Wednesday September 21st 1588

On Wednesday September 21st 1588 Captain Manuel De Orlando stood on the deck of his ship, The Lavia. She lay at anchor half a league from a stretch of sand somewhere along the West coast of Ireland, but he wasn’t sure where. The ship was in poor condition. The hull was leaking badly and the men at the pumps were struggling to cope with the amount of water that was surging in. It had been a struggle to reach this coast. The boat had suffered battle damage six weeks ago during heavy fighting in the narrow seas between Dover and Calais and while she hadn’t sunk in the open Atlantic it had been a struggle to keep her seaworthy. The exhausted crew had done well to bring her to this coastline. But the men were in poor condition themselves. To be honest many of them were just about hanging on. There had been casualties in the fighting but disease had taken hold after two long months at sea. Contaminated water and rotting food supplies had infected the men with Dysentry and Typhus. This was more deadly than combat and disease exacted a far higher toll on crews than the fighting. To add to the difficulties what food supplies there were onboard were running precariously low. For over a month the men had been subsisting on reduced rations barely sufficient to keep them alive. Most of what was left was an unedible putrid mess. Disease and starvation were taking a sorry toll on the number of able bodied men that were left.

Orlando had sailed into this wide bay some days earlier around the 17th of September along with Captain Francisco Olanda in the Juliana and Juan de Bartolo’s ship the Santa Maria de Vision. These ships originally formed part of the one hundred and thirty strong fleet of the Great Armada of the Spanish King Philip II. Carrying some thirty thousand men Its mission had been to join up with another twenty thousand elite troops then fighting in Flanders under their brilliant commander, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, to invade England and depose Queen Elizabeth. The Armada had failed in its efforts to join up with Parma’s men at Dunkirk and had been pushed north past Scotland under heavy attacks by the English fleet. Endeavouring to limp back to Spain and avoid further attack by the fleet of England the Armada sailed on a wide arc west of Ireland into the Atlantic. In the ocean big Atlantic storms battered the fleet and dispersed it. Unable to complete the journey back to Spain small groups of stragglers and badly damaged ships turned towards Ireland in the hope of finding some respite.

By the first week of September the first of these ships had begun to spot the Irish coast. Sailing together, the Lavia, Juliana and Santa Maria de Vision had caught sight of the north coast of Ireland and followed the coastline south which had brought them into Donegal bay. Sailing across this bay a line of high cliffs of the north Mayo coast barred any further progress southwards and a heavy westerly gale had blown up making it impossible for the ships to clear the cape at Erris Head some forty miles to the west. In the face of this gale it was decided to turn around and run for shelter further back in the bay. Backtracking along the coastline Orlando, Bartolo and Olanda had found shelter of sorts in the lee of a low, rocky island called Inishmurray. Between this island and a small headland to the north the ships dropped anchor a few hundred meters off a broad stretch of sandy beach. It was an odd place to stop there were much safer anchorages at Kilalla, Sligo and many other small inlets which were scattered around the coastline of Donegal Bay. The place where they were anchored was known to locals as Streedagh.

Among those joining Orlando and his crew on the deck of The Lavia that morning were Captain Francisco De Cuellar and Martin De Aranda, a senior official of the Armada. De Aranda had saved De Cuellar’s life on August 10th after he was sentenced to death on charges of gross negligence. Francisco had been captain of the galleon The San Pedro when, on August 10th, his ship had been accused of breaking formation in the face of the enemy. De Cuellar as captain was personally held responsible for a breach of discipline which was punishable by death. He vigorously protested his innocence and De Aranda, in his capacity as the Judge Advocate of the Armada, investigated De Cuellar’s appeal against his sentencing and found De Cuellar innocent of the charges laid against him. De Cuellar was cleared and his life spared though he was stripped of his command of The San Pedro and remained onboard The Lavia in the company of De Aranda. During the ensuing weeks the two men became friends and now stood together with Captain Orlando to survey the scene before them.

Looking across the bay this morning De Cuellar and the Judge Advocate knew the situation was grim. Gale force winds blowing in from the West were strengthening and the seas which accompanied this storm were rising to a frightening degree. The ships had been anchored here for four days now but because of the head winds had been unable to attempt to leave the bay. High seas prevented any effort at landing men onto the coastline to search for supplies of food and fresh water. All that could be done was to remain at anchor and ride out this storm. If the winds changed direction it might be possible to look for fresh supplies on land and then sail around that western cape into open waters. However, for the moment, the only thoughts entertained by those onboard were to survive this storm intact. Large waves were crashing against the ship, battering the hull, washing over those on deck. The Lavia’s anchor cable ran taut, straining against its anchor which was struggling to maintain a grip on the sandy bottom. The surf foamed and surged high up onto the beach nearby as wave after wave was whipped in from the open seas. Nearby, the crews of the Santa Maria and the Juliana no doubt entertained similar thoughts. It must have been tough for Bartolo in the Santa Maria. His was a hospital ship and had taken many casualties on board after the engagements with the English fleet. Many of those men were doomed. The badly injured couldn’t possibly survive in these conditions. A lot of the seriously wounded had died before now anyway.

By early afternoon the storm had built into a terrible fury. Everybody onboard was getting nervous now. Spray whipped into faces of the men, stinging red rimmed eyes. Waves were crashing on deck now, knocking sailors off their feet sending them sliding across the slick boards. The hull shuddering as tons of water crashed into it. The crews of each ship, a short distance apart, could only watch one another, sit tight and hope everybody came through this storm in good order. If any one of the ships began to founder then those crew members would have to shift for themselves. It would be suicidal to attempt any assistance in this storm. The fate of approximately one thousand men lay in the lap of the Gods and a turn in the weather. But the weather didn’t improve, instead, the anchors, unable to hold in the soft sands of the seabed, gave way and, in quick succession, the three ships were hurled towards the shore.