Spanish city honours Irish chieftain Red Hugh O’Donnell with a mock funeral fit for a king

There is no evidence that Red Hugh O’Donnell ever set foot in the Spanish city of Valladolid, but its residents have claimed him as one of their own.
Thousands took to the streets of the city on Friday to witness the mock funeral of an Irish chieftain, who died aged just 29 in Simancas Castle in September 1602, while waiting for an audience with King Philip III who was then based in Valladolid.
In 2020, when the world was shut down because of Covid-19, the city of Valladolid undertook an archaeological dig searching for Red Hugh’s remains. They didn’t find a body, but they found an affinity with a man who fled Ireland after the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1602, a defeat that marked the end of Gaelic Ireland.
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At that time Valladolid was the capital of Spain, a fact that many Spanish people have forgotten, remarked the chairman of the Hispano-Irish Society Carlos Burgos, who instigated the mock funeral.
According to the Annals of the Four Masters, the Spanish monarch was grief-stricken by Red Hugh’s untimely death and resolved to give him a funeral fit for a king. “His body was conveyed to the king’s palace at Valladolid in a four-wheeled hearse, surrounded by countless numbers of the king’s state officers, council, and guards, with luminous torches and bright flambeaux of beautiful wax-light burning on each side of him,” reads that account.
The has pulled out all the stops to recreate the funeral, hiring a horse and carriage and professional reenactors wearing period costumes of the Spanish colonial era.
The mock funeral is now an annual event, but this year’s was the biggest to date.
The parade was led by piper Jim O’Hagan from Derry, a former member of the Irish Defence Forces, and the Tricolour was carried through the city by another former member of the Defence Forces Eddie Crawford, who is also chairman of the Red Hugh O’Donnell Association. The city hall was also lit in the colours of the Irish flag.
The mock funeral began at dusk, with the placing of an Érin go Bragh flag and the old Spanish flag – the red, jagged Cross of Burgundy – on Red Hugh’s coffin.
It was followed by a reading of Red Hugh’s last will and testament in Spanish and English. It begins: “In the name of God, amen. Let these who shall see this last will and testament know that I, Lord O’Donnell of Ireland, being in bed, infirm in body of that illness make my said testament in the following manner.”
The crowds were already five deep at the entrance to the Royal Palace in Valladolid as they waited patiently for the coffin to emerge. The parade included women in period dresses and dogs which symbolised the Irish wolfhound. The hearse was surrounded by pallbearers carrying lighted torches.
The funeral cortege took the exact route from the Royal Palace to the site where the Old Franciscan monastery once stood. Within it was the Chapel of the Wonders where Red Hugh was buried and before him Christopher Columbus for a time. The site is now marked by a plaque in English and Spanish.
The mayor of Valladolid, Jesús Julio Carnero, addressed the crowd assembled at the spot where Red Hugh was buried followed by the Irish Ambassador to Spain Frank Smyth.
Mr Smyth was also present earlier in the day for the largest ever gathering of Irish-Spanish associations. It took place in the University of Valladolid and ended with the presentation of a statue of Red Hugh to the current head of the O’Donnell clan, Hugo O’Donnell, the Duke of Tetuán.
Mr O’Donnell’s family has been in Spain for more than three centuries, but has not lost its connection to Ireland. His ancestors have been prime ministers, ministers of the crown, generals and admirals in the service of the Spanish state. He is a former navy commandor and now a naval historian.