The story of a Derry mayor’s nephew who was one of the first Governors of Alicante

John Gorges had been the last-but-one Governor of Derry before Colonel Robert Lundy’s ill-fated stint at the time of the Siege.

He sat in Oliver Cromwell’s protectorate parliament for Derry, Donegal and Tyrone in 1659, was one of the aldermen named in the civic charter in 1662, was elected Mayor of Derry in the 1660s, and returned as the city's member of the Irish commons at a by-election in October 1665, according to John Bergin’s informative account of the family’s history in the Dictionary of Irish Biography.

"In 1670 [John] was appointed Governor of Culmore Castle near Derry but was ousted in 1672, in part because he had improperly had the patent made out in the name of his son, also John, a minor,” Bergin informs us.

It was the War of the Spanish Succession that brought John’s nephew Richard to the shores of Alicante in the early 1700s.

Richard was a professional soldier whose seat was at Kilbrew in County Meath but he maintained connections to the North West and was a member of the Irish House of Commons for the old constituency of Coleraine from 1703.

After the ‘War of the Two Kings in Ireland’, which included the sieges of Derry and Limerick, and battles of the Boyne and Aughrim, and the related Nine Years' War in Europe in the late 1600s, the ‘War of the Spanish Succession’ was sparked by the death of Charles Bourbon II of Spain in 1700.

A case of ‘the king is dead, long live the king’ the question was: which king? Charles had not left an heir.

Spain and France backed Philip Bourbon of Anjou; a Grand Alliance of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch and the Brits, weighed in behind Charles Habsburg VI of Austria, and the shooting war started in 1701.

By the time Richard Gorges landed at Agua Amarga, not far from where Alicante airport stands today, the governorship of Alicante was already in the hands of an Irish man, one Daniel O’Mahoney, who was originally from Dromore on the banks of Kenmare Bay.

The Kerryman was a celebrated Jacobite soldier, one of the many ‘Wild Geese’, who left Ireland to serve in the armies of continental Europe after the Williamite War.

According to historian Sergio Villamarín he became only the third Governor of Alicante when he was appointed to the position in 1706.

The Museum of the City of Alicante in the impressive Santa Bárbara Castle that towers over the city on Mount Benacantil attests that the man who hailed from the Ring of Kerry was the first ever governor of the fortification.

O’Mahoney is reputed to have improved its defences on behalf of the Bourbon forces during his short time in command.

In 1706, however, Gorges was intent on taking the city for the Grand Alliance and a siege supervised by Admiral Leake and the Irish Major-General commenced on August 1.

The Dictionary of Irish Biography reports that O’Mahoney held the city but eventually surrendered and ‘marched out at the head of his regiment with the full honours of war’ on September 8, at which point Leake appointed a nephew of a former mayor and Governor of Derry as only the fourth ever Governor of Alicante.

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Following his appointment Major-General Gorges immediately began to repair the fortifications after the sustained bombardment of August.

Little record remains of Gorges’ sojourn although it is known that he left a ‘Gorges’ Battery’ in place when he left. It is believed he remained as governor until 1707 when he was replaced by yet another Irishman in the person of Wexford-native John Richards.

Richards came from a Protestant family from the South East and his brothers fought for King Billy during the ‘war of the two kings’.

But having converted to Catholicism Richards was barred from holding any commission in Ireland after 1688 and so ended up serving with Spanish, Portuguese and Austrian regiments on various sides of the European great power battles of the late 17th century and early 18th century.

FJ Herbert, writing in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, tells us: "He first appears on the military scene in 1690 as a captain, serving under Hugh Balldearg O'Donnell as 'secretary and adjutant.

"It is conceivable that he had gone to Spain and had been commissioned in that service, as some Catholics, mainly Irish, followed this path even before the events of 1688-91."

He notes that Hugh Balldearg was a brigadier in the Spanish Army who was descended from the Donegal chieftain Calvagh O'Donnell, the eldest son of Manus O’Donnell, who famously wrote the seminal Life of Saint Columbkille back in the 1500s.

Richards’ tenure as Governor of Alicante would last but two years after which he met a spectacular and grisly end.

From December 1708 to April 1709 Spanish and French forces loyal to Philip Bourbon and under the command of Frenchman Lieutenant Claude D'Asfeld mounted a sustained attack on the Grand Alliance garrison commanded by Richards.

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Scant headway was made and so D’Asfeld order his men to dig a mine into the earth of Mount Benacantil directly beneath Santa Bárbara Castle, as Herbert explains:

"The Castle on its rock was impregnable in terms of the usual siege methods and Richards had ensured adequate supplies of water, rations and powder for a long defence.

"D'Asfeld decided to resort to mining despite the problem of cutting into solid rock, and during the next three months achieved the biggest mine in history to that date, with 1200 barrels of powder (about 1 17,600 lbs).”

Richards was blown up in late February 1709 and Alicante was returned under Bourbon control.

There is nary a trace of the three Irishmen, one with prominent links to Derry, in Alicante today, other than in the impressive castle from where they once governed which still dominates the city.

There is a Calle General O’Donnell in the city but that is named for the 19th century Prime Minister of Spain Leopoldo O'Donnell, another descendent, like Balldearg, of Calvagh O’Donnell. There are Calle O'Donnells in Madrid and Seville named after the same fellow.

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Perhaps the Santa Bárbara Castle is monument enough.

Herbert quotes David Chandler in his account of Richards’ life and death:

"Nothing can ever dim the record of personal courage, both physical and moral, displayed by John Richards. He has his memorial for all time in the huge round rock which still dominates Alicante.

"His tomb is the symbol of one man's defiance of the most daunting odds that will last out the ages.”

You can’t miss it on your way out to Benidorm, Altea or Dénia. Perhaps the next publican to open an Irish bar off the Avenida de Alfonso el Sabio might consider calling it O’Mahoney, Gorges & Richards in honour of the three amigos - the Irish Governors of Alicante.

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