Ecos Amigos: Irish Ballads on the Argentine Pampa

"The Patagonian Seaboards" 1872

Through the making of The Trackless Wild, a documentary film and album of the same name, this piece follows my own wanderings and wonderings with the Irish in Argentina. The film "The Trackless Wild, Song of A Wandering Tip" was completed in September 2025, the album "The Trackless Wild" was released in 2024.

saludos,

Charlie

GRAVITY & ACTION

Two years ago I arrived in Argentina. The path echoes roads trodden before. These echoes come in music. I’d spent a year and a half ensconced in Mexico through the Covid years, and after that was back in Ireland for a few months that felt like trying to resolve and rejoin what I’d left behind.

I first started singing two old Irish-Argentine ballads more than fifteen years ago. The inexorable gravity that drew me to Argentina must have first rumbled into action back then. It wasn’t the first time I’d followed a song into strange territory, the last time I got that entangled was in Havana; at the first presentation of "A Captain Unafraid.” I introduced that documentary of mine to 400 curious Cubans on the anniversary of Captain “Dynamite” Johnny O’Brien’s death, invoking his ghost with his words: “the summons came and was responded to in the way that distinguishes that which is preordained.” I’d written a song about Johnny many years before, and ended up following his trail across Cuba, Cavan, and New York, drawn inexorably into the narrowing gyre of his story. Life, and so art and music, seems to come from a strange intersection of gravity and action. Summoning in song spirits long gone, past echoes bring future sounds.

At the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, I exhale and sing a bunch of Irish-in-Latin-American songs I’ve found or made here and there, the first concert of a tour across the Pampas. The Pampas are the low South American grasslands that cover large tracts of the continent, synonymous with the provinces of Buenos Aires and La Pampa, where Irish immigrants settled. One Miguel Guarnochea comes up to me after the concert, surprised to hear two forgotten ballads from his hometown of Capilla sung. Miguel promises to share with me the complete digital archives of the 19th century newspaper "El Monitor de

La Campaña" that these songs first appeared in. And there begins two years of peering into the past. Digging out old gems, I find many more old Irish-Argentine songs mixed up among pages and pages of articles on corn, cattle, wheat, guns, death notices and marriage. It was easy to breathe life and sound back into the lyrics. One of the songs ends help me scarce lament the land and home I left behind, telling us it is an Irish-Argentine version of the old Irish ballad "the home I left behind."

Capilla del Señor is a small town 80 kms north of the city of Buenos Aires, where many Irish immigrants settled. “El Monitor,” printed there in 1872/73, is an important archive of the early history of the town. Another one of these ballads begins now two years have past and gone though they like centuries appear. I have been in the country two years as I write these words, closing in on past resonances. Echoes resound calling to remember. The author of five of these songs signed his name "A Wandering Tip." Delving into his words I sing his lost songs out again. Resurrecting these lyrics of old, he time travels to our timeline as I muse and sing my way into the past. One of his songs is called “The Trackless Wild.” Song, in some ways, is like prayer, in that, it often seems no-one is listening, but the declarations and incantations can bring us, draw us towards some unlikely, far flung, often beautiful destinations. Though I'm not one for prayer, I do sing. And it is important to wish, to envisage, to sing, to remember. Whether it was myself or the songs that took me to those wild places I guess I'll never know, a combination of both, I suppose. I've sung “The Trackless Wild” all around the pubs of Kerry, in bars in Tompkins Square, New York, out in Cuba. I've sung the words beautifully, badly, when no-one was listening and when you could hear a pin drop. I've sung drunk, sober, merry and sad. Its no stretch to say that song took me to where I now write these words, a few miles from el Rio de La Plata, where A Wandering Tip wrote...

Hail La Plata though by birth an exile from your shore

Style frame from the animated segments of "The Trackless Wild"

GHOSTS OF SAN TELMO

In my three sojourns in Buenos Aires I have, without meaning to, ended up staying in San Telmo. The oldest neighbourhood in the city has a formidable gravity. I met some fierce characters there, even Irish-Argentines amongst the melee. Veronica, one of the organisers of the Irish Symposium that I was booked to play at, happened to be living around the corner from us on my first stay in the city. What was once an African-Argentine neighbourhood is now thoroughly creolised, it holds the truth of what makes Argentina special-its thorough mix-up of many cultures. San Telmo is where two British invasions were repelled, and the locals poured boiling oil down on the invaders. Like many invasions in colonial times, it served to galvanise the people's sense of self, and from here emerged the nascent Argentine nation. Incidentally, some of the leaders of both the Spanish and British forces had Irish connections. General William Carr Beresford, the illegitimate son of the first marquess of Waterford, commanded the British forces, and the cavalry of the Spanish was commanded by Juan Martín de Pueyrredón y O'Dogan.

In the Centro Cultural Walsh, we saw a darker side to the bustling San Telmo. A previously amicable manager seemed to have taken a turn for the worse on a not known quantity of drugs. I was booked to play, and we had prepped the place a few weeks previously, but by the time the day rolled round the previous organisation, manager and plans had unravelled! Even so, I got to sing, but the atmosphere was charged, let's say. The Centre is named after famed Irish Argentine, Rodolfo Walsh, the founder of investigative journalism in Argentina. Rodolfo’s true and honest vision unfortunately collided with the worst days of the dictatorship and his words were finally silenced by machine gun fire, taking him to the next world. The Cultural Centre was adorned with images of another famous Irish-Argentine, Ché Guevara. The Irishness of both these figures though well attested would not be well known by Argentines, they are at the end of the day really just Argentine.

Though the stereotype of the Irish in Argentina, within the country, is of rich conservative landowners, digging a little deeper you will find people of all castes and creeds that have “Irish blood in their veins,” as Che’s father Ernesto Guevara Lynch once said of his son. In a way, you could say the spirit of the likes of Maria Elena Walsh, Ché Guevara Lynch and Rodolfo Walsh is a reaction to their conservative Irish upbringing. Certainly this is the case with Maria Elena and Rodolfo, they mention it in their writings. Indeed, Rodolfo’s last unpublished novel was to delve into his Irish-Argentine upbringing, unfortunately it disappeared when he died.

Atahualpa Yupanqui, champion of indigenous argentines, communist party member and icon of Argentine folk music, is another figure with an Irish strand to his roots. Even José Hernandez, one of the country's most celebrated writers, had an Irish antecedent. José’s great grandmother was one Rita O’Doghan. There are some families that even until today have married only amongst Irish, but it is very much the exception. That first green strand of Irish migration to the country has long melded into the rich tapestry of the Argentine nation. Irish were some of the first immigrants after the Spanish, and their minor wave reached the shore, ebbed and flowed away, leaving its mark, long before the deluge of Italians that flooded the country at the end of the 19th century.

After 1889, Irish migration to Argentina was uncommon in the country. This was in no small part due to what was politely called “the Dresden affair” where 2000 Irish immigrants in 1889 (having been promised all) were dumped on the pier of Buenos Aires to fend for themselves. This was the single largest group of immigrants to arrive into the city up until that point. Having written a song about The Dresden years before ever setting foot in Argentina, it was a ghostly experience to come upon the streets and names associated with the song, places like Paseo de Julio, Túcuman Street, and Balcarce. They say that the madames of the city's brothels pulled up in splendorous carriages and clothing to where the homeless were sheltered and ran off soon again with some young Irish girls in tow. This started a long tradition of Irish madames in the city, which it seems was a stereotype for a half century afterwards.

