Harbouring a dream

It’s not just the heat that’s making Fernando Corral feel right at home in Cavan. The Alicante native only dropped anchor in Ireland, along with his wife and two young children, last October and yet he’s now the lead in an impressive short film charting the amazing story of Captain Francisco de Cuéllar.

While the 30-minute drama was made to showcase Sligo and Leitrim’s tragic and thrilling connection to the Spanish Armada, the story has piqued the interest of audiences beyond our Wild Atlantic Way. When the Celt arrives at the Corrals’ Ardkeen home, a now beardless Fernando estimates that we’re publication number ten to write about it. Spanish giants ABC gave Fernando his first feature interview in a national daily, while El Pais did a spread on the film ‘Armada 1588: Shipwreck & Survival’.

Fernando admits to having only a cursory knowledge of the Armada before his involvement in the film project.

“In Spain the Armada is a big thing - but we don’t really talk much about it, because, well I think it’s because we lost,” he surmises, sitting at his kitchen table. “So you learn a little bit and that’s it, you don’t really touch it much.”

What little the Spanish do learn of the famed Armada does not extend to the derring-do adventures of Captain Francisco de Cuéllar, the hero of the film played by Fernando.

Captain de Cuéllar commanded one of the 130 ships to launch a doomed attack to overthrow the Protestant realm of Queen Elizabeth I. Repelled by the English, the Spanish survivors had no option but to sail north. Captain Francisco de Cuéllar was among a flotilla which attempted to return home, heading north around Scotland, and back south via the Atlantic Ocean along the Irish coast.

The ships with which de Cuéllar journeyed sank during a mammoth storm near the desolate Streedagh Beach and the survivors, according to the film, were at the mercy of English troops. Over 1,000 Spaniards died - most by drowning, the rest by the sword or noose. In the ensuing chaos, de Cuéllar was amongst a small number to escape. Fortunately he penned a full account, both of the shipwrecks and the subsequent months he spent desperately trying to avoid the pursuing English army.

“No, no, no. I didn’t know anything about Francisco de Cuéllar,” Fernando recalls. “We were here last Summer and saw the Spanish Point sign, and I thought - what the hell is that?”

“When we came here in October to live, a month and a half later I saw the casting [call] and then I read the Francisco de Cuéllar story and it was like, Oh my God, they are looking for an actor, a Spanish man - great here I am,” he says laughing at the stroke of serendipity.

“I thought this has got to be for me - a captain in more or less 40s, and I thought how many Spanish people are going to be here? I thought this is my chance I’m going to go for it.”

Micheál Ó Domhnaill was one of the producers to cast Fernando. Speaking by phone, he confirms Fernando did indeed go for it from the very first audition.

See full report in this week's Anglo-Celt newspaper