Armada Connection
La Girona was a Galleass of the Spanish Armada
and normally carried a complement of 121 sailors,186 soldiers, 50 bronze cannons and 224 rowers. The ship foundered in horrendous seas during the night of October 28th, 1588 on Lacada Point across the bay from the Giants Causeway. It is estimated that she had a complement of around 1200 men on board, the crews of three other ships that had wrecked down the west coast of Ireland, there were only a handful survived. It was at the harbour in May 1967 that the first of 12,000 artefacts recovered from the wreck site of the Spanish Galleass 'La Girona' came ashore. The Belgian marine archaeologist Robert Stenuit found and excavated the wreck site during 1967 and 1968 after intensive research through libraries in Europe.
When Robert Stenuit came to the Giants Causeway for the first time he went to view the site and picked up a local guide book which stated that Port na Spaniagh was the site of a Spanish Galleon, a treasure ship. The treasure had lain untouched for 380 years at one of the most visited sites in Ireland. Recovered items included gold and silver coins, jewellery, silver plates, a bronze cannon, and eleven of twelve 'lapis lazuli' cameos - Frank Madden, the licensee of the site, found the last cameo more recently - making the set complete. Many sailors retrieved from the shore, possibly noblemen, were buried in a large grave in St Cuthberts
near Dunluce Castle.