Antonio Irineo Villarreal

Who was Antonio Irineo Villarreal?

Antonio Irineo Villarreal González was a Mexican politician and soldier.

From 1903, Villarreal turned against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. He published a number of liberal magazines and was subsequently imprisoned. After his release he fled to the United States where he joined, the anarchist Mexican Liberal Party of Ricardo Flores Magon. At the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, he joined the Progressive Constitutionalist Party of Francisco Madero, and after Madero's victory in 1911 he was appointed consul in Barcelona.

After the coup attempt and assassination of Madero by Victoriano Huerta in 1913 he returned to Mexico. He joined the constitutionalist army of Pablo González Garza and Venustiano Carranza. He took part in the Convention of Aguascalientes, and remained as one of the few neutrals there when Villa and Carranza together walked out. On 31 October 1914, he was elected president of the convention, but soon handed over that function to Eulalio Gutierrez . Villarreal was then made governor of Nuevo León, where he had a number of progressive reforms. A year later he was ousted by the forces of Carranza and he was forced to flee the country.