A few weeks later, after a concert in the wilds of General Las Heras, we returned late to Balcarce Street. Aidan Connolly, the brave Dublin fiddler, joined me on this recent music tour of the Pampa. After playing to a barn full of loud Irish descendants in the countryside, we wound down at the quiet Bar de Borges back in San Telmo. In an impromptu late night session we exchanged tango and Irish trad. with local musicians who go there to come down after more high octane gigs in the city. As we wound down our winding down, I approached the bar to pay, I thought the owner was offering us free drinks for playing, turns out he just said “moments like these are priceless!”


FOLLOWING PADDY O’ER THE PAMPA

during the last week of filming for "The Trackless Wild"

The next day, getting a taxi to Retiro, the main train station in the city, the car we hailed was driven by a man called Coleman. When I answered the obligatory “Where you from?” with “Ireland.” He broke into a long smile, “My name is Coleman, I’m the only black Irishman in Buenos Aires." "We are compatriots!” he added wryly.

All dotted around the countryside of Buenos Aires are towns with Irish descendants. In Mercedes, you will find the church of St. Patrick, where three Irish born priests still say mass. The school next door has a 

mural to Padre Alfredo Kelly murdered at another St. Patrick’s church in the city of Buenos Aires in the dark days of the dictadura. In the same square as the school is the pub el Irlandés where I, the night before, had met up with an Irish born immigrant, John Kelly. Replete with boina vasca nd hundreds of heads of cattle, John keeps strong the tradition of the Irish Gaucho. Like A Wandering Tip in “The Trackless Wild”, he embraces Argentine traditions while never forgetting his homeland, skin browned by the southern cross’s sun, a sun that, though it burns, will never dull memories of home.

Scenes no southern cross can scorch in memories verdant plains,
Though bronzed may be the tenement where in such fancy reigns.

John runs a farm on the outskirts of the town on land leased from the Palatine religious order. A few weeks before my visit there I was reading about Sarmiento, champion of public education and Argentine president from 1868-74. Unfortunately, Sarmiento was no champion to the Irish, and once proclaimed “the Irish rabble, organised by their priests, are rabid drunkards.” Though I’m not at all religious, what a pleasure to revel in his words-myself and John had a proper Irish session at the pub el Irlandés surrounded by a cartel of priests. One member of the clergy was on banjo, another on bodhrán (the traditional Irish drum), more were watching on, myself and John ensconced between them all. Happily I sang out my Irish-Argentine songs surrounded by priests and pints!

The next day, with an existential hangover, I was brought on a tour of the church by the chaplain. The organ there is one the best in the country and Charly Garcia, the treasured Argentine rock icon, had performed an impromptu concert on it a few years back. The enthusiastic Chaplain next ushered us up to the bell tower, a step too far for my reeling head. I sat on the steps leading up to it, as he shouted with glee “¡viva San Patricio! ¡viva Irlanda!” and then rattled the hell out of the bells for the whole town to hear.

RESOUND BACK, SPRING FORWARD

during the filming of the song "Donovan's Mount"

What do we know of this man who wrote the majority of the songs printed in “El Monitor de la Campaña?” From one of the lyrics “Donovan’s Mount,” we can safely say he was at one time a travelling teacher. A Wandering Tip was one of many Irish who were employed by landlords to instil learning from the old country into the children of the various Irish scattered throughout the Buenos Aires countryside. In Donovan’s Mount our author writes a song in praise of the Donovan family who have recently employed him.


I roved round the camp* till I met with an Irishman
Whose houses and lands give appearance of joy,
I upped and I asked if he wanted a pedagogue
tipped him the wink that I was the boy.

Hip hip horray, hooray for Donavan’s,
For racing and spreeing I’ve found out the fount.

* Camp is a peculiarly Irish-Porteño word. Campo being the Spanish for countryside and Porteño being a native of Buenos Aires.


In another song Tip talks of tending sheep-the original industry of the Irish on the pampa’s plains. The basques and Irish were among the first settlers to colonise the plains surrounding Buenos Aires. Whether Tip was invoking his compatriots in song or was a shepherd himself, I guess we’ll never know.


I am a jolly shepherd boy
 and live upon the plain

Oh! once I was may parents’ joy ‘ere first I crossed the main

And all the comfort I now seek
is in the flowing glass

And stroll to town just once a week to court a Spanish lass.

Songs are a compass on the Trackless Wild, guiding us onwards, keeping us company on this strange dream called the world. In “The Pampa’s My Home” A Wandering Tip compares the vast grasslands of the Pampa to an ocean. What holds him to his course is his song.


Steer my bark, steer my bark o'er the wild pampa main
Oh ye winds be more calm there are shoals on the plain

Alone all alone on a rough rolling foam,
My bark it is launched and the pampa’s my home

On my own two year stay in the country I was mainly ensconced in the far north, in the town of Juan José Castelli next to a national park called el Impenetrable. On the twenty four hour bus journey to get there from Buenos Aires we rushed through Rosario, a town whose rough reputation precedes it. The bus driver stopped the bus before passing through the city warning us “pull across those curtains by your head, unless you want to lose an eye.” “I’m only telling you for your own safety, a friend of mine's eye was saved only because he pulled across one of those curtain.” It seems that in the rougher areas of the city that we were to pass through, kids take to flinging rocks at the buses for sport.

In Castelli I got to know the only Irish-Argentines in the town quite well. Fernando Sheridan is a very well regarded vet and farmer of 76 years of age, his family background is all Irish, except for one of his grandparents who married into the indigenous Qom tribe. The Qom are the original inhabitants of that area and comprise around 30 percent of the population. Fernando’s grandfather was a famine era stowaway who lived in Capilla, the little town that A Wandering Tip called home.

Fernando told us in hushed tones how his grandad was, as Tip’s song goes, “part of that confederation of kings, queens and quakers who indulge in potation.” He’d been told he was a fiercely intelligent lad, not afraid of a fight. These were only stories passed down to him, he didn’t ever get to know him. I was wide eyed with wonder when I heard his grandad and A Wandering Tip lived in the same town 1200km to the South of us. I am certain they must have known each other. Tip being fond of his tipple too. Indeed he may have talked about Fernando’s granda in his song The Bright Morning Dew! Who knows. At any rate, there was a strange resonance in Fernando’s stories.

“Naw boys” says our host as the doctor he spied,
“This room as you all see is lengthwise and wide,
Come then, let us finish this high jubilee
With the game that comes after an Irishman’s spree.”

The words were scarce ended when a bottle flew by,
Struck my hat and made blacker Ned’s rolling dark eye!

Besides Castelli I spent 6 months in Córdoba. The city seemed a bit more stuck in the doldrums of conservatism and recession that the forever bustling and ever changing Buenos Aires. A strange fantasy I found scattered here and there across fancier parts of town was a kind of fetishisation of medieval architecture and music. Think misplaced turrets, faux renaissance fairs and craft beer. Irish traditional music was often lumped into this melee where aspirationalism and capitalism meet the fairies of trouble or fortune. I steered my own bark far from those strange shores. Thinking on it, it must be a type of classism and aspirationalism tying themselves to crooked histories of the old world. Elevating themselves in a lonely tower above the native landscapes. I spotted a whole castle in one part of Villa Allende on the outskirts of the city. Maybe too it is just old human love of fantasy and reshaping the past and molding of new tales. Like I so often do myself! Saying that, I was not going to be seen sipping craft beer or stroking fiddles at frolicking medieval fairs!

Amongst all these Irish-Argentine ballads I’ve also had the company of other songs. Myself and Spanish Literature professor Manuelita Palavecino took to translating the early 19th century ballad “The Land of the Blest” into Spanish. I’ve been singing that tale of an unfortunate voyage to the enchanted island of Hy Brasil throughout my stay in Argentina.

En los mares que esculpen tus tierras de sal,

una isla nació, misteriosa, cuentan.

Un oasis de sol, una isla de paz,

tierra bendita, Hy Brasil, sin mal.

