Sligo remembers 1,100 Spanish Armada lives lost in Remembrance Parade

This year’s Spanish Armada Remembrance weekend included a series of concerts, lectures, walks and other special events from September 14-17. 

Sligo Champion Ciaran Byrne writes: 

“Their lives were poignantly remembered, a cross for each of the 1,100 souls etched inside a giant circle in the sand on a windswept Streedagh beach in Co Sligo.

 “The crosses were drawn around a straw boat, representing a sunken Spanish Armada ship (one of three that sank here in September 1588), before senior officers from today’s Spanish Navy, including Vice Admiral Torres Pineyro, laid wreaths and soberly saluted their memory.

 “After 435 years, the sands of time and history may have dramatically shifted, but in Sligo on an autumn weekend, the deaths, in cruel and brutal conditions, of these Spanish Armada soldiers were acknowledged.

The deaths of 1,100 Spanish Armada soldiers and sailors 435 years ago this September was commemorated this weekend at Streedagh beach in Co. Sligo

 “After being defeated in battle by the English, the Armada ships took the long and dangerous route around the Scottish and Irish coasts back to Spain. After the ships sank off the Sligo coast amid violent storms, many sailors who managed to survive made it ashore only to be attacked and killed by waiting English soldiers.

“The story of what happened that night was recounted by a Spanish Armada sailor, Captain Francisco de Cuéllar.

“Two senior Spanish naval officers from the OPV Centinela, a Spanish Naval Vessel, laid a floral wreath at the Spanish Armada monument overlooking Streedagh beach on Saturday. They then attended the commemoration on the beach, along with members of the public and local representatives.

“Eddie O’Gorman, Chair of Spanish Armada Ireland, said: ‘The resumption of the courtesy visits of ships of the Spanish Naval Service after the hiatus of the Covid years is heart-warming and signals the respect that the modern Armada holds for the work of Spanish Armada Ireland.’”