Lacada Point is a rock promontory jutting into the ocean a few hundred yards west of the Giant’s Causeway, typical of the rugged Antrim Coast. Ships have foundered here through the centuries, but Lacada is famous chiefly for one wreck: on the night of 26 October 1588, the Spanish Armada galleass Girona met her end here, with most of the roughly 1,300 people aboard dying - only nine survived. These survivors, along with other Spanish Armada survivors elsewhere in Ireland, have given rise to folk theories about the “Black Irish” - a theory, not a genetically supported claim (see this site’s dedicated page on the topic for more).
Many of the treasures recovered from the Girona are on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
Lacada Point itself is no longer accessible to visitors - it can be viewed from the surrounding cliffs and the Giant’s Causeway, but the path down is closed as dangerous. Its dramatic landscape and history continue to draw photographers.