On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell,
A shadowy land has appeared as they tell;
Some thought it a region of sunshine and rest
and they called it Hy Brasil the land of the blest.


Like the mythical island of Irish folklore, visions dissipate and only songs remain as imprints of lost islands and ideals. Songs, the sail me and A Wandering Tip pin to our masts, the force and inexorable wind that drives us forward. As Manuelita translates, I sing...

Ecos amigos velas de hogar y sal
En Ara está la vida y la libertad

Rash dreamer, return! O ye winds of the main,
Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again.

FREEDOM UNADORNED

from the poster for the film "The Trackless Wild"

In the lyrics of The Trackless Wild much of the song is in praise and acknowledgement of the debt he owes his horse. He calls the horse a saino, which for many years I thought was a breed of horse, really it's just a colour. I learned this when I visited Capilla del Señor, the town where these songs were first printed. On the farm of Maria Julia Burgos, as the sun was coming down, I sang to a tired saino words of old.


At e’er as o'er the trackless wild my saino bounds along
My thoughts are of a pleasant land and of a gladsome throng

The horse seemed to enjoy my melody, closing his eyes peacefully letting the sounds go in and through him. Whether I sang for myself, the horse or a Wandering Tip, who knows? Through these incantations of Tip’s words, through his own hopes, our lives though separated by centuries undergo a strange melding. I echo his heartfelt sentiment in song. A strange synthesis of our own personal propaganda and heartfelt expression. What we are drawn to and what draws us to it, the ground we draw our inspiration from and the horse we ride upon. From Santa Rosa to Buenos Aires, and from Chaco to Cordoba I've sung “A Wandering Tip’s” song. Bringing the songs back to the museum where the printing press for “El Monitor de La Campaña” is housed, at a concert in the square outside, I sang for the descendants of those first Irish immigrants. I wondered while I sang if perhaps his great great grandchildren were quietly listening unbeknownst to me in the crowd. Or did it matter, is my act of making this personal pilgrimage praise enough?

Little reck I for them both my good steed and I,
Are sailing o’er the Pampa plain beneath his care on high


On my way to a concert in Santa Rosa, rattling through the pampa on the top of a bus I tumbled verses around in my heart and head. The moon peeks out from the curve of my guitar case and me and A Wandering Tip rumble into a strange new city. Repeating the lines in my head, I incant…

Freedom on her regal seat upon this ocean plain,
and should we e’re from her retreat we’d follow in her train.

I like to imagine what “A Wandering Tip” would have thought of this resurrection of his muse. Of the raising of his flag again, his prayer to let...

Freedom unadorned hold, fast my roving mind
and help me scarce lament the land and home I left behind.

Did he imagine that his song would be woven into the fabric of new life in a new century, reaffirming his wistful and beautiful muse? Is this what freedom is? The prayer that all is connected and that we all go on in an unstoppable throng. Weaving in and out of one another’s influences as sure as gravity attracts heavenly objects and even pummels them into the ground. What grand tapestry is God weaving? We have no idea, only that it has poignancy, beauty and horror, often in equal measure. All these elusive strands weave in and out of one another, their significance cannot be grasped, and threads though common and interlaced, finally disperse and find another form. And still we sing out our future songs that echo on.

The photos in this piece were taken by Ronnie Keegan, without whose help the last week of filming for "The Trackless Wild" wouldn't have been possible. The color illustration was made for the animated segments of the film by Gabriela Bran. 

'Exile & Adventure' album, 'The Trackless Wild' film

 

Yesterday I launched the crowdfunding campaign for my new film and album. After more than a year of trying and failing to acquire funds officially, I'm turning directly to the public to help get this worthy work done! Help me resurrect the voices of these 19th century Irish migrants in Argentina. By pre-ordering the Cd/Vinyl (or the streaming of the film itself), you can be part of the process as it happens. Have a gander at the options on the following link... 

https://charlieobrien.net/crowdfunding

The Pampa's My Home

This is the first single from my coming album "Exile & Adventure, Irish Song of the Pampa and further Afar." I found the words to this song in a newspaper from 1873 called "El Monitor de La Campaña." In amongst prices of cattle and weather predictions appeared this poem, signed by a man that called himself "A Wandering Tip." 

The Pampa's my Home was recorded in Villa Allende in Cordoba, Argentina. Thanks to multi talented luthier Fabrizio Rizotto for helping me with the recording, which was performed on his beautiful 19th century piano. The Pampas are the wide grasslands synonymous with rural regions of Buenos Aires in which Irish settled in the 19th century.  This song will be the closing piece in a new documentary I’ve been working on called “The Trackless Wild.” The film will explore the crossroads between myself and "A Wandering Tip" who penned five songs published in that old Argentine newspaper of the 1870’s. With my resurrection of his lyrics, he time-travels to our timeline as I muse and sing my way into the past.

Steer my bark, steer my bark o’er the wild Pampa main,
O ye winds be more calm there are shoals on the plain,
I’m alone, I’m alone on a rough rolling foam,
My bark is now launched and the pampas my home,

Then farewell oh farewell to that isle in the east
On whose green covered mountains my eyes may ne’er feast,
It was there, it was there a happy gay band,
I first dreamed the dream of the great Pampa land

Then guide her, I’ll guide her for hopes at the prow,
Though the clouds are still black and the thunder peals now,
Ha! She’s struck, my barks struck by that flash from the sky,
She’s immersed and oh God am I doomed now to die?

No not yet oh! Not yet like a bird of the deep,
My good bark comes forth with a youths hopeful leap,
It is past, it is past, the wish farther to roam,
The anchor is cast and the pampas my home.

(El Monitor de la Campaña, June 1873).

Viva Los San Patricios!

On the day that is in it, that being St Patrick's day, here's to the called Saol John Riley. My role was that of presenter-I followed the story of the leader of that bold Mexican brigade, John Riley, from famine torn Connemara to the Mexican American War of 1847. The song "Pa' Los del San Patricio" appeared on my first album Go raibh míle maith agat Séan Ó Garbhí, as ucht an cabhair a thug tú dom chun aistriúchán breá bríomhar a dhéanamh air ón leagan Bhéarla! I must try my hand at a Spanish version of the song too, somewhere further down the road!

Charlie O' Brien · Na San Patricios

Na San Patricios

Daichead a seacht i bhfad ró dhian,

Cailleadh anso iad ‘s i bhfad i gcéin,

Cailleadh iad i ngleanntá glasa na hÉireann

is crochadar ar cláracha Mheicsiceo

Dhá scór fearaibh ag feitheamh le bás

Sínte ar chroch ba thrua a gcás,

Le teas millteanach an mhéan lae

Thugadar leo go bhflaitheas dé.

Daichead a seacht i bhfad ró chrua

Cos ar bholg gan stad, gan suan,

Ó Vera Cruz le bratach in airde

Baileadar go cróga le céile.

Naomh Pádraig ‘s a cros

‘s iomaí fear a déag faoin bhreatach glas,

Lámh ar lámh le chéile,

Gach beachaint á réabadh.

Os cionn scamaill gan céilúir n-éan

General Lee lena airm féin

Cuireadh ruaig ar airm Valencia

Ach d-éalaíomar go caithair Mheicsiceo.

I ngort arbhar bhí na poncán clúdaithe

Thit siad ar an dtalamh lenár gunaí morá,

Lámh ar lámh le chéile,

gach beachaint á reabadh.

Luascadh an bhreatach bán trí uaire

Fós gearr Riley é síos gan bac air,

Géill siad faraor in ísle brí

i lochán dá fhuil féinig.

