A film about the adventures of a Spanish Armada survivor of the shipwrecks off the Sligo coast in 1588 is to be screened in Madrid, Spain, next week as part of Semana de Irlanda or Irish week.
As The Sligo Champion reports, the film entitled Armada 1588: Shipwreck & Survival, recounts the fortunes of Captain Francisco de Cuéllar, who was one of a small number to make it ashore at Sligo's Streedagh beach.
Three ships in the Armada fleet, La Lavia, Santa María de Visón and La Juliana, are known to have foundered off Streedagh on September 21st 1588, claiming approximately 1,100 lives, including soldiers and sailors.
De Cuéllar wrote a detailed account of the shipwrecks, and of the following seven months he spent on the run,
“From being hurled by the waves up onto the beach, until he escaped to the relative safety provided by some local Gaelic chieftains, de Cuéllar was in constant danger during the months he spent in Ireland,” Eddie O’Gorman, president of Spanish Armada Ireland, a voluntary group that produced the film, told the newspaper.
The film is being screened in two large venues in Madrid on March 12th, and both are already sold out.
Both Eddie and producer Mícheál Ó’Domhnaill co-wrote the script with film director Al Butler of Media Coop in Dublin.
The film was financed by the Department of Rural and Community Development under Town and Village Renewal funding, and supported by Sligo County Council.
Read The Sligo Champion here
