When Captain Francesco de Cuellar struggled ashore from his stricken Armada ship, attempting to avoid the bloodthirsty troops of the Governor of Connacht, Sir Richard Bingham, he hardly expected that 411 years later the locals would be enjoying sangria, tapas and Spanish music at nearby hostelries in his honour.
Of about 800 men aboard the three Armada ships to have foundered off Streedagh strand in north Sligo in 1588, de Cuellar was one of the lucky ones. He made it ashore with a number of his men, avoided Bingham's troops and, with the help of a Cistercian monk, reached the castle of a friendly chieftain, McClancy at Lough Melvin. He also wrote a journal of his experiences, which gives a rare insight into life in the area at the time.
A Spanish Armada Commemorative Weekend will be held in the village of Grange, Co Sligo, next weekend and will include lectures, a guided tour tracing de Cuellar's steps and a memorial service on Streedagh strand for the hundreds of Spaniards who either drowned or were killed. Entertainment and food with a Spanish flavour will be available in local pubs on Friday night.
Grange has been fostering its links with Spain since the three Armada wrecks were discovered off Streedagh 14 years ago by a team of English divers. Lengthy court proceedings followed the discovery and the divers were denied salvage rights but received compensation from the State.
Groups from Armada associations in Spain have visited Grange and a memorial was erected to mark the 400th anniversary.
The Grange Armada Group, which is organising the weekend, hopes to establish the village as a centre for Armada studies, and has as a long-term aim further investigation and reclamation of the wrecks. Spokesman Mr Tony Toher said it was hoped that the de Cuellar route from Sligo to Antrim would become a tourist attraction. The idea has been developed as a cross-Border project with groups in Derry and Portrush.
Next weekend's lectures will be given by Mr Lucius Emerson, a Ballyshannon-based historian who has had a lifelong interest in the Armada, and Mr Stephen Birch, a member of the English diving team which explored the wrecks. Lectures will be held on Friday evening, September 24th, at 8 p.m., with an additional lecture on Saturday afternoon. The memorial service will held on the beach at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
A total of 31 Armada ships foundered in heavy storms along the Irish coast, most of them in Donegal. Mr Emerson highlights the different reception the Spaniards received in different parts of the country. Bingham's jurisdiction went only as far as south Donegal. Further north, the independent chieftains were happy to take them in and help them return to Spanish territory.
De Cuellar was so highly thought of by McClancy that the Irish chieftain offered him his sister in marriage in an attempt to persuade him to stay. This was after de Cuellar had helped defend McClancy's castle against a Fitzwilliam attack. The offer was turned down and de Cuellar made his way out of Ireland through Antrim and eventually back into the Spanish army. Spanish records show that he was then given back pay for all the time he had spent in Ireland.