An Cruit, Naomh Padraig, ‘s an cros

“Éireann go brách” ar bhreatach glas,

Go dilís le chéile ‘s gunaí a pléascadh,

Gach beachaint á reabadh.

Dhá scór fearaibh ag feitheamh le bás

Sínte ar chroch ba thrua a gcás,

Le teas millteanach an mhéan lae

Thugadar leo go bhflaitheas dé.

Here's the English language version of the song, an outake from Saol John Riley. The song was filmed in Clifden, Ireland in 2009.

Pa’ Los Del San Patricio

47 too long a year, men died in chains men died in fear

some were lost under Irish sky and some on Mexico’s fields were hung.

The gallows there 14 feet high two score men condemned to die

hung at noon in scorching heat, three hours they waited bound hand and feet. 

47 too dark a year, men shook their chains and fell in fear

from Vera Cruz a flag unfurled many men rallied round it.

A Mexican eagle and a Celtic cross under the green flag men were lost

shot down as soldiers, hung as slaves their cruel fate a shallow grave.

Birds wouldn’t cross the Pedragal through it General Lee he carved a path

Valencia’s army were routed there Churubusco’s fate was calling.

The Yankees tumbled through high corn at Churubusco we shot them down 

Mexican guns they soon gave out with bayonets we joined the slaughter.

Three times the white flag swung round three times O’Riley pulled it down 

when blood ran down into the sand only then did they surrender. 

The Mexican eagle and a Celtic cross under the green flag men were lost

Shot down as soldiers, hung as slaves their cruel fate a shallow grave. 

The gallows there 14 feet high two score men condemned to die

Hung at noon in scorching heat, three hours they waited bound hand and feet.

Fear, Greed and Wonder on the Captain's Trail

If, according to Ryszard Kapuscinski, "the meaning of life is crossing borders" certain lessons were learned on the Captain's latest sojourn in the Americas. What exactly those nuggets of wisdom were, I still haven't figured out, but for sure it was an enlightening and engaging experience. From giving a speech in Spanish to three hundred Cubans, to attending a protest comprising of ten people outside Trump Towers, the journey was thought provoking to say the least. Like Dynamite Johnny's own voyage to Cuba, my travels were subsumed by larger events! While in N.Y. I was told by one enlightened individual "what Cuba needs is greed." Alas, I can't pin this statement to my own mast. But it seems this is what the U.S. wants, it is determined to infiltrate the regime in Cuba, and pin its own peculiar brand of freedom to the island. It has, as A Captain Unafraid interviewee Louis Perez says a long seated "obsessive compulsive disorder" when it comes to Cuba. And Cuba isn't the only country that the U.S. has attempted to extend its ethos, or failing that, control over. While giving an interview at NYU'S Gluckman's house at Washington Square Park I was given some interesting reading by my host Miriam Nyham. The book (which she edited) "America and the 1916 Rising" has a section that deals with the parallels between Cuba and Ireland and their fights for independence. Many commentators and politicians at the time referenced the Cuban revolution against Spain when speaking of possible U.S. support for Irish Independence, with some hoping for outright military intervention by the U.S. in Ireland "the time may come when the American government may find in Ireland as effective a means for intervention as she had found in Cuba." While this never happened, U.S. culture in all its varied qualities has certainly subsumed the island of Ireland these past 100 years. It has left a thick blanket of fog over the country, leaving us digging for nuggets of our own truth amongst the chaff. 

A Captain Unafraid still

Trump Towers

Speaking of the Irish presence in Cuba, I was put up by the Irish Embassy in "Hotel Palacio O' Farill" for the duration of the film festival. The "Palacio" is indeed palatial, O Farill is one of the old surnames of Havana, unfortunately, their palatial grandeur was achieved on the back of money from the slave trade. Strangely, the floor I was on was named Longford-both the O' Farill and "Dynamite" O' Brien's came from that county! The foremost expert on the Irish in Havana has to be Señor Rafael Fernandez Moya, a walking library on all matters to do with the Irish presence in that city. Here we are in Havana's "Biblioteca Pública Rubén Martinez" with a portrait of Juan Antonia Mella McPartland (founder of the Cuban Communist Party) between us. Mella's mother was from Ireland.

Señor Moya y yo, Biblioteca Pública Rubén Martinez

Another one of the many minds of information I met told me how Mella was involved in the first attempt to establish a socialist republic in Cuba. I've forgotten the name of the person I conversed with, but he wrote a screenplay with a title hard to forget-"The Red Rooster Sang and Dawn Didn't Rise."

In Old Havana there was an exhibition at the Rubén Martinez Library for the 100th anniversary of Dynamite Johnny's death. Organised in conjunction with some of the local schools, they screened the Captain there and used copies of the drawings of the animated segments as part of the exhibition. A program was organised for the kids called "Discovering my locality, Old Havana."

One morning in Cienfuegos, around halfway across our traversal of Cuba, we had coffee in the home of a farmer called Santiago O' Bourke.

Santiago O' Bourke, Cienfuegos

Santiago, the town, is on the far east of Cuba and is strongly influenced by its African heritage. One of our screenings was at An African Cultural Centre in the city. John McAuliff of the U.S. based "Fund for Reconciliation and Development" was the man behind taking the Captain to the provinces of Cuba.

Myself and John McAuliff, African Cultural Centre, Santiago

Santiago's Santa Ifigeniais Cemetery is the burial place of many's a Cuban hero, most famous of those being, José Martí and Fidel Castro. Cuba, like many a nation, venerates heroes of old as examples for the future, but in Cuba you get the feeling of the closeness of history much more so than in other countries. There is a changing of the guard every half hour at José Martí's grave, it is like he died a few months ago, or did he die atall! As he said himself los que no creen en la imortalidad creen en la historia, "those who don' believe in immortality, believe in history." When I first read this quote I didn't rightly understand it, but by the end of my trip its significance was blindingly clear-the past is the immensity that makes us, it cannot be escaped, and consequently it should be listened to and reflected upon. There José Martí remains in a palatial tomb next to Fidel, around the corner from Thomas Estrada Palma who named Johnny chief Havana Harbor pilot.

José Martí's tomb

I arrived home from my flight to the Americas just in time to gaze in wonder at the reams of U.S. flags unfurled for the 4th of July celebrations in Killarney. 

Talking to other Killarney natives, many were not happy with this exultation of U.S. nationalism in their town, in whispered tones they disagree, but are afraid to speak up. It looks like the 4th of July festival in Killarney is here to stay, though it began just two years ago, methinks it will be set in stone for a long time to come. Even now, it has the feeling that it has always been there. In the same way no-one believed Donald Trump could become president, or that Brexit would ever happen, we now accept these new worlds and deal with their consequences pragmatically. We forget a time they didn't exist. The trick here is to be very careful what we wish for. It has to be said, Killarney's Fourth Of July festival is a crass celebration of U.S. nationalism that is dangerous and blatant balderdash. Given how much war and power mongering the U.S. is and has been involved in, for a prominent town in a neutral country to be raising the U.S. flag alone over its town hall to the sound of the star spangled banner, is ominous as well as being offensive. And I love many, many things about the U.S., but following them down a rabbit hole in my own country to some sad exultation of imperialism, consumerism and trash culture is not something I can support. I was reminded, upon my own recent return to my native land, of the poem by Bonifacio Byrne called Mi Bandera or "My Flag." Byrne came back to Cuba from the U.S. in 1898 and saw to his dismay the U.S. flag flying next to his own. He composed these verses inspired by that ominous vision. 

Upon returning from a distant shore,
Weary of heart and somber,
I searched for my flag anxiously
And saw another flying beside her.

This morning I looked for my flag,
The most beautiful flag in the world;
From the ship's deck, I surveyed the skies
And have never seen anything sadder.

