Doomed Armada was cruisin’ for a bruisin’

IT’S 50 years since the City of Derry Sub Aqua Club found the Spanish Armada galleon La Trinidad Valencera at the bottom of Kinnagoe Bay, Co Donegal.

The footage captured by the team of divers now plays in Derry’s impressive Tower Museum as part of the Armada exhibition. Many of the conserved items from the ship are on display there and at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

Both museums carry exemplary explanations of what the marine handbags were all about. It seems that the defeat of the Armada (left) had huge consequences for Ireland, Britain and Spain. And perhaps even this column.

It all began with the Spanish King Philip’s resolve to have it out once and for all with Elizabeth I.

The plan was that the Armada would sail to Flanders to transport an army across the Channel to England. But the Spanish fleet came under attack from the English. The Armada managed to regroup and withdraw north, only for the wind to change abruptly — spelling ultimate disaster for the Spaniards. In a panic, the commander of the Spanish fleet, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, sent a message to King Philip asking him if he was sure God had blessed the venture.

Whether God had done so, we’ll never know. But Francis Drake, fresh from his bowling, chased the Spanish fleet up the English Channel.

The Armada decided to return to Spain following the coastline of Scotland and Ireland. Severe storms wrecked several vessels, and the Armada was vanquished. So, but for an unlucky wind, you’d probably be reading this column in Spanish; or possibly in Irish.

The Girona Treasure, now exhibited in the Ulster Museum, was gathered from another Armada ship that foundered off the north coast. Dunluce Castle, the northerly redoubt of Sorley Boy O’Donnell, was refurbished on the strength of plundered Spanish swag. Nobody up there expected the Spanish Armada, but the gold came in very handy, muchos gracias.