During the 16th century, Dingle became a significant trading port and developed a very strong connection with Spain. On 15th July 1579, Charles V of Spain sent an expeditionary force to Dingle under the leadership of James Fitzmaurice-Fitzgerald, a cousin of the peninsula's powerful overlord, Gerat, Sixteenth Earl of Desmond. Shortly after landing, Fitzmaurice-Fitzgerald was ambushed and killed in a skirmish with the Burkes of Limerick. Although the Earl of Desmond had promised to help his kinsman and his contingent, he was also anxious not to alienate Queen Elizabeth, so he sent word to her forces about the possible threat. The expedition resulted in failure for the Spanish, and after a few days they left Dingle and sailed round the coast, where they landed at Ferreters' Cove. On the headland they built a fort, the Fort Del Oro, or Dun an Oir as it is known in Gaelic, as a base for operations against England. In November 1580 an English force, commanded by Lord Grey de Wilton, besieged the fort. The garrison had again hoped for promised assistance from the Earl of Desmond but none was sent, and finally the expeditionaries were battered into submission. When the Spanish set down their arms to surrender, the English troops massacred them in cold blood and left their corpses in heaps, or cast them into the sea to be washed away. On the anniversary of the dreadful slaughter people in the locality have often heard agonised voices crying in Spanish, and smelled the terrible stench of rotting flesh carried upon the breezes around this wild spot.


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