Integrative Practice in and for Larger Systems: Transforming Administration and Management of People, Organizations, and Communities

This is the story of Eugene Macnamara, a maverick young priest from Ireland's Ennis, County Clare who, in the 1840s, sought to establish a colony for Irish families in Alta California, Mexico's far northwestern territory. Had the '10,000 ready volunteers from Limerick, Clare, and Cork' of whom he boasted, actually arrived, a 'New Ennis,' 'New Clare,' or 'New Ireland' could have been born. His scheme failed when the US Government seized California in 1846. Macnamara's life spanned half the globe and was dramatic: expulsion from a Paris seminary, a dash to Rome from Guiana to expose a convulsing mission, a year in revolutionary Mexico, two months in threatened California (backed by the Royal Navy), and asylum in Mexico City during the Mexican War, 1846-1848. He followed it all with a 'Macnamara Scheme II' in Chile. His arrival in Mexico, in 1844, was at a time of tension between North America's landlords, Mexico, the US, and Britain. His 1846 license to settle 20,000 square miles with 15,000 settlers, was formalized by Mexico in 1847 and even qualified for a US hearing in 1852, but it was not appealed. British diplomats, merchants, and bondholders supported him. When US President Polk learned of El Proyecto Macnamara, he acted immediately to stop any British colonizing in North America. In Washington, Macnamara personified at the highest levels a political and commercial conspiracy between Britain and Mexico against the US. This biography is the compelling story of this 'international' Irishman and his lingering aftermath.