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Eamon Bulfin, (1894 - 1968), son of the writer William Bulfin of Birr, in the present County Offaly, was born in Argentina. He was a pupil at Patrick Pearse's school, St. Enda's School (Scoil Éanna), and subsequently studied at University College, Dublin where he became captain of the Irish Volunteer Company.

In the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin, he raised the tricolour on the GPO (General Post Office). Following the failure of the insurrection, he was condemned to death but, because of his Argentinian nationality, was instead deported to Buenos Aires. He was appointed by the President of the new Republic, Eamon de Valera, as Irish Representative to Argentina. de Valera described Bulfin's job as to “inaugurate direct trade between Ireland and the Argentine Republic… to co-ordinate Irish opinion in the Argentine, and to bring it into the Irish demand for a republic.”[1] Bulfin was one of several representatives abroad appointed for that purpose, and recognition of the importance of their work led to the establishment in February 1921 of a separate Department of Foreign Affairs.[2]

In the 1920 County Council elections, Eamon Bulfin was nominated in his absence for a seat on King’s County Council. He was elected and, even though he was in Argentina, he was immediately appointed chairman of the council. One of the first things the new council did was to agree that the county’s name be returned to its ancient Irish form of County Offaly.

On the formation of the Irish Free State, Bulfin returned to Ireland, becoming active in local politics. His younger sister, Catalina, married the Nobel Prize-winner Seán MacBride.

• Francis Bulfin TD

• An Irish Argentine in the Easter Rising (The Irish Post)
• Murray, Edmundo. Bulfin, Eamon (1892-1968), Irish republican and diplomatist in "Irish Migration Studies in Latin America" November-December 2005