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Archaeologists Find 16 Skeletons in Hunt for Irish Chieftain
Excavation Underway in Spanish City to Recover Bones of Ancient Irish Chieftain
An excavation is underway in Valladolid, Spain to recover the remains of ancient Irish chieftain Red Hugh O'Donnell, who died and was buried Spain in 1602.
Irish Central, 23 MAY 2020
Red Hugh O’Donnell died and was buried in Valladolid, Spain in 1602.
Archaeologists said they believe they are “close” to finding the remains of Irish chieftain Red Hugh O’Donnell as they excavate the area in Valladolid, Spain, where the historic Irish figure is believed to have been buried.
On May 22, reports from the excavation site revealed that bones - a skull and a femur - had been uncovered. Archaeologists believe that O’Donnell’s remains will be relatively easy to identify as he was missing toes following a case of frostbite that he incurred while hiding in the Wicklow mountains after escaping from Dublin Castle where he was imprisoned.
Donegal News reports that Donegal man Brendan Rohan, who visited Valladolid last year to search for O'Donnell's burial site, was key to launching the excavation that began earlier this week.
Of his visit last year, Rohan told the publication: “Of course it was a fruitless search, and I was passed from ‘billy to jack’ and searched many ‘blind alleys’ for three days until I met the Director of Cultural Tourism who had a ‘gra’ for Ireland and I enthused him with the idea.
“He passed me to the Director of Archives who more or less told me I was wasting my time because in the secularisation of Spain in the 1800s, that whole property was sold and levelled and the gravesite lost.
“However, the day after I left, some other officials began contacting me, and bit by bit, an idea was born, and eventually a full-blown archaeological dig was authorised, which began on Monday morning and I am delighted.”
Valladolid’s city council said in a statement this week that it had begun an excavation effort to locate the 'Maravillas' chapel of the disappeared convent of San Francisco where Red Hugh O’Donnell is believed to have been buried. The site is also where Christopher Columbus is believed to have been buried about a century prior.
The city council said the discovery of the remains of the two historic figures “would be an important finding from a historical perspective, but also for the dissemination of the city in Spain and abroad.”
The operation is being led by investigators Óscar Burón and Juan Carlos Urueña who are working in conjunction with archaeologists Olatz Villanueva (also a member of the Simancas University Institute of History) and Jesús Misiego.
The statue of Red Hugh O'Donnell in Co Donegal (Getty Images)
Red Hugh O’Donnell, who chief archaeologist Óscar Burón this week described as an “Irish prince and the hero of the resistance against the English,” ruled over parts of the north of Ireland alongside his father-in-law Hugh Mor O’Neill in the 16th century.
In 1593, the noble duo mounted an effort against English rule in Ireland, now known as the Nine Years War. While the Irish maintained some degree of success earlier in the war, the Battle of Kinsale in 1602 proved to be disastrous, and Red Hugh O’Donnell afterward fled to Spain to seek support from King Felipe III.
As Valladolid’s city council puts it, “The open enmity between England and a Spain that still remembered the affront of the Invincible Army made the Spanish king a natural ally of the Irish.”
When traveling to meet with King Felipe III, O’Donnell died in Simancas on September 10, 1602; he was either poisoned by James “Spanish” Blake, an Irish traitor, or died due to an infection from a tapeworm. He was 29 years old.
King Felipe III prepared the Irish man's funeral with royal honors in the convent of San Francisco. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, O’Connell’s body "was conveyed to the king’s palace at Valladolid in a four-wheeled hearse, surrounded by countless numbers of the king’s state officers, council, and guards, with luminous torches and bright flambeaux of beautiful wax-light burning on each side of him.”
O'Donnell is remembered today as a hero in Spain and in 2011, a plaque was unveiled in the Callejón de San Francisco in Valladolid, in memory of his burial in the old convent of the same name.
"In search of Red Hugh O'Donnell, the Irish William Wallace who ended his days in Valladolid and was buried in the disappeared convent of San Francisco #odonellVLL "
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