With the faith of an austere soul,
In this conviction I have grown
That two flags should not be flown
When one is enough: my own!

In fields that have been turned to boneyards,
She saw the struggles of the brave,
And she has been the winding-sheet
Of warriors who lie in the grave.

She proudly held her own in battle,
Without puerile or romantic praise:
The Cuban who doesn't believe in her
Should be branded a coward always!

From the depths of the darkest prison,
She heard not a word of woe;
In other lands she was the beacon
That led our footsteps in the snow...

Don't you see her? My flag is the one
That never has mercenary flown,
In whose field there shines a star
All more brightly for being alone!

I've brought her in my soul from exile
Amongst my memories of home,
And I have rendered her homage
By raising her aloft in my poem.

Though listless now and sadly drooping,
I hope some day the sun's pure light
Will shine on her — on her alone! —
On land and sea and mountain height.

If my flag were torn to pieces
Those who died to make her free
Would raise their arms together
And fight eternally!

Dynamite John, through the lens of A Captain Unafraid

THE LURE OF TROUBLED WATERS[1]

“A Captain Unafraid” is “Dynamite” Johnny O’ Brien’s memoir, it was last published in 1912 by Harper and Sons in New York. A Captain Unafraid the film was shot in New York, Cuba and Ireland over the past three years. The tome was ghost written by Horace Smith towards the close of Captain O Brien’s life, it is the skeleton on which the meat of this article and the film of the same name hangs.


“Dynamite” Johnny O’ Brien was born in 1837, in the old dry dock section of New York, almost on the banks of the East River[i]. His parents though, were Irish. “Being of Irish parentage I was favourably disposed towards dynamite on general principal,” he once exclaimed. Johnny grew up in a playground of docks and shipyards. He ran away to sea at the age of 13.[2] Though he began his career as a pilot-guiding vessels over the notorious waters of Hell Gate, New York-he quickly became known as a filibuster, that is-an illegal transporter of arms. He saw it as his patriotic duty to supply those in need with arms and ammunition–“We [Americans] should not forget that we were rebels once ourselves, and warmly welcomed filibustering aid from France.” Though Johnny was involved in revolution and ruction across the Americas, it was through his involvement with the Cuban War of Independence that he gained true fame, or perhaps, lasting notoriety.


Before leaving for America in 1831, Johnny says his family came from county Longford, Ireland. [3] Dynamite Johnny’s mother’s maiden name was Bridget Sheridan and according to the book “A Captain Unafraid” she was a relation of General Philip Sheridan’s.[4] General Sheridan became a leading figure on the Union side in the American Civil War. Philip’s birth is shrouded in mystery-as his mother seems to have fabricated a U.S. birthplace for him. She (and many others) hoped Philip might become president of the U.S.[5]


Dynamite Johnny received his sobriquet, not for the many tons of dynamite he ferried to Cuba, but for sixty tons he brought to Panama in 1888. Panama was part of Colombia at the time, and Johnny says in his biography that sixty tons of dynamite was enough “to blow the whole of Colombia off of the map.” This was before dynamite was de-natured; in other words, it could explode at the slightest jarring. A wealthy Cuban of revolutionary proclivities had purchased The Rambler-the largest yacht in New York Yacht Club. Intending to change the political map of Colombia he had also purchased 60 tons of dynamite. Having looked far and wide for a captain to ferry the dynamite (to no avail), the Cuban heard whispers of a daredevil[6] captain named Johnny O’ Brien. A meeting was arranged between the two and Daredevil Johnny “cheerfully signed up” for the job. The dynamite was loaded while the vessel was anchored at the Statue of Liberty and soon the expedition was under way. The beginning of the voyage passed uneventfully, but when the yacht entered the Gulf of Mexico a savage lightening storm blew up. Johnny’s hair started to “crackle like a hickory fire” when he ran his hands through it. Every time he touched a piece of metal he felt a slight shock. Thinking it was his last moment on earth-from the corner of his eye-Johnny saw a spark alight-a sailor contriving to light his pipe. At this moment (having failed to inform his crew that the hold was full of dynamite), Johnny climbed down to the bottom of the ship and tied down the boxes of sudden death single-handedly (as they had begun to roll around). Eventually, the storm passed and they reached the port of Colon without further incident. When the sailors saw box after box being unloaded-emblazoned with the word Dynamite, Johnny said his crew would have ended his life, had they not been “suffering considerably from heart failure.”


Though Johnny looked for trouble and fortune on many’s the foreign shore, in his own country, he aided both the Confederate and Union causes in the American Civil War. He was appointed third officer of the Union ship The Illinois. The Illinois (along with other vessels) intended to ram an “iron clad” Confederate warship-The Merrimac. This was the first iron steam ship built by the Confederates and was wreaking havoc off the coast of Virginia. Johnny received his officership at the tender age of 25, more for the kamikaze nature of the mission, than any perceived greatness the Union forces felt he might have possessed[ii]. At any-rate, the fracas never occurred, as General Goldsborough never ordered the Union fleet to engage the Merrimac. Johnny said of Goldsborough-“I do not like to call a dead man a coward but I will say that General Goldsborough was the most cautious and conservative American I have ever known.”


Hot on the heels of his station aboard The Illinois, Johnny’s next expedition was smuggling arms to his supposed enemy-the Confederate States of America, through the Mexican port of Matamoros. Once the arms arrived in Mexico, they were smuggled over the border to Brownsville, Texas. Johnny shipped out as mate and sailing master aboard The Deer, but due to the inadequacies of the captain he was given the job of captaining the ship. He was promptly informed that what he believed was general merchandise in the hold, was in fact-munitions of war that were to be ferried to Texas to aid the Confederate cause. This didn’t discourage Johnny, and he dove into the task at hand with relish-“When I was let into the secret I was enthused rather than in any degree deterred from carrying out the expedition, and threw my whole heart into it.” Involved in conflicts from Haiti to Colombia, and from Mexico to Honduras, in many ways he was a rebel without a cause, that is, until he found his cause in the late 19th century Cuban War of Independence.



THE CALL OF CUBA LIBRE

The final Cuban insurrection against the Spanish Crown was inspired and lead by José Martí. Martí is considered Cuba’s founding father. The similarities between José Martí’s revolution, and the Irish rebellion of 1916 are striking. Like Pádraig Pearse (the main instigator of the 1916 rebellion), José was both poet and revolutionary. Both men also envisioned a blood sacrifice and Martí’s words were as explicit as those of Pearse-“The reddest and slightest of poppies grows atop neglected graves. The tree that bears the sweetest fruit is the one with a dead man lying at its roots.”[7] [iii]


Martí (who died in one of the first skirmishes of the war) had been its guiding light and inspiration. He organised the planned rebellion from bases in New York and Florida, and his death was a major blow for the Cuban insurgents. Informants had plagued the Cuban struggle also, and many’s the expedition was scuttled by Spanish spies. With much success, the Spanish had taken to paying off ship captains to tell them where they intended to land. Once the rebels were ashore, the Spanish would emerge from their hiding place and kill each and every rebel.[iv]


The Cuban Junta, from their New York waterfront base, soon heard tell of Dynamite Johnny, and his previous filibustering exploits. Having tried their lot with many crooked captains, they put their trust in Johnny. Johnny, for his part, did not need to be asked twice and his first trip to aid of the Cubans was soon underway, ferrying- “2500 rifles, a 12 pounder Hotchkiss field gun, 1500 revolvers, 200 short carbines. 1000 pounds of dynamite, 1200 machetes, an abundance of ammunition” and one-General Calixto Garcia-to the Island[v]. Dynamite Johnny’s first expedition was a roaring success, and soon Garcia was encamped in the mountains of Old Oriente Province, where, along with the guns Johnny had supplied, he vigorously engaged the Spanish forces. Johnny put his lot in with the Cubans, more out of sympathy with the Cuban cause than for any monetary gain involved. The Cubans were broke and, according to Johnny, there was more money to be made piloting legal cargo from New York-than ferrying armaments and men to Cuba. Of course, the attendant thrill of adventure must have also played a part in Johnny signing up for the job.


