and “took refuge in Brittany, Normandy, the Paris region or other regions of France, as well as Spain, Scandinavia, the Low Countries and the Austrian Empire.”(Idem)
What did these Irish-born emigrants come to do in Isle de France under the early French governors? “They came as hired hands such as carpenters, soldiers, sailors, and chaplains.”(Idem)
French Mauritius continued to welcome Irish-born people in the second half of the eighteenth century, the more remarkable among them being fighting troops in the service of France. “Later from the 1750s onwards, Irish Regiments that formed part of the ‘Irish Brigade in the Service of France’ sojourned at Isle de France on their way to India; the Regiments of Lally (17 December 1757-27 January 1758), Clare (April 1771-September 1772) and Walsh (1788-1790) left their mark in the annals of Isle de France.”(Idem)
Indeed, a few of the soldiers serving in the Irish regiments settled on the island for good. Such was the case of officers William de Keating and Thomas O’Gorman in the 1780’s and 1790’s. The musician of the Walsh Regiment, Henry Louis Denys Chelin, together with his wife and son settled on the island in the late 1790’s.
“Henry Louis et son épouse s’installèrent à la rue de l’Hôpital où selon toute probabilité elle ouvrit un café offrant le couvert et une salle de jeux équipée de billard.”(2)
Irish troops instrumental in British 1810 takeover
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Irish played a decisive part in helping the British secure the Mascarenes. “The chief events leading up to the takeover of Rodrigues (1809), the capture of Bourbon (July 1810), the French naval victory at Grand Port (August 1810) and the invasion and fall of Isle de France in December 1810” have all seen “the active participation of Irish soldiers and seamen, generals and officers”. (1)
Indeed, at that time, many Irishmen were recruited to form part of British troops. “A large proportion of the crew of the British frigates was Irishmen. Ireland had only been formally politically united with Britain less than a decade before the battle of Grand Port. Crew members listed came from Dublin, Limerick and Cork but sometimes their origin is simply given as ‘Ireland’.” (3)
Admittedly, the most prominent part was played by Colonel Henry Sheehy Keating, the first to land with the British troops in the north of Mauritius on 29 November 1810, and Commodore Sir Josias Rowley, one of the signatories from the victorious camp of the Act of Capitulation on 3 December 1810.
Both Irishmen were previously implied in the takeover of the other two islands of the Mascarenes, Rodrigues (August 1809) and Bourbon or Réunion (July 1810). One Mauritian historian has argued that the British takeover of the island has been a blessing indeed, insofar as the liberation of the masses and the evolution of the democratic process was concerned.
“If the British had not dislodged the French…and taken over Mauritius in December 1810 – the 66 thousand slaves would not have been liberated in 1835 – and Indian Immigration en masse (450 000 from 1834 to 1923) would not have taken place. As such, Mauritius would not have experienced the evolution of a democratic system of Government.”(4)
Loreto Sisters of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary have been providing a high quality education in Mauritius for more than one and a half century now.
An immense contribution to quality education
Whatever would have been the case, the British administrative era in Mauritius did open the way for numerous “Irish-born professionals, politicians, soldiers, settlers, and members of various religious orders”(1) to serve on the island. There has been “the immense contribution made to education in Mauritius by the I.B.V.M. Congregation (Loretos) from 1845 to the present day.”(Idem)
I.B.V.M. stands for The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary created in the 17th century by Mary Ward in the Yorkshire. However, the credit for the real pioneering effort in the field of quality education for girls goes to an Irish lady Teresa Ball who started the first Loreto House in Dublin.
Mgr Donald Liston, Bishop of Port-Louis (1949-1968), the last of the three Spiritan Bishops, all Irish, who served the island to the eve of the accession to independence.
As a matter of fact, the success obtained in the field of education by the Loreto Sisters is a telling evidence of the success obtained in general by the Irish missionaries in Mauritius. “La preuve la plus éclatante de la réussite des missionnaires irlandais demeure sans conteste la gestion des collèges Lorette ainsi que les écoles primaires dont ils avaient érigé en modèles.”(5)
On the other hand, the case of boys’ education in Mauritius has been served with mush success by the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Fathers of the Holy Ghost (C.S.Sp.).
