Ballycroy father and son find Spanish Armada gun

A Ballycroy father and son believe they have found a handgun which went down with the Spanish Armada in 1588 and has rested on the seabed for more than 430 years. William and Frank Kirwan were snorkelling along the coastline near their home when they came across the relic and experts now believe it is the first hand-held gun from the doomed Armada ever found off the Irish coast.

“We actually found it in 2021, and knew it was something from the Armada because we all know one of the ships went down here in Ballycroy beside Fahy Castle,”William Kirwan told The Mayo News today. “We brought it to a number of people to try and find out what it was because it was covered with crustaceans but nobody could figure out what it was. Yesterday, experts from the National Museum came here to Ballycroy to see it and immediately said 'That's a Spanish gun.'

“They're very excited and have taken it away now for analysis. We've also found other relics and the experts are overjoyed,” William added.

His son, Frank found the gun in a tidal channel after a storm and immediately realised it was something out of the ordinary. “We're in the sea a lot and come across lots of different things, but as soon as I saw the gun I knew it was different. We could see the wood on it was tooled and well-manufactured, so we thought it might be a piece of a wooden cabinet or something like that, but we researched it and figured out it was a gun.

“As soon as the experts saw it yesterday, they also believed it was a gun, so we're very excited,” Frank told The Mayo News.

The Kirwans believe the relic is the first to be recovered from the wreck of the La Rata Santa Maria Encoronada which ran aground on the Ballycroy coast on September 21, 1588.

The crew of 279 men then burned the ship to avoid its salvage by British forces and took refuge in the nearby villages. The survivors later made their way to Blacksod where they boarded another of the Spanish ships, which was moored in Blacksod Bay.

Over the years, many divers and treasure hunters have searched the sea bed off Fahy Castle looking for relics from the La Rata Santa Maria Encoronada, but nobody has had the success of the Kirwans.

“We've been told its the first relic from the ship which went down here in Fahy and the first hand-held gun from any of the Armada wrecks in Ireland, so it's very historic,” William concluded.