By: Enda Boyle

After chart and charter were drawn up
the battle-bugle sounded over A Coruña
a fleet was anchored in the harbour.
One-hundred-and-thirty ships furnished
with bleached sails and gilded crosses
awaited the orders of Duke Medina.

On the Twentieth of July Fifteen-eighty-eight
La Trinidad Valencera Italian merchant ship
captured and conscripted into the Armada
fitted with copper and brass canons marked
with the seal of King Philp set sail for battle.

God’s winds would guide the vessel northwards
Over the tide-churning seas of the North Atlantic
towards the coarse shoreline of the British Isles,
towards victory and honour for Greater Spain.

He blew with His winds, and they were scattered

Four centuries later in Kinnagoe Bay County Donegal
Billy Murray a weekend diver searching for shell-fish
Saw something shine among the rocks of the shore
breaking he surface he heard shouts from his college.
“Billy come quickly there’s a cannon under the stone”.
For weeks the men of the Sub-Aqua club worked
trawling the shallow bay for the sunken remains
of Captain Levant’s reluctant warship,
two guns an iron anchor rig and a wooden wheel
were all hauled to the surface that mouth alone.

On land the debris became artefacts Colin Martin
of St. Andrews scraped of scale, polished brass
and placed the treasures behind glass and into history.

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Enda Boyle was Born in County Derry in 1994. He was Educated at The Univerity of Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast. Previous Work has appeared in Blowing Razzberries, Dodging The Rain , A New Ulster, Down in the Dirt and Crossroads