The head of Spanish Forces in Cuba-Valeriano “The Butcher” Weyler was mightily frustrated by Johnny’s expeditions. When Valeriano was asked his opinion on Johnny by a reporter, he gave it succinctly: “We will get him, and I will hang him from the flagpole of Cabaña Fortress.” When he heard of Valeriano’s declaration, Johnny replied through the same channels, “I will make a landing within plain sight of Havana on my next trip to Cuba. If we should capture you, which is much more likely than that you will ever capture me, I will have you chopped up into small pieces and fed to the fires of the Dauntless.” A few short months later, in May 1897, Johnny landed the Dauntless (and a large cargo of munitions) within three miles of the presidential palace (where Valeriano was sometime ensconced) and within one mile of Cabaña fortress.


OUTWITTING AN ARMY OF SLEUTHS


Besides General Garcia, the most lauded figure Johnny ferried to the hostilities in Cuba was General Carlos Roloff Mialofsky. Roloff was accompanied by, among others, José Martí’s son, José Martí Zayaz Bazán.[vi] Roloff himself was a Polish immigrant who had settled in Cuba. José Martí once said of him “Polish by birth, Cuban by heart.” [8] General Roloff made many trips to Cuba during the war. For instance, in Aug 1896 he commanded an expedition to Santiago de Cuba, along with 3000 rifles (with 1 million cartridges), 400 machetes and 2 Hotchkiss guns. He returned aboard the same boat. As secretary of war during the revolution, he was constantly trying to arrange the next shipment of arms to the conflict.[vii]


Once, having arranged to meet Roloff near City Hall, New York, Johnny ambled around the area for three hours before, in full view of a small entourage of sleuths. A carriage pulled up at the precisely the moment Johnny had arranged, he jumped in, and was driven away before they had time to think. “There was no other disengaged carriage in sight and before they could find one we were out of sight,” Johnny said. Waiting for him in the Carriage was General Roloff and one Dr. Castillo, they were driven to the “Bridgeport line dock” where a cargo of arms was inspected which was quickly brought aboard the Laurada bound for Cuba. Johnny didn’t command the expedition on this occasion but was to bring Roloff to Cuba aboard The Laurada the following year, in March 1897. This later expedition had aboard, 2050 rifles, two artillery pieces, 4000 pounds of dynamite, 750 machetes, a machine gun and torpedoes.[viii]


The sleuths Johnny so often spoke of were most often “Pinkertons guards” hired by the Spanish. Other sleuths on his trail were special treasury and secret service agents of the United States government. Needless to say, as Johnny was carrying out illegal activity, the U.S. authorities were anxious to catch him ‘in the act’.


He was known to play elaborate games to evade and confuse the detectives and agents of the U.S. government. On one occasion his wife even threw boiling water on two detectives as they stalked around the back of his home in Kearney, New Jersey.

SOME INNER SECRETS


In my travels throughout the Island republic of Cuba I found the internationalist element pushed to the fore in the story the Cubans tell themselves. For instance, on O’ Rielly Street in Old Havana, a plaque reads “Two island peoples in the same sea of struggle and hope, Ireland and Cuba.” The adjoining street Calle Obispo, has a memorial celebrating Carlos Roloff. Just a few hundred metres away, in the Cuban pilots association another recently uncovered plaque celebrates “Dynamite Johnny” and the contribution he made “to the necessary war.” This plaque was unveiled in 1955[ix] but has just been rediscovered, it seems it was languishing in some ruined building by the Pilots Association.[9]


The explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbour indirectly led to Johnny’s retirement from filibustering. The sinking of that ship triggered the Spanish-American-Cuban War-thus negating the worth of Johnny’s job of ferrying illegal armaments to Cuba-those same cargos could now be ferried to their destination perfectly legally. Johnny always maintained that the explosion of the ship was most likely accidental, but the U.S. was convinced the Spanish were involved. Whoever perpetrated the action, or however it occurred, within six months, the Spanish-American-Cuban War was over, and U.S. dominion now extended over the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and other islands. Cuba was spared U.S. ownership because the Teller Amendment forbade such an action. The Teller amendment called for U.S. liberation of Cuba, not permanent occupation (perhaps due to the large Cuban communities in New York and Florida). More tellingly, Henry Teller (who proposed and drafted the Teller Amendment) was a Republican senator from Colorado, and he wanted to prevent Cuban sugar cane from competing with his own state’s sugar beet crop. His declaration read “we (the United States) hereby disclaim any disposition of intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people.” Oh how history’s ball of yarn unravels and reason turns on a whimsical die! Follow the money, others might say.


During the Spanish-American Cuban War the media had a huge part to play. In the American press, the war became an exotic (and often hyperbolic) drama. The most popular anecdotal story of the war in the U.S., relates the time when illustrator Fredric Remington cabled from a relatively peaceful Havana-"there will be no war." The supposed reply from his U.S. H.Q. came, “you furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war."


Theodore Roosevelt (who later became president) was promoted to colonel before arriving in Cuba. He jumped into the conflict with gusto, and captained the “Rough Riders” to victory at the decisive battle of San Juan, near Havana. The American Ambassador to Britain at the time, John Hay, when writing to Roosevelt after the hostilities had ended, famously declared the conflict to have been "a splendid little war." For Roosevelt (and many others) it added to U.S. territories abroad, galvanized the scattered factions of The Civil War into patriotism, and took the eyes of the U.S. media off domestic concerns.


Johnny found himself settling down at the age of 61. Perhaps he was tired of revolution and ruction? Or maybe there was no more rebellion to be had? The U.S. Eagle had now spread its wings firmly over the Americas, and Johnny would be hard pressed to find a theatre in which to play the game of war, without playing by the rules, and playing by the rules was something he was loath to do, “Any man that can’t disobey an order ain’t worth shucks.”[x] Johnny was offered a position as chief Havana Harbour Pilot by the first president of Cuba-Thomas Estrada Palma. He took the job gladly, but a law was passed subsequently which made it compulsory for Cuban pilots to be Cuban citizens. He was on the point of resigning (as he would not renounce his American citizenship), but the Cubans waived the rule for him, and he continued the job with his pride restored, and his patriotism intact.


On March 16th, 1912, Dynamite Johnny captained the resurrected warship "U.S.S. Maine" on its final journey to its proper burial three miles out from Havana Harbour. “The Maine” was raised from its watery grave in commemoration of those who went down with the ship and all those who had died in the insurrection. Johnny O’Brien was sole captain of the resurrected vessel and referred to it as “the proudest moment of my life”. The Maine was surrounded by a flotilla of 50 vessels and the entire population of Havana lined the city’s walls, as cannons fired minute guns in commemoration of those who had perished in the war. Johnny was dressed in his best morning suit, a starched white shirt and bowtie, the sole crew member of the resurrected battleship, standing alone on deck, “a little black clad figure,”[xi] defying the huge vessel. From the warship’s masthead flies the stars and stripes, the “biggest and handsomest navy ensign”[xii] he has ever seen. A flotilla of 50 vessels circles the Maine, all thronged with sailors. Starboard of the ship is the great Cabaña fortress-ramparts lined with soldiers, cannons firing minute guns. To port-the old city of Havana-her whole population thronging the roofs and sea walls. Then, Johnny opens the valves in the bulkhead and the waters rush into the ship. He climbed down the ladder on March 16th, 1912, while concurrently in New York, 20,000 people marching in St. Patrick’s Day parade paused, and all the church bells rang for the war dead. Not once did Johnny look back at the sinking vessel, flinching neither to “God, chance nor the impatient hand of destiny.”[xiii] Down went the Maine, exploding with the air pressure, hurtling masses of flowers which had been laid on its deck into the air, and the flag “Old Glory vanished under the foam with a flash of red white and blue as vivid as a flame.”[xiv] According to newspaper reports, before the Stars and Stripes sank beneath the waves, Johnny took it in his hand and kissed it.[xv]


As the twentieth century rolled in and on, Johnny declared filibustering to be “in the dumps.”[xvi] Having lived in Cuba since at least 1904[10], Johnny returned the U.S. for good in the winter of 1916. The weary old filibuster travelled home from Cuba to see snowfall on New York’s Harbour once more before he died[xvii]. Despite being confined to a wheelchair[11] he moves from Hotel to Hotel over a short few months. First he stays at the Martinique, then the McAlpin-a wanderer who no more can roam.


