Clare County Museum (Ireland)

I learned a most astonishing thing at the Clare County Museum in Ennis, Ireland.

In September 1588, following its defeat by English naval forces and attempting to return home, up to 24 of the 130 vessels of the Spanish Armada were shipwrecked … off the western coast of Ireland.

Public Domain, Link

Perhaps 5,000 men died either in the wrecks or at the hands of Queen Elizabeth I’s soldiers if they survived.

There are artifacts, at least one of which is in the Clare County Museum. I gather there is archaeology as well: see Historians May Have Discovered a Mass Grave From the Spanish Armada (TheJournal.ie, November 2015).

Door featuring a carved cornucopia in the "Water" section of the "Riches of Clare" exhibit at the Clare County Museum. Reputed to have washed ashore due west of Ennis at Spanish Point (!), following the sinking of an Armada ship in 1588. — Door featuring a carved cornucopia in the “Water” section of the “Riches of Clare” exhibit at the Clare County Museum. Reputed to have washed ashore due west of Ennis at Spanish Point (!), following the sinking of an Armada ship in 1588.

I very much want to learn more about this. To read:

The Spanish Armada and the Fate of Some of its Ships off the West Clare Coast (John O’Brien, The Other Clare, vol. 3, 1979, via Clare County Library)
The Spanish Armada, Ireland and the Black Irish Explained (IrishCentral, July 2013)
Ireland and the Spanish Armada (The Irish Story, August 2015)
Spanish Armada in Ireland (Wikipedia)

Clare County Museum is museum no. 72 in my #100museums challenge (see 100 Museums Challenge).