Pink wildflowers dance in the salty sea breeze, in the dramatic shadow of Sligo’s flat tabletop Ben Bulben Mountain, as rough waters of the Atlantic slope inward into Irish shores at Streedagh beach. The Wild Atlantic Way runs from north Donegal down to west Cork in Ireland, traversing isolated headlands, inlets, but I have just the time to explore a small stretch of this magnificent road. I chose to do a guided walk along the pebbles, headlands, dunes and bluffs above Streedagh with Auriel Robinson of Sea Trails, a knowledgeable and passionate maritime archaeologist.
We start our walk at the Spanish Armada memorial at the entrance to Streedagh beach shaped like a boat’s prow. The three-km long sandy beach is steeped in history, as the final resting place of three ships and up to 1,800 men from the wreckage of the Spanish Armada. Many vessels were ship-wrecked on Ireland’s west coast, but Streedagh is the only beach to have three shipwrecks. Of the 25 ships known to have sunk, seven have been located, and divers explored three wrecks in 1985. Guns and cannons and other relics have been recovered from the ocean bed.
We begin a circular tour walking along Streedagh beach with seaweed forming black carpets near the water and the beach littered with rocks and pebbles encrusted with some amazing samples of fossils that are approximately 300 million years old. No wonder, locals call it ‘the outdoor museum for sea creatures’. Some of the fossils are in limestone and others in shale while some sandstone bear trace fossils where animals have left their tracks and burrows.
We walk past the beach, climbing up a narrow path to a bluff. I am met with a panoramic sweep that has beautiful views of Benbulben and Inishmurray Island five miles out into the Atlantic on one side, and a gargantuan green stretch of grass on the other dotted with flowers and orchids. We are transfixed by the sight of an ancient wedge tomb in the centre. Megalithic stone-age people built wedge tombs, with a gallery and a passage to an inner chamber to house the remains of the dead along with pottery and their weapons. In the distance is the flat-topped Inishmurray island. It was a retreat for St. Molaise who founded a monastery there in the 6th Century. The last of the islanders moved to the mainland in 1957. Today, Inishmurray is a wildlife sanctuary where you can spot birds like Arctic tern, geese, petrel and gulls.
Auriel transports us back to 1588. The Armada was amassed to attack and, if possible, wipe out the English navy fleet. But in the battle of Grave lines, the Spanish lost and the fleet fled north going around Scotland and Ireland in the hope of returning home. The ships were attempting to shelter from an Atlantic storm, when the commanders made a navigational error that brought the fleet too close to the Atlantic coast. They were wrecked. The sailors who landed at Streedagh were massacred by English troops garrisoned in Sligo; some survived with the help of some Irish chieftains.
Captain Francisco de Cuellar wrote about his misfortunes. Local inhabitants robbed and stripped those who came ashore. But de Cuellar clung to a piece of wood, floated ashore and hid among rushes. He remarkably returned to Spain. Auriel reads out portions of his touching letter as we head back. That night I dream of fleets of ships and galleons of gold coins crashing against a pasture with brilliant pink wildflowers.