Of governors and bishops from Ireland and others
It is indeed a honour that the second British governor appointed to rule Mauritius, from 1823 to 1828, was none other than the Irish Sir Lowry Cole, and that, following in his footsteps, “several Irish governors were appointed, among them, in the 1880s, Sir John Pope Hennessy who had a vital role to play in taking Mauritius further along the road towards constitutional and social reforms.”(1)
To him we owe the famous slogan, “Mauritius to the Mauritians!”, and, as such, he can be considered as the real father of the century-long process of the evolution of Mauritius towards autonomy and full independence.
On the other hand, let alone Irish members of the clergy and educators, no less than four Irish bishops, “Mgr Peter O’Neill o.s.b. (Benedictine Order), and three Spiritan Bishops of Port-Louis: Mgr John Baptist T. Murphy (1916-1926); Mgr James Leen (1926-1949) and Mgr Daniel Liston (1949-1968)” have been at the head of the Catholic Church in Mauritius. Their administrations have been a blessing for the island:
“These four Irishmen, out of a total of eleven Bishops to date, had a major impact on the spiritual life and moral values of twentieth-century Mauritius. Significantly, since 1991, a Mauritian-born Bishop, trained in Dublin and a member of the same Congregation of the Holy Ghost, Mgr Maurice Piat C.S.Sp., is at the helm of the Catholic Church, having succeeded the much-revered and greatly-loved Mgr Jean Margéot.”(1)
Just as Mgr Maurice Piat, a large number of “Mauritian-born students…have completed their education in Irish tertiary institutions, notably at the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (R.C.S.I.), University College, Dublin, or other Colleges of the National University of Ireland at Cork or Galway.”(1)
Prominent among them are the Prime Minister, Dr Navin Ramgoolam, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Arvin Boolell, Dr Charles Yip Tong and Dr I. Gaya who all studied in Dublin.
On the cultural, artistic and economic fronts
On the cultural and artistic fronts, apart from gratifying Mauritius with the exquisite works of Irish artists like Frederick Robert Nixon and writers like Charles John Doyle, Ireland has inspired a host of Mauritian writers and novelists as Karl de Souza, Arthur Martial and Lilian Berthelot.
Quite obviously, it is imperative, “in the context of Irish-Mauritian connections”, not to “forget that Robert-Edward Hart (1891-1954) belongs to a family with ancestors from both countries” (Idem) and whom Jean Urruty has described in the Dictionary of Mauritian Biography as “not only the bard of Mauritius, but the poet of the entire Indian Ocean” and “up till now the greatest poet Mauritius has ever produced.”
On the economic front, Mauritius has learnt from Ireland’s economic progress as a nation in the 1980s. Furthermore, “sporting links between Mauritius and Ireland have existed since the foundation of the Mauritius Turf Club in 1812…” when “British and Irish officers and Government officials first participated in races at Mangalkhan and the Champ de Mars for many years.”(Idem)
The law of reciprocity tampered with
Mauritius has, on one or two occasions, shown how much she values her connection with Ireland. Thus, “the contribution of Ireland to the education of Mauritian-born young people was recognized in the 1960s by Mauritius which made a generous donation to the R.C.S.I.”(Idem)
The donation amounted to £ 10,000. Again, in response to a call as far back as 1849, in the wake of the Great Famine, Mauritius made a “donation £ 3 000 to the Irish nation” which “was the largest of all and even surpassed the contributions of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert combined.”(Idem)
Sadly enough, on a fateful 10 January 2011, Mauritius played it foul to Ireland by strangling to death, in hotel room 1025 of the Legends, her 27 year old beauty queen Michaela McAreavey-Harte. A national shame!
DODO
References
(1): Marc Serge Rivière, ‘No Man is an Island’ – The Irish Presence in Isle de France/Mauritius, 2008
(2): Jean Marie Chelin, ‘De Saint-Quentin à l’Isle de France” (inédit)
(3): Marina Carter & Mark S. Hall, Grand Port: Untold Stories, (4): CRIOS, MPG Books Group, U.K., 2010
Indradhanush, A Trilingual Magazine of Mauritius, Special Issue, August 2010.
(5): P.K. Daby, “Les Lorettes au nom des sacrées Irlandaises” in Le Défi-Plus, du 29 novembre au 5 décembre 2008.
Photos: “No Man is and Island” of Professor Marc Serge Rivière, to whom we are indebted.
