Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Captain Cuellar's Adventures in Connacht and Ulster (Author: Francisco de Cuellar)

Francisco de Cuellar was aboard the last group of Armada ships wrecked in Ireland, on 25 September 1588. He came ashore at Streedagh strand, north of Sligo Bay, territory controlled by the O'Conors. Moving on into Leitrim he met with Brian O'Rourke of Breffni, before staying at the McClancy castle at Rossclogher for three months. He then went to the place where ‘Alonzo de Leya y el Conde de Paredes y Don Tomas de Granvela’ were lost, which is taken to be Dunluce Castle on the north coast of Antrim, east of Portrush. Then, in search of passage to Scotland, he went to the territory of O'Cahan around Coleraine. His use of the term ‘savage’ to describe the Irish should not necessarily be regarded as pejorative. Inhabitants of Galicia in Spain were referred to in the same way by contemporaries. Although written ‘with emotion recollected in tranquility’, this eye-witness account of Gaelic life makes Francisco de Cuellar's letter a most valuable social document of the period.

Hugh Allingham and Robert Crawford (Ballyshannon 1897), from Cuellar's descriptions.