2nd Spanish Armada 1596. Spain and England had been at war for nearly twelve years with neither side gaining the upper hand. The result of the intervention of Philip II in the religious war in France in support of the Catholic League, meant that Spanish forces had established coastal garrisons along the French and Flemish coast by the late 1580s. These bases had a huge strategic value because they allowed England to be threatened by the Spanish fleet and troops. England on the other hand had also intervened in France, but in support of King Henry IV of France, as a result of
Spanish Armada in Ireland south, in 1853, an anchor was recovered from another unknown Armada wreck. In the summer of 2014, a new initiative to locate the remains of "San Marcos", commences dive operations. The initiative called the San Marcos Project has assembled a group of academics, scientists and divers, employing cutting edge search and survey techniques. www.sanmarcos.ie "The Grainuaile Suite" (1985), an orchestral treatment of the life of the Irish sea-queen Gráinne O'Malley by Irish composer Shaun Davey, contains a lament on the Spanish landings in Ireland, sung by Rita Connolly. The wrecking of "La Girona" was commemorated in illustrations of the Armada