Roncesvalles was the site of the Battle of Roncesvalles in 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars. O'Hara was part of a larger allied force of Spanish, British and Portugese fighting the French Army. Things were going well - Paris was occupied by the allied forces and the French Army had been pushed as far as Spain. In late July O'Hara and his allies were in the North of Spain and outnumbered by the French. There was a battle near Roncesvalles and the allied forces were forced to retreat. Days later they battled at Sorauren and fared better. But the two battles were hardly decisive victories, and O'Hara was just one of many involved in the fight. To take a little more shine off of this, the Napoleonic Wars were almost over - Napoleon had already abdicated.

But O'Hara wasn't given a big chunk of Toronto for this mediocre performance. O'Hara immigrated to Canada in 1826 and helped the Family Compact suppress the Upper Canada Rebellion, led by the first mayor of Toronto, William Lyon Mckenzie. By the way, William Lyon Mckenzie's daughter had a baby boy that she named after her dad. That baby boy would grow up to be Canada's first Prime Minister (the guy on the $50 bill.)

The rebellion was a limited, somewhat drunken affair. Mckenzie and a bunch of farmers were upset at the Family Compact for managing the land badly and generally giving sweetheart deals to their friends. When the Lower Canada Rebellion broke out in Quebec most of the soldiers were sent there to fight. Mckenzie seized the chance to attack the government while the military was preoccupied. Still, the rebels were outnumbered 400:1000 and only fought for about 30 minutes. There was almost a fight a few days later in Hamilton and that was the end of the rebellion. The government troops burned the rebels' homes to drive the point home. Hardly glorious history on either side.

While Mckenzie and the rebels were fighting for their livelihoods, O'Hara was one of the cronies helping the Family Compact maintain their hold on Upper Canada, and for that he got one of those sweetheart deals: 400 acres of land near the capital. The average Roncesvillian would probably side with Mckenzie and the rebels. So, that's why there's no O'Hara day, and there's no O'Hara parade, and not many people know about O'Hara and his battle in Roncesvalles.

There are several other O'Hara namesakes in the area (Constance, Fermanagh, West Lodge and Marion.) Marion is a street named after O'Hara's wife, who seems to have spelled her name Marian.

Another tidbit about Roncesvalles: in the local Catalan dialect, it is customary to pronounce the "c" as "th" in that lispy Spanish way. The Spanish Roncesvillians say it ron-thes-VAL-yes. Similarly, Barcelona is pronounced bar-the-LO-na.