Sep 22, 2026 · 54 min · 8 segments
Spanish and French colonial Louisiana through the antebellum city, 1768–1850s — from the Creole rebellion and its aftermath, through the first recorded New Orleans St. Patrick's Day celebration in…
Laura D. KelleyGuest
Robert MoonHost
Okay, Laura, may we, may we grab the listener by the throat and discuss the man named Alejandro O'Reilly, AKA Bloody O'Reilly?
I usually start my lectures that the Irish entered Louisiana history with a very loud bang with Alejandro O'Reilly.
It's also a great starting point to see how the New Orleans experience for Irish immigrants and the Irish coming here to this, to New Orleans, to Louisiana, was very different than the Irish going to the Atlantic seaboard, to the 13 colonies at the same time, and he embodies a lot of that.
So by way of background, Alejandro O'Reilly was born in County Meath, Ireland, but when he was about age 10, his family moved to Spain, and this was not unusual at the time in the 18th century, in the 1700s, in that due to the penal laws that were enacted from 1691 up to 1769, that to be Irish and to be Catholic and living in Ireland meant many things.
You couldn't own land, you couldn't vote, you couldn't hold a profession, you couldn't educate your child, you couldn't practice your religion.
You couldn't own a horse worth more than five pounds, which just kind of shows you how obscure and strange some of these laws went on, and they were evolving and being passed by multiple parliaments under multiple monarchs in the UK.
So Alejandro O'Reilly, his family fell right into that pattern, and he went to military school.
He joined the Spanish military, and this is also how a lot of Irish people ended up in New Orleans in the 1700s.
Whether it was under the French period or the Spanish period, they came with the military of those countries, and...
So we all think that 1776 is the first time in North America when you have a revolt against a colonial power, and that's not true.
The people living here, the Creoles living here Find out that they're no longer French and that they've been handed over to the Spanish, and they don't want to be Spanish.
And the first governor who arrives, Antonio Ulloa, he arrives and there's a lot of, he's the wrong personality, didn't handle things well for a population that was anxious and really not, didn't wanna be Spanish, so it was just, it was like a bad marriage.
And ultimately, the people of this area revolted, and they expelled him from the colony, and they made it very official.
They did it through the Superior Council, and feeling pretty good about themselves.
And do you know what the difference between a rebellion and a revolution is, Robert?
Okay, Laura, may we, may we grab the listener by the throat and discuss the man named Alejandro O'Reilly, AKA Bloody O'Reilly?
I usually start my lectures that the Irish entered Louisiana history with a very loud bang with Alejandro O'Reilly.
It's also a great starting point to see how the New Orleans experience for Irish immigrants and the Irish coming here to this, to New Orleans, to Louisiana, was very different than the Irish going to the Atlantic seaboard, to the 13 colonies at the same time, and he embodies a lot of that.
So by way of background, Alejandro O'Reilly was born in County Meath, Ireland, but when he was about age 10, his family moved to Spain, and this was not unusual at the time in the 18th century, in the 1700s, in that due to the penal laws that were enacted from 1691 up to 1769, that to be Irish and to be Catholic and living in Ireland meant many things.
You couldn't own land, you couldn't vote, you couldn't hold a profession, you couldn't educate your child, you couldn't practice your religion.
You couldn't own a horse worth more than five pounds, which just kind of shows you how obscure and strange some of these laws went on, and they were evolving and being passed by multiple parliaments under multiple monarchs in the UK.
So Alejandro O'Reilly, his family fell right into that pattern, and he went to military school.
He joined the Spanish military, and this is also how a lot of Irish people ended up in New Orleans in the 1700s.
Whether it was under the French period or the Spanish period, they came with the military of those countries, and...
So we all think that 1776 is the first time in North America when you have a revolt against a colonial power, and that's not true.
The people living here, the Creoles living here Find out that they're no longer French and that they've been handed over to the Spanish, and they don't want to be Spanish.
And the first governor who arrives, Antonio Ulloa, he arrives and there's a lot of, he's the wrong personality, didn't handle things well for a population that was anxious and really not, didn't wanna be Spanish, so it was just, it was like a bad marriage.
And ultimately, the people of this area revolted, and they expelled him from the colony, and they made it very official.
They did it through the Superior Council, and feeling pretty good about themselves.
And do you know what the difference between a rebellion and a revolution is, Robert?
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