Story of Irish Chieftain Red Hugh O’Donnell as Spanish archaeologists hunt for his 400-year-old burial place
ARCHAEOLOGISTS in Spain are hoping to find the 400-year-old burial place of Irish Chieftain Red Hugh O’Donnell.
Historical experts in Valladolid, a city in the north west of the country, believe the tragic historical figure’s remains may lie within the old Convent of San Francisco.
The Chapel of Wonders is believed to be inside the convent, the same chapel Christopher Columbus was buried in.
Thanks to work to pedestrianise the busy Constitucion Street, archaeologists are hoping to find the remains of the two historical figures in the convent, which was once one of the biggest in Europe.
By finding O’Donnell’s body, historical experts hope they may finally solve the mystery surrounding his death in 1602 once and for all.
Here The Irish Sun finds out more about the Irish chieftain who took on the English.
RED HUGH O'DONNELL
Born in Lifford in 1572 to the Lord of Tír Chonaill, as a child Red Hugh - or Aodh Ruadh - was fostered by several of the noble houses of Ulster.
However, just before his fifteenth birthday O’Donnell was captured by the English and was taken to Dublin Castle, where he was kept prisoner for four years.
He managed to escape and made his way back to Donegal, travelling in freezing winter weather.
According to historians, it was on this journey he lost his toes to frostbite - which should make it easy for archaeologists to identify his skeletal remains.
After he was declared Chieftain O’Domhnaill in 1592, Red Hugh led the O’Donnell clan - along with their allies, the Maguires and the O’Neills - in the Nine Years War against the English.
The Battle of Curlew Mountain in 1599 was one of Red Hugh’s greatest victories.
In 1601, help for the Irish chieftains arrived from Spain, who shared a common enemy in the English.
However, the Spanish forces landed in the small unknown port of Kinsale and Red Hugh set out on the long journey to meet them.
THE BATTLE OF KINSALE
This journey was to end badly as the English army, led by Lord Mountjoy, arrived to lay siege to the town.
The Battle of Kinsale - which took place in December 1601 according to the English and January 1602 according to the Spanish and Irish - was to prove disastrous for O’Donnell and his men.
Following their defeat, O’Donnell announced his intention to travel to Spain to seek further assistance from King Philip III.
It was while waiting for an audience with the King in Simancas, near Valladolid, that O’Donnell fell ill in September 1602.
While some legends claim he was poisoned by an English spy, James Blake, other modern historians reckon it may have been a bad case of tapeworm that took the heroic fighter’s life. He was just 29.
Hispano-Irish Association member Carlos Burgos told Donegal Daily: “There are still rumours today that it could have been an English spy who poisoned him.
“Whatever his fateful destiny, O’Donnell, whom some also call the Irish Prince, was buried in the Franciscan convent of the capital.
'STRONG ALLIANCE'
“Red Hugh O’Donnell had already had other contacts with the Spanish crown, when having asked King Filipe III for help in his constant struggles against an England that sought to gain control of the nation.
“Hence, a strong alliance was forged between Ireland and Spain, further fostered by both being Catholic territories in confrontations against the British, mainly Protestants.”
According to Burgos, the high regard in which the king held O’Donnell was what saw him honoured with a special burial.
And, as a further mark of King Philip’s respect for him, Red Hugh O’Donnell was buried within the Chapel of Wonders in the grounds of the Franciscan convent in Valladolid, where Christopher Columbus’s remains were also interred.
The convent disappeared in 1836 and with it O’Donnell’s remains.
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Following O’Donnell’s death, his brother Rory took over as Earl of Tyrconnell.
But just six years later, in 1607, he fled Ireland with Hugh O’Neill in the Flight of the Earls.
It marked the end of Gaelic Ireland.
