The funeral of Red Hugh O'Donnell in Spain in 1602 was a grand affair, writes Martin McGinley
"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, " according to the Annals of the Four Masters.
Thomas McGreevy, in his poem "Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill", wrote
"And all Valladolid knew And out to Simancas all knew Where they buriedRed Hugh."
But if they knew then, they don't know now - for Red Hugh has in fact gone missing: the whereabouts of the remains of one of Ireland's most celebrated military leaders has been shrouded in uncertainty for many years.
Red Hugh, Earl of Tirconnell and great ally of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, was laid to rest in the chapter of the Franciscan monastery in Valladolid. However, the building was destroyed in the 19th century, and the tombs seem to have suffered the same fate.
For the 400th anniversary of Red Hugh's death in Valladolid three years ago, a big group from the clan O'Donnell could only linger outside the Café del Norte in the Plaza Mayor, thinking "about the bones of our beloved Red Hugh being buried somewhere close to where we were standing".
Red Hugh was only 29 when he died in Simancas Castle on September, 10th, 1602. There has always been the suspicion of dirty tricks - James Blake from Galway is often named as the assassin who befriended and then poisoned him on behalf of the English. However, it is now suggested that O'Donnell died of bubonic plague.
Some people see the Flight of the Earls in 1607 as marking the end of Gaelic Ireland and the rule of the native chieftains. Others go back a little further, and see the death of Red Hugh as the turning point. He had gone to Spain to secure another army to avenge the defeat of the Irish and Spanish in the Battle of Kinsale at Christmas 1601. When the other chieftains heard of his death, they knew the reinforcements weren't coming over the hill - or rather, over the seas.
In the Harper Encyclopaedia of Military Biography, Red Hugh takes his place between Odoacer and Ogadai among "3,000 of the world's greatest military leaders and thinkers". He squeezed in quite a lot during his 29 years - kidnapped from Rathmullan, a dramatic escape from captivity, the great victory at the Yellow Ford and then a classic winter march to Kinsale, famously covering 40 miles in less than a day over bog and mountain.
The British commander Carew described it as "the greatest march that has ever been heard of". As the poet Aubrey de Vere put it: "O'er many a river bridged with ice,/ O'er many a vale with snow-drifts dumb,/ Past quaking fen and precipice/ The princes of the North are come." All in all, it's a pity we haven't got a grave.
Enter Marcas Ó Murchú. The well-known Belfast flute-player, and for many years now head of Spanish studies at St Columb's College in Derry, is not prepared to give up the ghost. And he has a couple of excellent qualifications for any sleuth trying to track down the missing chieftain.
Firstly, he has a strong interest in Irish history. For instance, he has traced his mother's line of descent in the McDermott-Roe family back to the fifth century - "there are only about 15 clans in the country who can go back that far." Secondly, he is a fluent Spanish speaker.
The hunt for Red Hugh began in earnest when Marcas took a group of students from St Columb's to Valladolid as part of a "Comenius" exchange programme. He already had some information to go on from recordings he made on a trip to Rome in the 1980s with the late Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, a noted historian, who was working on a book on the Irish in Europe.
"I knew there were several possibilities, so I started following them up in Valladolid and making enquiries. As I made progress I moved on to old documents in Spanish. Finally I narrowed the search down to the area around one building nearly opposite the present town hall.
"I spoke to the owner of an establishment there, and he said he had been told stories of bodies being found in the cellars of his own building and others nearby. From everything I've discovered, I'm now convinced that I've narrowed the search for Red Hugh's body down to a matter of yards."
Marcas is a man of consuming interests, adding fluency in Irish to a notable list of accomplishments. Yet he still seems to have time to watch television. He suggests a CSI team - crime scene investigators - could be useful to finally end the search for Red Hugh. "What would we be looking for? Signs of Franciscan garb certainly - we're told that Red Hugh became a friar on his deathbed - but also a body with its big toes missing. That would settle it." It would certainly help: it is known that Red Hugh lost his big toes through frostbite suffered in the Wicklow mountains after his escape from Dublin Castle in December 1591.
While awaiting further developments, Marcas is hopeful that a plaque can be erected close to the spot where he believes Red Hugh's body lies. He has written about this to the Spanish government through Hugo O'Donnell of Madrid , the Duque de Tetuan, descendant of former Spanish prime minister Leopoldo O'Donnell.
Others have more ambitious aims for Red Hugh: the "Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Guild" was formed in 1977 to seek his canonisation. Perhaps by some miracle, then, his bones can indeed be found. . .