Press release
Remarkable shared heritage of Spanish Armada highlighted at Sligo seminar
From Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Published on
Last updated on
A National Monuments Service seminar in Sligo today (Friday 20 September) will bring together underwater archaeology and heritage professionals to discuss the 16th-century Spanish Armada heritage off Ireland’s coast.
Attendees at the ‘1588 Armada: Ireland and Spain – a Shared Underwater Cultural Heritage’ event will hear of the strengthening cooperation between Ireland’s National Monuments Service (NMS) and the Ministry of Culture, Spain to protect and raise awareness of this Armada heritage and of other Spanish ships lost in Irish waters over the centuries. Ongoing research, supported by archaeological discoveries, continues to add to this shared underwater cultural heritage.
Updates will be provided on joint historical research as well as the development of a new National Strategy for the Management and Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Ireland and the steps being taken by Ireland to ratify the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage.
Minister of State with responsibility for Nature, Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan T.D. stated:
“For 450 years an outstanding heritage has lain off our shores. The 16th-century Armada fleet perfectly reflects the conflicts and complexities of a shared European history. Maritime heritage often connects nations, which is illustrated by the Armada’s fleet, with vessels from several nations including Portugal, Italy, Croatia and Spain lying off our shores.
We are the custodians of a shared Armada heritage that means a great deal to the communities of Sligo, Ireland, and Spain. We will continue to strengthen our engagement with Spanish colleagues to ensure that the Armada, and its historical context, is understood and protected into the future.”
Minister Noonan added:
“It was the 1980’s Armada discoveries at Streedagh which really encouraged the State to focus on and protect underwater heritage, including most recently the discovery of three historic wrecks off Portmarnock Strand which featured in the media. I am happy to announce that the National Monuments Service is now taking the first steps to prepare a national strategy for the management and protection of Ireland’s underwater cultural heritage. This has involved extensive consultation with stakeholders as well as the important community engagement which will be essential to its success. I am confident that it will set out a visionary approach in line with international best practices.”
Michael MacDonagh, Chief Archaeologist with the National Monuments Service, explained:
“Shipwrecks capture the imagination, ships lost in mere moments and sealed by time. We are connected with Spain in both history and the present through the Armada story, the shipwrecks here in Sligo, as well as our continued work together on the shared goal to research and protect them.”
Carmen Cabrera Lucio-Villegas Deputy Director for the Management and Coordination of Cultural Heritage from Spain’s, Ministry of Culture, will speak about collaboration projects with the NMS and UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage representatives will join panel and group meetings.
Prof Jane Ohlmeyer, Erasmus Smith Professor of Modern History at Trinity College Dublin, will deliver a keynote lecture on the historical context of links between Spain and Ireland with a talk titled: ‘Our shared heritage: commonalities across centuries.’
The National Museum of Ireland will speak about the historic background to the Sligo Armada discoveries and its conservation of objects recovered from the wrecks.
Additional talks will discuss recent marine sonar surveys of Armada wreck sites at Streedagh in Sligo and in the Blasket Sound in Co. Kerry, and a visual diary of the 2015 investigations by NMS on La Juliana wreck at Streedagh.
Local community involvement in Sligo’s Armada heritage will be highlighted at the seminar, which takes place ahead of the annual ‘Remembering the Armada’ commemorations at Streedagh, led by Spanish Armada Ireland and the Grange Association.
A video of the National Monuments Service interacting with the Armada remains can be viewed here:
ENDS
Armada Wrecks at Streedagh Beach, Sligo
La Juliana, a vessel, from Barcelona, was wrecked at Streedagh along with the other two ships, La Lavia from Venice and Santa Maria de Visón from Dubrovnik, on the 21 September 1588, with the cumulative loss of over 1,100 lives. The three ships formed part of the Spanish fleet of 130 ships, 26 of which were in total lost around the coast of Ireland.
At 860 tons, La Juliana carried 325 soldiers and a crew of 70 mariners. A noteworthy survivor of La Juliana was Pedro Blanco who subsequently entered the service of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone. The most famous survivor of Streedagh is Captain Francisco de Cuellar who wrote his detailed account of the sinking and of his time in Ireland thereafter, thereby giving a wonderful insight into the living conditions that prevailed in the northwest of Ireland at that time.
The collection of 12 cannon from Streedagh, in such excellent condition and representing foundries from Genoa to Sicily to Constantinople, is a truly unique survival from this period and has garnered much attention from international scholars as well as from media, especially in the Spanish-speaking parts of the world.