Tyrone power
Juan Mackenna was born on October 26, 1771 at Clogher, County Tyrone, son of William MacKenna of Co. Monaghan, and his wife Eleanor (née O’Reilly).
His uncle was Alexander O’Reilly, named Condé (Count) de O’Reilly and Visconde de Cavan by Charles III of Spain (at this time, O’Reilly was the leading infantry commander in the Spanish military).
After three years at the Royal Academy of Mathematics in Barcelona, Mackenna joined the army as a cadet. He fought in a number of European campaigns, was made captain in 1795, and left for South America the following year.
The viceroy of Peru, Irishman Ambrose O’Higgins, appointed Mackenna governor of Osorno in southern Chile. Subsequently, he held a similar position in Valparaiso and in 1813 he became the military governor of Santiago.
By this time, republicans were facing off against loyalists in wars contesting Spanish rule. Among republicans, a bitter dispute between José Miguel Carrera and Bernardo O’Higgins (Ambrose’s son) meant that for a time, leadership alternated between the two. Mackenna sided with O’Higgins (incidentally, in Chile, the surname Mackenna is recorded using a lower-case ‘k’).
Republicans suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Rancagua in 1814. After this victory (La Reconquista), the Spanish held control in the country for three years. O’Higgins and Carrera, with other patriots, fled across the Andes to Mendoza in Argentina.
From there, both men sent delegations to Buenos Aires to enlist the support of the government there. Luis Carrera represented his brother, José Miguel; John Mackenna travelled on behalf of O’Higgins.
The enmity between the two Chilean leaders seems to have crossed the country with their emissaries. Carrera and Mackenna fought a duel in the Argentine capital. The Irishman was shot in the throat and killed.
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While in Chile, I climbed Cerro Santa Lucia, the small hill in the centre of Santiago, where the city was founded in 1541. A chapel, Ermita Mackenna, sits at the edge of a terrace on the ascent to the summit.
The ermita holds the remains of Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, Juan’s grandson.
Vicuña Mackenna was a prodigious journalist, author and historian, a senator and, in 1875, an unsuccessful presidential candidate.
In 1851, he had taken part in a revolution to overthrow the government and was jailed, only to escape dressed as a woman. He lived in exile in North America for a time, studied in England and visited Ireland, before eventually returning to Chile.
In 1827, Benjamin’s father, Pedro Félix Vicuña (Pedro was married to Juan’s daughter Carmen) had founded El Mercurio de Valparaíso, regarded as the world’s oldest continuously published Spanish-language newspaper.
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