Between 1,000 and 2,000 Irish volunteers led by Irishmen such as William Aylmer, Francisco Burdett O'Connor and James Towers English assisted in the struggle.

[2] In the subsequent upheavals in Colombia in the 1820s, Irishmen such as Daniel Florence O'Leary, Arthur Sandes and John Johnston were among Bolívar's most faithful officers.

[3] In a different form of relationship, the Catholic lay movement Legion of Mary founded in Dublin, Ireland, by layman Frank Duff sent Seamus Grace and Alphie Lamb to Bogotá in 1953 to expand their mission in Colombia.

The Legion was well received in Colombia, especially by the poor, brought many people back to the Catholic faith, and later expanded to other parts of South America.

[1][4] In 2001, Colombian police, acting on information from "an international security organisation", arrested three Irishmen in Bogota, alleging that they were members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and had been training members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a revolutionary guerilla movement in Colombia.