If you are looking for ancestors lost at sea, I am hoping that by writing this blog it will help to solve the mystery of this tragedy and also identify the men that are known locally as, The Yellow Men.
This blog is not fiction, extensive research has been done to try and find the origin of these men, but as yet, to no avail.
So whether you have information that might help or whether it be questions...one way or the other, it may lead to the discovery of who -
THE YELLOW MEN
really were!
The Grave of the Yellow Men, Loop Head Peninsula, Co Clare, Ireland.
In 2009 I visited the most westerly point of County Clare, a small place called Kilbaha. I was very moved to see a teardrop memorial stone for the 'Yellow Men'. The gentleman who was showing us around told us about a tragedy that has been handed down from generation to generation. The tradegy occurred in the late 1800's and his story started something like this:-
Its said that the blood that flows in all of us here, everyone of us in the county is blood that came from across the sea. Our identity is best understood from a maritime perspective. For the past 800 years Ireland has been a haven for explorers, settlers, colononialists, navigators, pirates and traders absorbing goods and people from all points of the world. Our culture has been shaped by Middle Eastern as well as Northern and Southern European civilisations, by an Islamic heritage as well as a Christian one. Over the centuries, there was a vast traffic in ships up and down the Atlantic coast, from the Mediterranean Sea up to the Baltic Sea. Ireland at that time was not seen as a remote island but a halfway house, a trading post.
The 9 or 11 'yellow men' are buried in a mass grave looking over the Atlantic. It was originally thought that they were oriental, possibly from China or Japan (only because of the phrase, yellow men). However, it should not be forgotten that when the Spanish Armada landed in Ireland - the Spanish were referred to as Yellow Men. The foregoing research would suggest that anywhere from Spain, Portugal to Morocco and Tunisia to Egypt would more likely be their point of departure.
These men either drowned or were smashed to pieces on the Kilcloher rocks, one kilometre from Kilbaha in the late 1800's. There is only one written piece of documentation: 'The Schools' Scheme' of 1937-1938 recorded Stephen Hanrahan speaking of Beala'Loca Bridge near Kilcloher: 'Near here is the grave of the 'Yellow Men' where nine shipwrecked Frenchmen were buried about 60 years ago. Their ship was in difficulties and they threw a rope ashore by which 9 were saved. One of the local young men however cut part of this fine rope (which was considerably too long at first) so that when the ship drifted a little away from the shore, the cut rope was too short and useless to save the others who were drowned in that spot'.
In July 2010, the local people and community designed and erected a memorial in the place that the Yellow Men now rest, in a strange turn of fate it was God's blessing that they left this earth in a place where the community cares for them as if they were their own. Their graves have been blessed by the local parish priest, they have flowers at the foot of each headstone in the tricolour of the Irish flag and when people pass - they offer their prayers.
May they rest in eternal peace and God willing, one day their families will visit their graves.
