How a Cork priest survived Argentina’s military junta and found love amidst the darkness
Blanca Rice at her exhibition which will open on Saturday, March 22 at 2pm at the Blackwater Valley Makers Gallery in Fermoy and run until April 11. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
The story of an Irish priest kidnapped and tortured by military police in Argentina, along with a woman whom he would later marry, will feature in an exhibition on human rights violations being run in a Co Cork town by their daughter.
Fr Pat Rice, who was born in Fermoy, and Fatima Cabrera were walking home from a church in Buenos Aires on the night of October 11, 1976, when they were kidnapped by police rounding up people considered subversive by the military junta government which had recently seized power in a coup.
It’s estimated around 30,000 disappeared in Argentina during the reign of the military dictatorship.
There was a massive outpouring of support for the priest which started in his hometown and soon became an international campaign to have him released.
Thousands of letters demanding this were sent to the Irish embassy in Buenos Aires and after two months he was freed by the Argentinian authorities.
Several of the original letters form part of the exhibition, which is being run by the couple’s daughter, Blanca.
A member of the Divine Word Missionaries Order, Pat Rice lived and worked in one of the most deprived areas of the city. There he became involved in human rights groups and the trade union movement, which made him a target for the junta, led by dictator General Jorge Rafael Videla.
The international outcry over his abduction forced the junta to let the priest go. However, it was almost two years before Fatima was released from jail.
When the far-right government fell in Argentina in the early 1980s, Fr Rice went back there and again met Fatima. The couple fell in love, he left the priesthood, they married and had three children.
Pat Rice died in 2010 but Fatima is still alive and living in the Argentinian capital.
“They met up again after democracy was restored. He was one of the founders of the Latin American Federation for the Families of Disappeared. They always said to us as survivors they had to speak out,” Blanca said.
“Their bond, forged in adversity, blossomed into love and they built a family together: Carlos, Amy and me. This exhibition honours the unwavering resilience, solidarity and love that sustained them through their ordeal.
"It celebrates the legacy of those who fought for freedom. It remembers the 30,000 disappeared in Argentina and all the victims who have been disappeared worldwide,” Blanca said.
“Through my parents courage and the lessons they imparted, we are reminded that love and hope can prevail, even in the face of the gravest injustices,” she added.
Blanca’s exhibition "Céad Míle Fáilte" will open on Saturday, March 22 at 2pm at the Blackwater Valley Makers Gallery in Fermoy and run until April 11.
She came to study art in 2008 at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa College of Further Education in Cork in 2008 where she met up with Síobháin Steele, one of the founders of the Fermoy gallery.
“When I heard about her parents’ story, I was just blown away by it. It’s really a story of true love,” Síobháin said.
Blanca returned to Argentina after studying there and then came back to live in Cork two years ago.
She has been mentored on the project by Dr Eve Olney who will officially open it.
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