A Gypsy among Savages

Francisco settled down to an easy life amongst the people of Rosclogher. His host, Tadhg MacClancy had been Lord of Dartry for six years. He claimed the lordship in 1582 after killing his brother, Cathal og, who was then in power. He was a rebel chieftain and, aided by his overlord Brian O’Rourke, strenuously resisted any interference by English officials in his lands. It was a small but strategic territory in the most northerly portion of Breifne. North of Lough Melvin his lands bordered territory controlled by the O’Gallaghers who fortified the southern frontier of Tirconnell. The castles they occupied at Ballyshannon and Belleek stood within five miles of Rosclogher. The lands of Magheraboy beyond the northeastern shores of Lough Melvin traditionally belonged to the Maguires, Lords of Fermanagh. They were held for them by the O’Flanagans of Tuatha Ratha (Toora), whose stronghold was a crannog in Carrick lake, east of Garrison. Brian O’Rouke however held claims to this area and at this time appears to have controlled Magheraboy. MacClancy’s neighbours on the south were the O’Harts of Carbury with whom he seems to have had a cordial relationship. The MacClancy’s were fosters to at least one son of an O’Hart chief.

De Cuellar reckoned MacClancy’s lands, which were ‘all flooded and marshy’, to be more than forty leagues long and wide. It covered the modern Barony of Rosclogher in present day north Leitrim. Straddling the Dartry mountains he controlled the coast between Ballyshannon and Grange. MacClancy’s principal strongold was at Rosclogher. Here he had a village on the shores of Lough Melvin. De Cuellar has left a description of this castle, the ruins of which still stand in the lake. ‘the castle is extremely strong and very hard to take unless it is battered by artillery, since it is founded in a very deep lake that is over a league wide in some parts, and three or four leagues long, with an outlet to the sea, through which it is not possible to enter the lake, even if its waters are swollen by tides. That is why this castle can be taken neither by water nor from the promontory which is closest to it. Neither can it be damaged because, for a league around the town, which is built on terra firma, lies a marsh that is breast-deep, so that not even the locals can reach it except by footpaths.’ There was a second castle near the coast at Duncarbery commanding the road from Ballyshannon to Sligo beside the present village of Tullaghan. In 1586, two years before the arrival of the Armada, there are indications that Tadhg was building a third stronghold on the borders of his territory. In August of that year the Governor of Connacht, Richard Bingham, sought permission to attack him ‘and suppress and put down the castle, the which he is now fortifying and building in most suspicious sort.’ There are traditions of a castle in the townland of Derrylihan in County Sligo on the mountain road three miles from Grange. This townland marked the extent of MacClancy’s lands in this area. The O’Harts of Grange controlled the neighbouring lands. A castle placed in this location is featured on two maps of the region. One, drawn in 1589 by Richard Bingham, illustrates where the three ships sank at Streedagh, the other was drawn up by Richard Bartlett in 1603 depicting southwest Ulster. Both maps place a castle in this area, close to Benwiskin mountain. There is no evidence of the castle today.

In the carefree security of Rosclogher the first few weeks in the village must have seemed like a holiday for the Armada survivors. The Spaniards were an exotic attraction for the villagers. A shared religion and a common hostility towards the English made the Spaniards popular. Francisco certainly enjoyed the attention. He earned a certain amount of notoriety amongst the locals and became an outrageous flirt with females. ‘My master’s wife was extremely beautiful and was very kind to see me. One day, she and other female friends and relatives were sitting in the sun with me, asking me what life was like in Spain and other countries and, in the end, they came up to me and asked me to have a look at their palms and tell their fortunes. Giving thanks to God, since I could hardly fall any lower than to be a gypsy among savages, I set to examining each one’s hand, telling them a great deal of nonsense, which pleased them so much that there was no other Spaniard better than I, nor any whom they held in higher esteem. And by night and by day men and women would pester me to tell their fortunes until I found myself under such pressure that I was forced to beg my master’s leave to depart from his castle. He declined my request, but gave orders that I was not to be annoyed or have my life made a misery.’ De Cuellar was evidently a good storyteller with not a little charm. He seems to have had a personality and wit people warmed to. However, he does appear to have become an unwitting victim of his own popularity. Having a constant stream of men and women follow him with requests to read their palms was a rather pleasant annoyance compared to fleeing hostile robbers and English soldiers. And for the chieftain of the territory to have to scold his subjects for pestering the Spaniard and then order them to leave him alone must have made for quite a comic spectacle.

