THE LUCK OF THE IRISH

                    His luck almost ran out when he was born. the seventh son of the O'Higgins clan, he was all but ignored. and what was worse named Bernard.which was a dog's name! He was baptized of course,  and grew up in the bogue of county cork. until he was able to stow away on a merchant vessel. whereupon he jumped ship in South America.
                   They called the county Venezuela after Venice, he found out later when he was on intimate terms with Simon Bolivar. This man was an aristocrat who was born in the new world. He spoke Spanish, which was the language of his ancestors and treated the common man as a master would a slave.. Because of his wealth, he traveled extensively in Europe with his tutor and romanticized  about securing liberty of all Latin America from Spain. This was when O'Higgins entered the picture Bolivar told him he was looking for someone to command an army. He was destined, he explained to Bernard, to free South America from despotic Spanish rule and to form separate, independent countries. Bernard O'Higgins immediately offered his services. He proclaimed he was an Irish general, who had made the rank and file of Cromwell quiver. Of course it was a lie, but Simon Bolivar didn't know much about Irish balarny and Bernard O'Higgins has kissed the Blarney Stone. Therefore he was commissioned Commander and Chief of the Bolivar forces and went n to win the war.
                      It was more like a series of skirmishes, with the likes of an Irish brawl withe opposition being not Spanish soldiers rather peasants who were paid to fight for Spain.
                      Thus Bernard O'Higgins , the seventh son of an innocuous clan, presented Simon Bolivar with the cup of victory.
                      The Liberator was so impressed that he gave the triumphant Irishman his own county, bordering the whole Pacific coast.
                      The general wanted to call it O'Higgins but Bolivar thought it was too difficult to pronounce in Spanish, so they called it Chile, since that was what the country was famous for.
                      After that he invited family and friends to join him. A city was built and then another. Most of them missed the emerald isle but after a time became adjusted to their new lush environment.
                      It was all due to the luck of the Irish.