A Day to Remember Mexico's Saint Patrick Battalion The Yucatan Times
go to original March 16, 2014

The Saint Patrick's Battalion (Spanish: Batallón de San Patricio) was a unit of several hundred Irish, Germans, Swiss, Scots and other Roman Catholics of European descent, who deserted the U.S. Army and fought as part of the Mexican Army against the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848. (USAToday/blunt1984)

In Mexico we honor Saint Patrick not once but twice a year. In 1846 Mexico and United States were in war. The Central Government of Mexico did not acknowledge the independence of Texas from the Republic and this prompted a war and a subsequent US invasion that ended in the separation of current Texas, Arizona and California from the Mexican territory.

A troop of US soldiers, mainly Irish immigrants escaping from starving Ireland, suddenly decided to change sides. The Mexican army enrolled them and called them “Saint Patrick’s Batallion”.

Read the rest at The Yucatan Times

Lyrics to Saint Patrick Battalion:

My name is John Riley
I'll have your ear only a while
I left my dear home in Ireland
It was death, starvation or exile
And when I got to America
It was my duty to go
Enter the Army and slog across Texas
To join in the war against Mexico

It was there in the pueblos and hillsides
That I saw the mistake I had made
Part of a conquering army
With the morals of a bayonet blade
So in the midst of these poor, dying Catholics
Screaming children, the burning stench of it all
Myself and two hundred Irishmen
Decided to rise to the call

(Chorus)
From Dublin City to San Diego
We witnessed freedom denied
So we formed the Saint Patrick Battalion
And we fought on the Mexican side

We marched 'neath the green flag of Saint Patrick
Emblazoned with "Erin Go Bragh"
Bright with the harp and the shamrock
And "Libertad para la Republica"
Just fifty years after Wolftone
Five thousand miles away
The Yanks called us a Legion of Strangers
And they can talk as they may

(Chorus)

We fought them in Matamoros
While their volunteers were raping the nuns
In Monterey and Cerro Gordo
We fought on as Ireland's sons
We were the red-headed fighters for freedom
Amidst these brown-skinned women and men
Side by side we fought against tyranny
And I daresay we'd do it again

(Chorus)

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