Johnny became a free Mason at the age of 30. Having been a Mason for the next two decades he was kicked out for not paying his dues. His relationship with money seems to have been as devil may care as the rest of his life. According to Johnny’s great granddaughter in Atlanta, at the end of his life, he burnt all his money in the fireplace of his home on Highland Avenue, Kearney, New Jersey, leaving not even a dollar for a gravestone.[12] In his last years we get a picture of a man ill at ease with settling down.
While sojourning in the McAlpin the Cuban government organize a celebration for Johnny’s 80th Birthday. His friend Victor Barranco (a special agent of the Cuban government) gives a speech in lieu of the Cuban President-Menocal.[13] Within a few weeks, Johnny is on the move again, this time he settles into a little known Hotel near Union Square called “Hotel America.”


Johnny was once asked if he ever feared death, he replied, “I never feared that imminent deadly breach.” He passed over that breach on June 22nd, 1917, as the scorching New York summer rolled in. Dynamite Johnny died at Hotel America, 105 East Fifteenth Street, Manhattan. He was buried in Sailor’s Cemetery, City Island, with the Cuban government in charge of the services.[xviii] “Moving pictures” were even made of the event.[xix] Since Johnny left the world without a dollar to his name, for many decades after his death there is no gravestone on his grave. Victor Barranco[14] more than anyone else seems to hold onto Johnny’s legacy over the next few decades. Collecting money received from donations to the Times of Cuba Newspaper,[xx] in the 1930’s Victor places a gravestone on Johnny’s grave. One, Edward O’ Brien, is the owner of said paper. Edward is Johnny’s nephew. Johnny’s brother Peter is his son. In the 1950’s Victor endeavors to have A Captain Unafraid republished. Harper brothers, who originally printed the book in 1912, turn him down.[xxi] In May 1958, Exposition Press agree to reprint the tome,[15] the letter begins “there is a tide in the affairs of men,” and continues, “the republication of this book between now and Christmas could be a considerable factor in Cuban-United States relations.” The letter mentions how “Batista himself will write the forward.” None of this came to pass, a few short months later Batista was ousted by the latest Cuban revolution of Fidel Castro and Johnny’s story was swept away on the tide of history by more momentous events.

DYNAMITE JOHNNY


Johnny’s ghost written autobiography “A Captain Unafraid,” though it certainly has Johnny’s actions and opinions in it, is in its voice more Horace Smith that “Dynamite” Johnny. The following interview in the San Francisco Chronicle is a great example of Johnny’s true voice. Here Johnny sheds some light on his own opinion on his explosive nickname-“It was the newspapers gave me that, I don’t suppose I’ll ever get rid of the name now.” The reporter replies, “You don’t want to do you?” Johnny continues “no I don’t suppose it makes any difference now but I lost some good jobs on account of it, I had a chance of becoming skipper of a racing yacht and I was well recommended too, but when the owner heard that I was “Dynamite Johnny” he shook his head and said he didn’t want me in charge of his boat.” The article says Johnny’s blue eyes twinkled with his next utterance “he thought I belonged to one of those anarchist gangs and would probably blow up his boat.”


In his last few months alive the papers in the U.S. carry many articles on Johnny. He is as colourful and single-minded as ever-“my men were fellers as tough as pine knots and fuller of fight than wild cat’s”[xxii] “I would like to chase those submarines those are the fellers to go after.”[xxiii] “We can lick those Dutchmen, we can lick ‘em, and we ought to drive them off the seas. I could do it. We ought to ride over him and under him and just trample him ‘til he’s gone. If only I were able I’d take another ship out tomorrow. I’d go where I pleased and no submarine would stop me either.”[xxiv] That last quote (from the N.Y. Times) says more about selling papers and senility than any politics or reasonings of Johnny’s. It seems reasonable to guess that the loud-mouthed octogenarian may have been suffering from some form of dementia, indeed, his death cert, two short months later lists “senility” as a contributing factor.[xxv]


Another curious fact, is that there were two “Dynamite” Johnny O’ Briens in the U.S. during the second half of the 19th century. Both were infamous sea captains, one was born in Ireland, the other in New York. To differentiate between them, lets call them East Coast John (our Johnny) and West Coast John. West coast John was born in Cork, Ireland on January 29th, 1851.[xxvi] Strangely, he also lived to 80 years of age. His theatre of operations was the East Coast of the U.S., particularly, the perilous sea corridors of Alaska. The famous silent movie star Buster Keaton appears in “The Mariner” along side West Coast John a few years after East coast Johnny has died. It seems during the course of their long lives there is some confusion as to who did what and who was who. The New York Times obituary for East Coast John states “several years ago it was said that ‘Dynamite Johnny’ during the Russo Japanese war had commanded a submarine for the Japanese in the great Naval encounter in the yellow sea.” To add conjecture to conjecture, this must surely have been West Coast John. The St. Louis Republic on Oct 25, 1900 carries an article entitled “Now In Trouble, Dynamite Johnny Has Violated Maritime Laws.” This article details how the “daring filibuster of the Cuban War period, set out for the Klondike... he reached Seattle after an eventful voyage, during which he encountered hurricanes, savages, and other disagreeable things.” The reporter must have mixed up the two dynamite Johnny’s- Seattle and the Klondike being the central domain of West Coast John. In 1907 a young adult fiction book is published entitled “A Voyage With Captain Dynamite”[xxvii] it details the adventures of a Cuban-Irish Captain. The legend of “Dynamite” Johnny was moving full steam ahead years before either of the two Johnny’s died!


Johnny, though he certainly sympathised with the treatment of Cuba by the Spanish Colonial forces had other things on his mind too when he joined in their fight-“any sort of filibustering expedition would have tempted me away from the prosaic piloting of New York provided it offered any reasonable amount of adventure, but above and beyond my natural inclinations in that direction, my sympathies were strongly with the Cubans.” His great granddaughters (when I interviewed them in the Ear Inn in Lower Manhattan) mused that his love of liberty and drive towards what he perceived right might have only extended in as far as “if it had enough danger to satisfy his needs.” When we think of Johnny’s life we can only guess at his motives. Was he really fearless? Did he serve the cause of Cuba because of some misguided addiction to danger? Or was he a true internationalist? When trying to get a proper picture of the man, we have to remember, Johnny more than anything was a sailor and a captain, his relationship with the sea is the most intangible but essential part of him. Early in Life Johnny learned: wherever danger was to be found, that was where he could truly test his metal as a mariner. As the first chapter of “A Captain Unafraid” attests, Johnny was drawn inexorably to “The Lure Of Troubled Waters.”


