Posted on 03/22/2005 10:26:58 AM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
MEXICO CITY – In a tree-shaded neighborhood at Mexico City's southern edge, the sound of bagpipes breaks the silence of a balmy March evening. A dentist, a blacksmith, a high school student and a criminal lawyer – Mexicans dressed in tartan plaid kilts – are playing the songs of centuries past. They call themselves the St. Patrick's Battalion Pipe Band, after a little-known battalion of Irishmen who fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. In a country known for mariachi music, and where wearing a kilt and playing the pipes can draw ridicule, these 15 men and women have formed Mexico's only bagpipe band.
Few of them have even a drop of Irish or Scottish blood. But all of them share a love for the bagpipes and a desire to keep history alive. By naming themselves St. Patrick's Battalion Pipe Band, they serve as a constant reminder of one of the darkest days in U.S.-Mexico relations. On Sept. 13, 1847, the United States executed 30 Army deserters, most of them Irish immigrants, in the largest mass hanging in U.S. history. Playing the bagpipes links the band with that little-known slice of Mexico's past, said pipe major Rafael Gutiérrez, 44, a business owner who leads the band. "The music takes you back centuries. It's one of those things that make you feel that you're part of a tradition," he said. "This is a very special instrument. It's mystical."
Gutiérrez fell in love with bagpipe music, which is played in both Scotland and Ireland, as a boy when his family lived in Dallas. After returning to Mexico, he traveled to Glasgow, Scotland, to study at the College of Piping. He began playing professionally in 1992, when he was hired by Seagram Co. to put together a band to promote its 100 Pipers whiskey in Mexico City grocery stores. As he and his bagpipers became widely known, they found themselves in demand. In 1999, they became the first musical group to perform for the Mexican Congress. Four years later, they were invited to perform in Sweden. On Saturday night, they performed a sold-out concert in a 900-seat Mexico City auditorium. "People in Mexico want something different than the mariachi and merengue scene," Gutiérrez said. "Our audience is people who want to feel they are in touch with world culture."
Even without the historical connection, bagpipe music and Irish culture seem to be catching on in Mexico, where nearly a dozen Irish pubs have opened in recent years. Ireland's embassy in Mexico City will mark St. Patrick's Day with a reception hosted this afternoon by the ambassador. In the colonial city of San Miguel de Allende, a celebration is scheduled for the main plaza. Not everybody likes the bagpipe music that often accompanies these events, said Hugo Hernández, 30, a blacksmith and copywriter who plays bass drum for the St. Patrick's Battalion Pipe Band. "You either hate it or you love it," said Hernández. Fellow band member Ernesto Góngora, 17, loves it, even though his friends think it's pretty strange. "My parents? They think I'm nuts. My father told me to play a trumpet, the guitar. I had to convince him to let me play the bagpipes."
The band performs once a month at the Museum of the Interventions, a former convent where the St. Patrick's Battalion fought its final battle. Said Gutiérrez, "There are a lot of ghosts here."
Disturbing history
Lingering behind the jaunty bagpipe music and St. Patrick's Day festivities is the disturbing history of the demise of the battalion of deserters from the U.S. Army. Capt. John Riley and his roughly 250 men – who were Irish, French, German, Scottish, British and American – refused to surrender to the Army, even when their munitions ran out. The artillery battalion had been organized a year earlier by Riley, a charismatic Irishman who once was a sergeant major in the British army. The men were enticed to Mexico with promises of prosperity, fair treatment and acceptance – things they were denied in the U.S. Army. The Irish, who had fled to the United States after a crippling drought in their homeland, were "reviled" when they reached American soil, said Peter F. Stevens, who wrote a book on the battalion titled, "The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion in the Mexican-American War." "No one wanted them here," he said. "It's a story of prejudice. The desertion was fueled by prejudice in the U.S. ranks." Mexico "ran a very good propaganda campaign in which they appealed specifically to Irish-born soldiers to come over to the Mexican side," Stevens said. Mexican officials likened the war with the United States to Ireland's ongoing conflict with England, reminding Irish soldiers that theirs, too, was "a Catholic nation fighting against a Protestant invader," Stevens said. The soldiers "were being offered land, they were being offered instant citizenship, cash bonuses. But more than that, they were accepted."
