In 1762, Irish captain John McNamara led a British force to occupy Colonia del Sacramento, previously a Portuguese or Spanish stronghold.

[2] Irish soldier Peter Campbell (1780-c1832) of the 71st regiment remained on the River Plate and later founded the Uruguayan navy, becoming deputy governor of Corrientes province.

Also during the early days of Uruguay, the Irish settlers helped with the farming of the country as the current conditions at the time could not be met by the native Uruguayans.

[2] One Irish rancher, William Lawlor (1822–1909), originally from Abbeyleix in County Laois was documented as owning land and a ranch named "Las Tres Patas".

[1] Several prominent Irish settlers in Montevideo made a name for themselves in the 19th century; of note in particular are the physician Constantine Conyngham (1807–1868), who rendered important services during the epidemic of 1856 in Montevideo, Louis Fleury, a Dublin-born surgeon-general to the army in Charity Hospital and foreman Robert Young who founded Young city in Rio Negro district, owning some 100,000 sheep and horned cattle by 1875.

[citation needed] The life of Irish sheep-farmers in rural Uruguay in the nineteenth century is covered in In the Shadow of the Ombú Tree, a 2005 novel by Hugh Fitzgerald Ryan.