San Pablo Passionist monastery

The Passionist monastery of San Pablo stands on Route 51 between Carmen de Areco and Capitán Sarmiento. Thomas Maguire gave the land to the Irish chaplain in 1868, the Irish Argentine Historical Society recorded. The Passionists, invited from 1879 to serve the Irish, made it their main rural house. Its 1888 Gothic chapel is said to copy a church in Ireland, with Celtic crosses, shamrocks and a window of Saints Patrick, Columba and Brigid, Página/12 reported in 2004. A Celtic cross on the site is dated 1880. Saint Paul's School opened there on 7 January 1900. A booklet marked the retreat's fiftieth anniversary in 1938.

The cemetery beside the park holds the graves of Passionist priests, among them Fr Victor Carolan and Fr Fidelis Rush, whose grave bears a Celtic cross. The earliest references to hurling in Argentina, from 1887 to 1888, come from Mercedes and the fields near this monastery, according to King and Darby.

In 2007 the grounds were threatened with sale, and a provincial bill asked that the monastery, the church of San Patricio, the college and the cemetery be preserved, noting that Irish immigrant families had donated the buildings and lands. A 2008 provincial resolution describes the complex as a provincial historic, architectural and landscape monument under Provincial Law 13756 and records an annual St Patrick's festival there. Página/12 reported that the house opened to paying guests around 2001. Whether the grounds were sold after 2007 is not known.