John Creaghe

Dr. John O’Dwyer Creaghe (1841 - February 19 1920), also known as Juan Creaghe, was an Irish-born anarchist revolutionary.

Creaghe was born in Limerick, Ireland in 1841, and in 1865 he graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, becoming a doctor. He opened up a practice in Mitchelstown, Cork County. In 1874, he emigrated to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires. It is unknown how Creaghe came in contact with anarchist ideas, since the the country's anarchist movement was small at the time, but he quickly became a follower of this idea. In 1890, he moved to Sheffield, England, working in a poor working class district with many Irish immigrants. He became involved in the Socialist League, a Marxist group led by William Morris, but he soon broke away to form an anarchist group in Sheffield. On the group's first public appearance, it sported a banner reading "No God, No Master" at the May Day demonstration. The group soon also founded a club and a newspaper, the "Sheffield Anarchist", which did not survive for long as it became caught up in the Walsall Anarchists' trial. In 1892, he left Sheffield to go back to Argentina via Liverpool, London, and Spain. There he founded the newspaper "El Oprimido", forerunner of "La Protesta", which exists to this day. He was involved in the founding of the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation, an anarchist trade union. He also contributed to the Free School movement inspired by the ideas of the Spanish anarchist pedagogue Francisco Ferrer. In 1911, Creaghe left Argentina once again, eventually arriving in Los Angeles, where he collaborated with Mexican anarchists. He founded another newspaper, "La Regeneración", and was friends with Ricardo Flores Magón. In 1910, both were involved in the Baja California revolt; after the start of the Mexican Revolution, they supported the country's anarchist movement. Creaghe died on February 19, 1920 in a Washington, DC prison.

References

*Catháin, Máirtín Ó: [http://www.irlandeses.org/cathain.htm Dr. John O’Dwyer Creaghe (1841-1920) Irish-Argentine Anarchist] . Society for Irish Latin American Studies. Accessed January 6, 2008.