Of the nearly 40,000 U.S. regular Army soldiers who enlisted during the war, a stunning 5,331 – nearly 13 percent – deserted, Stevens said. Of those, almost 1,000 were Irish. The desertion rate was nearly double that of any war the United States has ever fought. On Sept. 13, 1847, the last of Riley's men were executed after standing for hours at the gallows, nooses around their necks, on a hill where they could see Mexican and U.S. troops battling at the Castle of Chapultepec. When the U.S. flag was raised over the castle, they were hanged. Riley was not executed. Instead, he was flogged, branded on both cheeks with the letter "D" for deserter and forced to dig the graves of his men, Stevens said. He remained in Mexico until his death in 1850. In all, 50 men in the battalion were hanged during the war. For the next 150 years, the records of their courts-martial were kept at the U.S. War Department, away from public view, Stevens said. "With the Civil War looming, both the Confederate and the Union sides knew there were going to be heavy numbers of Germans and Irish fighting in both armies. What they didn't want were stories of mistreatment of a decade ago coming out at that moment," he said. "From the U.S. government's point of view and the Army's point of view, there were reasons to keep this hidden."
Annual tribute
For the past 47 years, the soldiers of St. Patrick's Battalion have been remembered each September at a quiet park in the neighborhood of San Angel. The Mexican bagpipers of the St. Patrick's Battalion Pipe Band play their music not far from the spot where 20 of Riley's men were branded, tortured and hanged. A plaque lists those soldiers' names and expresses Mexico's gratitude for their help. Hymns are played, the flags of Mexico and Ireland are flown, and speeches remember their contribution. "In America, they're considered traitors," Gutiérrez said. "Here, they're considered heroes."
Some of you fellas need to read this.
There was a pretty decent Tom Berenger film made about Sgt Riley : One Man's hero.
For your information. This is seldom taught in U.S. schools. I wonder why?
Never saw it. I'll try to find it and rent it to watch. We need to go back to the old way of doing things. Either an individual comes here to be loyal or (s)he doesn't come here.
Not so much desertion, (although desertion is desertion in any man's language) but turning coat.
Mexican BagPipers? Isn't that the "Official" entertainment of Hell?
bttt
"This is a very special instrument. It's mystical."
Guess that's one way to describe it.
Santa Anna had apointed John Davis Bradburn commander of the Eastern portion of Texas in the late 1820s.
His vicious, near lunatic behavior was in part responsible for the revolution of 1836.
It's pretty obvious that the Irish that ended up in Mexico were the very dregs of the island.
SO9
From what I understand, the Army really did treat Irish soldiers lower than dirt. They were denied things like the right to have a Catholic chaplain etc.
It's an interesting little bit of history. Not surprising that the Mexicans see these guys as heroes.
Looks that way.
Vicente Fox is half Irish.
BTTT
Sigh....you don't know good music when you hear it! ;-) Perhaps it is just a Celtic thing.
Consider the Southerners who still honor Jeff Davis and Robert E. Lee. Isn't that the same thing?
"You either hate it or you love it," said Hernández.
No truer words were ever spoken! My dad used to play for the NY Police Emerald Society Band...I literally heard the pipes in my sleep!!
The Brigada de San Patricio will always be be looked upon with favor in Mexico and disfavor in the U.S.. The Tejanos that died at the Alamo will always be Heros of Texas and traitors to the Mexicanos. Only God knows what was in their hearts.
Bagpipe has quite a history. Dates back to biblical times. Most historian say that when Nero 'fiddled' while Rome burned it was really a bagpipe he played.
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