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|The Spanish Armada and the fate of some of its ships off the west Clare coast|
The purpose of the Armada was firstly to enable the huge army of the Duke of Parma to cross in safety from France to England, and having accomplished this, its second objective was to wipe out the English fleet. From the mouth of the channel the Armada moved in a tight crescent-shaped formation, defying and puzzling the English. However, the English succeeded in breaking the formation by sending in fireships by night, causing panic among the Spaniards. In the subsequent sea battle of Gravelines, grave losses of ships and men were incurred by the Spanish fleet while the English fleet came through unscathed. The battle ended when ammunition stocks were almost exhausted. The wind changed to south south-west and the commander of the Armada, the Duke of Medina Sidonia ordered that the fleet should sail North, around Scotland and wide around Ireland and back to Spain.
When Boetius Clancy, High Sheriff of Clare, looked out
from the Cliffs of Moher at the two large ships lurking off the Aran
Islands on September 16th he was a rather worried man. News of the
sighting of ships was coming from all along the western coast of Ireland,
and the English authorities, with a lack of supplies and manpower,
were greatly concerned. The fact that the English fleet had been victorious
and that the Spanish fleet had been badly battered, was not generally
known. Indeed, rumours to the contrary were prevalent and it is only
natural that the possibility of an invasion of Ireland by an army of
such power and reputed ferocity, would frighten the English authorities.
This must be borne in mind when one reads the following extract from
an order signed by William Fitzwilliam, the Lord Deputy, but in no
way excuses the ruthless barbarity with which the order was carried
On the same day, another Spanish ship, the Zuniga,
appeared off Liscannor. This
was one of the four galleasses which sailed with the Armada, a long
narrow ship, powered both by oars and a large square sail. It had seen
a lot of action and distress, and supplies on board were severely rationed.
Clancy reported to Bingham, Governor of Connaught, that some Spaniards
had attempted a landing but had failed due to the terrible gales which
swept the west coast for most of that month. It would appear that the
Spaniards did succeed in landing and in getting some provisions and
on one of these expeditions, the ship's purser, Pietro Baptista of
Naples was captured by the English and he told them of the true state
of the fleet. The Zuniga left the bay and eventually reached Le Havre.
The winds which enabled the six ships to sail from Kilrush were not so kind to two other vessels, and scarcely had calm been restored at Kilrush, than news of disasters further north along the coast brought Nicholas Cahane rushing to the scene. On reaching the White Strand, north of Doonbeg he writes as follows:
"God hath cast to the shore a great ship from San Sebastian wherein were 300 men all drowned but three score or thereabout.
Another ship is cast in at I Brickane and lost, they had both men and munitions from Flanders."
Both of these ships were lost on September 20th. The San Esteban from the Guipuzcoa Squadron went down off the White Strand. It was a vessel of 736 tons and carried 246 men and 26 guns from the port of Corunna. The other ship seems to have been the San Marcos, a Portugese galleon of 790 tons. When it sailed from Corunna, it carried 33 guns and 409 men, 292 soldiers and 117 sailors. In addition there were servants so it is probable that over 450 lives were lost when this massive galleon broke up on the reef between Mutton Island and Lurga point.
Only four survivors were taken from
the San Marcos, and these, together with the survivors from the San
Esteban were held
prisoners by Clancy at his castle near Spanish Point. Evidently some
had been killed on the shore by both the English and the natives but
all those who were taken, were hanged on Cnoc na Crocaire near Spanish
Point. This mass execution was presided over by Clancy, Turlough O'Brien
of Tromra Castle, George Cusack, Captain Mordaunt and a Mr. Morton.
The bodies were buried in a mass grave known to this day as Tuama na
Clare County Library wishes to thank Clare
Local Studies Project