Argies taking hurling into their hearts

It comes as a bit of a shock when Ronnie Quinn jokes by email that when he takes the phone call from the Irish Examiner, his English will have a “strong Julio Iglesias accent”.

The 52-year-old president of Hurling Club of Buenos Aires is a true born and bred Porteño, as the citizens of that great city are known, but, sure enough, his almost perfect English belies the perfect Irishness of his name.

Like so many of his Irish-Argentine compatriots, most of his ancestors left Ireland in the 1800s and subsequently formed a community deeply in touch with its roots.