What I discovered from my own trip to Cuba is that the Cubans of today who know his story are graciously indebted to his contribution to “The Necessary War”[16] and still think fondly of him.[17] In his last decades Johnny lived in Cuba, but spent his last months in the city that spawned him. In his last days he searched out Cuban company and moved to be among them before he dies.[18] His last words were spoken to Victor Barranco, he said “bury me by the sea Victor.”

This article contains all research uncovered during the making of the feature film A Captain Unafraid. Watch the film itself here on Youtube.

[1] The dividing sections of the article are chapters from Johnny’s autobiography “A Captain Unafraid.”
[2] The Masonic Standard, New York, Vol XVI, No 52, December 30, 1911, states that Johnny was 15 when he ran away from home. The article describes Johnny as a veteran of Masonry. Having been a member of Excelsior Lodge. No 195 since 1867. In “A Captain Unafraid,” Johnny says he was 13 when he absconded from home.
[3] Confusingly, Johnny states in “A Captain Unafraid” that his family came from the County Longford where “they were friends neighbours and indeed related to the parents of General Philip Sheridan.” The problem is that the Sheridan homestead, from where they left in 1831, still stands in Killinkere, Virginia, County Cavan. Cavan shares a border with Longford.
[4] Johnny’s great granddaughter Patricia Clayton (nee O’ Brien) from Atlanta in the U.S. confirms this and maintains Johnny and Philip were first cousins.
[5] Historian William F. Drake, in his book Little Phil (The Story of General Philip Henry Sheridan), maintains Philip was born at sea (thus not a U.S. born citizen) which precluded him from becoming president. An article from 1965 by Rev. Joseph B. Meehan in the Breffini Journal, gives a great case for Philip being born in Ireland.
[6] Johnny’s first nickname was Daredevil Johnny.
[7] “El árbol que da mejor fruta es el que tiene debajo un muerto.” This quote comes from a speech of Martí’s entitled Los Pinos Nuevos, in which Martí attempts to galvanise the spirit of his people for the fight to come; and perhaps to come to terms with his (and their) destined martyrdom on the altar of patriotism. It was given in Tampa in 1891-just a few short years before Martí died and his country was decimated by war.
[8] “Polaco de origin, Cubano de Corazon” Historian José Antonio Quintana quotes Martí in an interview conducted with him in Lazaro Lopez, Ciego De Ávila, Cuba, June 2015.
[9] Another of our interviewees in Cuba, Dúnyer Jesús Perez, an assistant to Señor Rafael Moya (formerly of the Historians Office of Havana) sent me pictures of the newly renovated building and the plaque. I searched high and low for the plaque myself while in Havana. It was “rediscovered” the month after I left, in July 2015.
[10] An article in Cuban paper ‘La Lucha’ dated, Nov 3, 1904 says “Captain John O’ Brien, returned yesterday from New York accompanied by his wife and daughters who will make their home for the future in Havana.”
[11] Victor Barranco has a picture of himself and Johnny from 1917 in his personal files. Johnny is seated in a wheelchair, with Victor standing by his side. “The Sun” Newspaper on April 21st 1917 bears the headline “Dynamite Johnny Eagar To Fight.” The article reads “Crippled By Lumbago He Sits In His Chair Receiving friends. Dynamite Johnny who, wracked with lumbago, sat huddled up in a wheeled chair in the Hotel McAlpin yesterday carried a spasm of fear to more than one President perched on the saddle of a rickety Southern Republic.”
[12] A receipt from the personal files of Victor Barranco dates the eventual purchase of Johnny’s headstone from “Adler’s Memorial” as May 26th, 1935.
[13] This typewritten speech amongst Victor Barranco’s files begins-“Captain O’ Brien and gentlemen-on behalf of the honorable, the president of Cuba, I thank you for honouring us with your presence at this tribute of affection and gratitude which the Cuban people are tendering to our beloved Dynamite Johnny O’ Brien.”
[14] I met Victor’s nephew Stephen Barranco in North Carolina in 2014. He gave me copies of Victor’s personal files.
[15] This letter is dated May 19th 1958. The letter appears in Victor’s files.
[16] La Guerra Necesaria or La Guerra de ’95 is what the Cubans call the final Cuban War of Independence.
[17] José Martín (historian in the Provincial History Museum of the province of Ciego De Ávila) when interviewed said “within those expeditions of the Cuban Revolutionary party we remember with much fondness Dynamite Johnny, who we love and call Juanito Dinimita.” Sixto Espinosa, in a round table discussion conducted at the Union of Artists and Writers of Ciego De Ávila said “I think Cubans and the world should think of him as a great man for all he did for the liberty of this community.” Prof. Louis Perez put it succinctly when I interviewed him in Chapel Hill, North Carolina “clearly he is a hero for the Cubans.”
[18] New York Times, Obituary June 22nd 1917 “he removed from the McAlpin after a reception given him in the name of the president of Cuba. He moved he said, because he wished to be among Cubans and to eat once more the Spanish dish arroz con pollo.”



[i] A Captain Unafraid, 1912, Horace Smith. Harper and Sons. Page 6.
[ii] A Captain Unafraid, 1912, page 10.
[iii] From Pinos Nuevos by José Martí “La amapola más roja y más leve crece sobre las tumbas desatendidas. Él arbol que da mejor fruta es el que tiene debajo un muerto.”
[iv] A Captain Unafraid, 1912, page 77.
[v] A Captain Unafraid, 1912, Page 80.
[vi] John Dynamite, Marine Mambí, José Antonio Quintana, SILAS 2007. page 1.
[vii] Diario de Campaña del Cmte. Luis Rodolofo Miranda Municipio de la Habana Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad 1954. Page 66.
[viii] John Dynamite Marine Mambí, José Antonio Quintana, SILAS 2007. page 1.
[ix] Tarja en Memoria de “El Capitán Dinamita” Unknown Paper, Newspaper Clipping, Feb 23, 1955.
[x] Tugboat, The Moran Story by Eugene F. Reid and Louis Moran. Page 288.
[xi] The Maine Sinks To Her Ocean Grave, New York Times article, date unknown.
[xii] The Spanish War, An American Epic by G.J.A. O Toole. Norton, 1984. Page 598.
[xiii] The Spanish War, An American Epic. Page 400.
[xiv] The Spanish War, An American Epic. Page 400.
[xv] Dynamite Johnny O’ Brien-Cuba’s American Hero, Marian Betancourt, article in Irish America Magazine, Dec/Jan 2003.
[xvi] Memories of Two Wars, Fredrick Funston, 1911. Chapter 1: To Cuba as A Filibuster.
[xvii] New York Times, Dynamite Johnny O’ Brien’s obituary, June 22, 1917.
[xviii] Tugboat The Moran Story, Eugene F. Reid and Louis Moran. Page 291.
[xix] El Entierro del Capitan O’ Brien, Diario De La Marina, Havana, June 23rd, 1917.
[xx] Dynamite Johnny Monument Fund, The Times of Cuba, March, 1926.
[xxi] Letter Of Rejection, (Harper and Brothers, Sep 15th 1956.) Victor Barranco’s Files.
[xxii] Tugboat The Moran Story, Eugene F. Reid and Louis Moran. Page 289.
[xxiii] Dynamite Johnny, 80, Eager To Fight, The Sun, Apr 21st 1917.
[xxiv] Dynamite Johnny Still Full Of Fire New York Times, March 4th 1917.
[xxv] Death Cert (NYC Department of Health, 1917 June 20th). Victor Barranco’s Files.
[xxvi] Tales of the Seven Seas, Powers, Denis M., (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2010).
Page 4.
[xxvii] A Voyage With Captain Dynamite Rich, Charles Edward, (A. S. Barnes and Company 1907).