Pedro notes the O'Donnell connection

Niall Garve is a character of your most recent play about members of the O’Neill clan but he is also important for another reason: Niall’s elder brother was Hugh of Ramelton, whose son John was an officer in the Spanish army. This John, apart from taking the dangerous decision of fighting for Phillip II, fathered Hugh Baldearg O’Donnell, known in Spain as Count O’Donnell (that is an example of successful integration of immigrants – the second generation was already a member of the local nobility!). A later descendant of this Count O’Donnell was Leopoldo O’Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetouan, Count of Lucena. Leopoldo O’Donnell was Prime Minister of Spain on three different occasions. He briefly left power to lead the war in North Africa and conquered Tetouan. When he was back to Madrid, a victory parade was planned for the general and his troops, who camped just outside Madrid in a temporary site prepared for it. The parade never happened and the temporary camp, as so many things in Spain, was converted into a permanent one when merchants settled around the army looking for business. But Madrid’s neighbourhood of Tetuan was not General O’Donnell’s only contribution to Madrid’s map. A wide and long street is named after him: Calle del General O’Donnell. It is important to remember this street for later.

Leopoldo’s contribution to my story does not end there. A’liberal’ revolt started in Spain, led by Rafael del Riego López, known simply as Riego. This man proclaimed the Spanish Constitution of 1812 in Cadiz, of short life but great importance in Spanish history. Riego tried to rebel part of Andalusia against the King, who sent General O’Donnell to stop him. It is said that when O’Donnell’s army met Riego’s, the General ‘was not in the mood’ to confront Riego, that he did not fancy doing it. This lead to the interesting (and surely happy for the soldiers) situation that both armies manoeuvred at sight of each other but no one of them actually attacked. Riego’s rebel army did not like his lack of decision in the battlefield and deserted but after other significant events, the King embraced the Constitution and Riego arrived victorious to Madrid. Riego was all success and became Field Marshall and Military Governor of Galicia. He is very well received with a party in a certain café in Madrid, known as ‘La Fontana de Oro’ (The Golden Fountain), where the liberals met to discuss political issues while smoking Cuban cigars. This remarkable café must have had something strange in the coffee they served because revolutionaries have always gathered there. The seed of the Madrid raising against Napoleon’s troops on the 2nd May 1808 (whose glory and tragedy were masterly shown by Goya in his paintings: “The Second of May” and “The Third of May – all available at the Prado Museum) came from regulars to La Fontana de Oro. This café is known in Spanish literature because Benito Pérez Galdós wrote ‘La Fontana de Oro’, which I have not read because I do not like Benito’s work, despite of being one of our greatest writers. At some point in the recent past, Fontana’s owner committed the atrocity (but financial success) of changing the decoration of the cafe. It could have been much worse (as it happened to the Villarrosa Theatre, which is now a nightclub with sleazy clientele) so it is now an Irish pub. It has everything that is supposed to be in an Irish pub but that you never find in a real one: an Irish flag, a dummy of St. Patricks (whose extended right hand and finger are a great coat hanger for your coats when the place is crowded in Winter), framed timetables of ferries from Spain to Ireland, etc. It is sad that such an important place in Spanish history becomes an example of foreign culture rather than Spanish.

I was born on Christmas day. I probably insisted on seeing the light (the Spanish term for giving birth is ‘dar a luz’: ‘to give to light’) because of the smell of lunch for my mother says I was always hungry when I was a child. Unlike today, so many children were born in Spain at that time, that there were hospitals exclusively dedicated to births. They were called ‘maternidades’: maternities. I was born in the same maternity as my brother did a year and a half before and my sister did eight years after me. I think it has unfortunately been closed and does not exist anymore. This maternity was in O’Donnell street. Some 20 years later I became (by pure accident) a regular at La Fontana de Oro. After being there every weekend I noticed a framed text titled ‘Riego’s Hymn’. Not knowing very much of recent Spanish history but having my brother a degree in History, I asked him while having a (bad) pint of Guinness (more likely a glass of rum and coke, known in Spain with the revolutionary name of ‘cubalibre’ – Cuba Libre – or Free Cuba. Fontana’s revolutionary influence?) and so I learnt about Riego and that he was the author of the 1812 Constitution I had studied. Something that strikes you when you go to Fontana (apart from the sleaziness of the place late at night) is the number of portraits decorating the place. ‘Who are these geezers?’ is a question everybody has asked at least once when going there. All portraits have a name: Palafox, Lacy, Riego, Espartero, O’Donnell… They are all prominent figures of XIX century’s Spanish politics (mainly liberals). I bet no one ever thought how much history one can learn while having a drink in a smoky pub… Time went by and nothing significant happened until the night I met an Irish girl in Fontana. It was not difficult to meet Irish people in there. Its location right in the centre of Madrid makes it a favourite for foreigners but the interesting part is that this girl came from Donegal. The same Donegal where the O’Donnells came from! I did not know that at the time but surely General O’Donnell’s portrait had a smile while he saw us chatting under his nose that night in La Fontana de Oro. Several weekends later a ‘date’ took place and I met Anna in another Irish Pub: “O’Neill’s”. This pub had the name of the clan Niall Garve fought against. The same Niall Garve that started this story! After O’Neill’s we went to meet some of her friends, who happened to be in another Irish pub! This one was “O’Connell St.”. Of course, I did not know yet how many times I was going to walk with Anna along that very same street years later… I wonder how many times General O’Donnell’s portrait saw us in Fontana. I still remember when Anna showed me where Donegal is in a map of Ireland in the walls of Fontana’s lower floor.

Destiny? Mere coincidence? In any case, it seems I have always been linked with Donegal in one or another way!