Many of the lrish who settled in the French city between the 1630s and 1680s prospered there as merchants andseafarers, writes PhD scholar sandrine Tromeur of the Department of History.
In an old parish register from the Catholic church of Saint,jean-du-Perrot in the Atlantic city ofLa Rochelle, one can find the following entry: "The 22 October 1645 were married by me,undersigned priest, the honourable man Guillaume Lee, lrish merchant, with Madame CatherineCreagh, widow of late Mr Skiddy, also lrish, both residing in this parish, and this in the presence ofRichard Creagh, Dominique Creagh, Pierre Creagh, Maurice Roche, jacques Violé, Barthelemy Rice.and several others".
The marriage entry provides a glimpse into the world of the very small but cohesive group oflrish merchants, who began to settle in La Rochelle during the late 1630s and early 1640s. Theyoriginated from the southern part of lreland, specifically New Ross, Waterford, Cork and Dingle, and all were in theirtwenties and thirties when they left lreland.
One witness to the marriage, Richard Creagh, was resident by 1639, and his sister Catherine arrived from Cork before1 642. After the death of her first husband, catherine Creagh remarried another lrishman, Guilaume Lee, a native ofWaterford, who was resident in La Rochelle from 1643.
Irish migration to France is generally associated with the Flight of the Wild Geese after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690However, mass migration from lreland actually started much earlier, when thousands of men, women and children lefifor Spain, france and England in the immediate aftermath of the defeat suffered by the Gaelic forces at the Battle ofKinsale in 1602.