Seamus “Jaime” Fogarty, well-known in literary and academic circles in Mexico for his work as a historian and researcher, died in Tepic, Nayarit on September 6 at the age of 84.
Fogarty was an authority on the Irish in Latin America, and had written dozens of articles on the subject of the Celtic Diaspora, the San Patricio Battalion and the early Irish settlements in Argentina. His work had been published in History Ireland, the Journal for the Society for Irish Latin American Studies, and Voices of Mexico. He was also an activist for social justice, working as a volunteer teacher in the poorer barrios of Mexico City where he was much loved.
Fogarty’s observations on the failure of neoliberalism in Latin America formed the basis of several articles and were major contributions to regional studies. A collection of them can be found in his book Liberation and Development: A Latin American Perspective (1998).