El Gale\u00f3n Andaluc\u00eda left Sligo yesterday evening after a 12-day stay<\/a>, following an earlier visit to Derry for the Foyle Maritime Festival.<\/p>\nThe vessel is expected later at the bay at Mullach Dearg in Cionn Caslach, where crew members are to lay a wreath in memory of sailors lost on the Donegal coast.<\/p>\n
The ship is travelling as a floating museum of Spanish maritime history and Andalusian culture during its 2026 European tour.<\/p>\n
Local history records that a Spanish Armada vessel ran aground near Mullach Dearg in 1588, with the beach’s Spanish Rock still associated with the account.<\/p>\n
The idea for the visit came from local man John Gallagher, known as John Paddy \u00d3g, after he saw El Gale\u00f3n Andaluc\u00eda in Derry.<\/p>\n
Mr Gallagher said he thought about the Spanish sailors lost off Mullach Dearg in 1588, and the possibility of marking that history while the galleon was in Irish waters.<\/p>\n
“Wouldn’t it be some catch to get the galleon to do a fly-by, as I called it, on their way back from Sligo,” he said. “I contacted my friend, John Joe McBride, and that’s how it started.”<\/p>\n
Further calls to BBC NI journalist Kevin Sharkey and Donegal TD Pat the Cope Gallagher helped turn the idea into a planned visit.<\/p>\n
Public viewing is expected to be possible from coastal vantage points including \u00c1rainn Mh\u00f3r, An Chruit, Gaoth Dobhair, Gabhla, Cionn Caslach and Mullach Dearg.<\/p>\n
El Gale\u00f3n Andaluc\u00eda is a full-scale replica of galleons used by Spain between the 16th and 18th centuries.<\/p>\n
The replica weighs around 500 tonnes and measures 49 metres in length, with four masts and almost 1,000 square metres of sail area.<\/p>\n
Since its launch, this galleon – crewed by between 15 and 35 people – has sailed across the world’s oceans and seas.<\/p>\n
It has crossed the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Atlantic, and navigated the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, South China Sea, Aegean Sea, Bosphorus, and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world’s largest replica of a traditional Spanish galleon is due off the west Donegal coast today to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-548896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}