As Britain prepares to say a farewell to its Queen, the Irish community in Spain were commemorating the goodbye to a great Irish leader, King of Tyrconnell Red Hugh Roe O'Donnell.
The city of Valladolid hosted a civic event that commemorated the funeral procession for O'Donnell who had travelled to Spain in order to seek military help after the Siege of Kinsale in 1601.
On the occasion of the 420th anniversary of his death, Spanish authorities have gone to extra effort to remember the great Gaelic king.
After dying in Simancas Castle in 1602, he had a funeral with royal honours in the same chapel where Christopher Columbus had once been. Red Hugh was buried in the Franciscan Monastery in the city.
Since 2020, efforts to identify his body have taken place in the Spanish city with excavations and DNA tests.
The funeral commemoration in Valladolid draws on the Annals of the Four Masters for inspiration, in which it is written:
“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.
He was afterwards interred in the monastery of St Francis, in the chapter precisely, with veneration and honour, and in the most solemn manner that any of the Gaels had been ever interred in before”.
The powerful images, posted on Twitter by the Tourism and Culture office of Valladolid, show the beauty and sadness of his glorious send off.
A plaque was also officially unveiled along with representatives of the Irish State and those from Ireland who advocate honouring Red Hugh's memory.
A man of deep faith, the Aodh Ruadh O Domhnaill Guild was formed in the 1970s in order to seek his canonisation.
His counterpart Hugh O'Neil is buried in San Pietro in Rome.
Perhaps when we locate Red Hugh, pilgrims can take part in pilgrimages to the graves of both men to pay homage to two of the last great Gaelic Catholic noble figures of their era.
Perhaps those Irish soccer fans chanting in English accents about ‘Lizzy’ being in a ‘box’ would be better served honouring their own glorious past rather than obsessing over an England that they claim to want no part of.
Figures like O'Donnell and O'Neil are as glorious and dignified as any from the past. Their devotion to their Catholic faith is a core part of their story, let us honour them and pray for them and maybe even someday the church will honour both heroes as saints.