La Trinidad Valencera and Girona

A number of large ships from the Spanish Armada succeeded in skirting the North of Scotland to perish in the stormy Irish seas. Travel to Ireland and see the astonishing salvages.

Gold from the Girona

La Trinidad Valencera was the fourth largest ship in the Spanish Armada, which sunk in Kinnagoe Bay, Donegal off the north west of Ireland during a violent storm in the autumn of 1588. Some 400 years later the City of Derry Sub Aqua Club recovered a host of interesting artefacts from the wreck. A number of these are on display with a new audiovisual exhibition of the recovery process at the Tower Museum in Derry, Northern Ireland. The exhibition features many of the artefacts - cannons, textiles, pottery, wooden and pewter dishes, goblets, shoes and coins - recovered from the sunken ship and others on loan from the Ulster Museum, the Science Museum, the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Armouries.

Girona
Another exhibition, which unfortunately is closed at the moment but reopens in the spring 2009, is located at the Ulster Museum. Here the fabulous riches which were salvaged from The Girona are kept.

The Girona was a large galleass carrying 1,300 men, nearly three times the number of people, she was designed to have on board. On the morning of 26 October 1588, heavily overladen and battered by ferocious storms off the northern Irish coast, the Girona sank near the Giant's Causeway, with the loss of all but five souls.

A dazzling amount of Renaissance jewellery and coins was recovered from the site, the personal effects of the officers on board and those rescued from the other two ships. These young nobles, from some of the wealthiest families in Spain, would have been carrying some of their personal fortunes in coinage. Among the treasures found were religious medals and crosses belonging to all ranks, a heavy gold ring bearing the initials 'IHS', undoubtedly worn by one of the Jesuit priests accompanying the fleet, and a beautifully intricate Agnus Dei reliquary in the form of a little golden book with a depiction of St John the Baptist on the cover. Several crosses of orders of chivalry were also found and eleven portrait cameos of Byzantine caesars in lapis lazuli, gold, enamel and pearls would once have been part of a magnificent chain or collar. Amazingly, in 1998, 30 years after the initial excavation, the 12th cameo was found. One of the best-loved pieces in the collection is however the little gold salamander pendant with three of its original nine rubies still in place. The winged lizard is said in legend to be able to extinguish and survive fire – a good mascot to have on board a wooden fighting ship. The salamander also appears on one of 12 gold rings found at the wreck site. Over 1,300 coins – gold, silver and copper – were recovered, minted in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mexico and Peru from metals mined in the Spanish-conquered lands of the New World.