Nine canons were among the artefacts found last summer./ Photo: Underwater Archaeology Unit
Alberto Rubio. 01/02/2016
“A work straight from the heart”, is how the Irish Ambassador, David Cooney described the book by the journalist David Revelles, En los confines de Hibernia, in which he relates little known details of the shipwrecks of the Invincible Armada along the coasts of Ireland.
During the presentation, held in the bookshop of the Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) on 19 January, Cooney pointed out that the work by the Catalan journalist “is different from the numerous academic works published up to now on the Invincible Armada.
“The book takes us from Dublin to the north and west coasts of Ireland, visiting places linked to the Armada, small cities, towns and remote locations”. And, he went on, “More than the physical places, David tells us about the people, the real people. The people who lived and died more than four hundred years ago, and the people who live there today”.
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Artefacts are being treated for their conservation in the Irish National Museum
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David Revelles describes the destination of those who embarked in the Armada and focuses on the peripety of two of these men as a leitmotif. But he also records the work of a group of enthusiasts in Ireland, comprising historians and underwater divers who were able to recover remains of the ships that sank
The Ambassador emphasised in his speech, in Spanish, that “there is immense empathy bertween the Irish and the Spaniards” and said that “if those Spaniards who fought to reach the shore in 1588 did not receive the famous Céad Míle Fáilte, the hundred thousand welcomes, promised by our Tourist Office, we are doing the impossible to compensate them for that now”.
David Cooney, who remembered with affection the visit by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia to Ireland, said that in spite of the added difficulties of climate change and the economic crisis “in an operation carried out last summer, a number of artefacts were recovered from the seabed including nine canons, some beautifully ornamented, and the wheel of a large gun carriage”. All these artefacts “are being treated for their conservation by the Irish National Museum”.