Like many inhabitants of the region MacClancy’s people had been down to Streedagh during the days after the shipwreck to pick through the wreckage and the evidence of money and jewelry which they showed to Francisco suggested their efforts were well rewarded. During these days De Cuellar had time to sit back and observe life in Rosclogher. As much as the Spaniards were attractions of great curiosity for the locals so, too, was the Irish way of life for the survivors of the Armada. Gaelic Ireland remained almost untouched by continental trends and fashions. It wasn’t influenced by the renaissance and remained virtually untouched by the Reformation. Despite the Elizabethan administration’s efforts to abolish archaic Gaelic customs and traditions, at the time of the Armada the old way of life, its structures and institutions, remained firmly intact. While the modern, urbane Spaniards and, indeed, English officials in Ireland viewed the Gaelic Irish as savages they were merely confronted by a civilization that had evolved on a completely parallel plane to their own. Gaelic Ireland, during the late sixteenth, had attained its own levels of sophistication in poetry, music, history and law. It was an aristocratic, clan-based society which still cherished Iron Age ideals of the heroic warrior. After two thousand years of evolution the Gaelic Ireland at the time of the Armada was the direct offspring of a society older than, and untouched by, the civilization of the Roman Empire.

De Cuellar, in his recollections of his stay with MacClancy, shows himself to have been sharp, vivid observer of those around him. The description he put to paper remains an important snapshot of life towards the end of the Gaelic era. Little did he know he was producing a document of great importance for our own generation four centuries later as we look back upon a way life utterly different from our own. Within a generation the power of the Gaelic Lords had been broken. The Gaelic lifestyle was becoming dismantled as English laws and customs were enforced by a new regime. De Cuellar’s description of what he saw is clear, concise, and best read untouched by any commentary.

Typically, these savages live like beasts in the mountains, some of which are very rugged in that part of Ireland where we were shipwrecked. They live in thatched cabins and are all big men, handsome and well-built, and fleet as the roe-deer. They eat only once a day, and this has to be at night, and what they normally eat is oaten bread and butter. They drink sour milk for they have no other drink. And they don’t drink water, though it’s the best in the world. On feast days they eat some kind of half-cooked meat, with neither bread nor salt, for such is their custom. They dress accordingly, in tight hose and short loose coats of very coarse goat’s hair. They wrap up in blankets and wear their hair down to their eyes. They are great travelers and can endure any hardship; they are continually at war with the English garrisoned there by the Queen; against these they defend themselves and don’t let them into their lands, which are all flooded and marshy: the whole area is more than forty leagues long and wide.

What these people are most inclined to is thieving and robbing one another; so that not a day passes among them without a call-to-arms, because as soon as the people in the next village find out that in this one there are cattle or anything else, they come armed at night and all hell breaks loose and they slaughter one another. And as soon as the English from the garrisons find out who has rounded up and stolen the most cattle, they are sent to seize them. All that these people can do is retreat into the mountains with their women and herds, for they have no other property, furniture or clothes. They sleep on the floor, on freshly-cut rushes, full of water and ice. Most of the women are very beautiful, but badly turned out: they wear no more than a shift, and a shawl that they wrap round themselves, and a piece of linen on their heads which is folded several times and knotted at the forehead. They work hard, and are good housekeepers, in their own way.

These people call themselves Christians: Mass is said among them and they observe the rules of the Roman Church. Nearly the majority of their churches, monasteries and hermitages have been demolished by the English who are garrisoned there and by those from the region who have joined them, who are as bad as they are. In short: in this kingdom there is neither justice nor reason, so that everyone does as he pleases.’