Spanish Armada Hurtado Mendoza

I am hoping I can once again request from this group some information. You have all been so helpful in the past. This is in honor of St. Paddy's day....the Spanish/Irish connection.

I spend my genealogical time between the Irish (mine) and the Spanish (my husband's) I constantly tease him that sooner or later I will find that we are related. We have some similar traits and sometimes that is good, but other times it causes conflicts. Anyway, I am descended from the O'Neill family in Northern Ireland on my maternal side. My great grandfather's name was Hugh O'Neill and my grandmother used to tell us tales of the great Hugh O'Neill. We always thought it was ...you know....just fairy tales. Well, although somewhat embellished, some of her stories are in rare historical books. Anyway, out of curiousity, I started researching the Spanish Armada. Hugh O'Neill (not my great grandfather, but the famous one) was linked to this. Then I found out that many ships from the Armada were wrecked along the Northern Ireland coast. A couple quite close to my paternal ancestor, Owen Gallagher's home of Rosbeg, Donegal Ireland. Some accounts say that most of the soldiers in the ships drowned or were killed by the Irish or interrogated and hung by the English. Other accounts say that some Irish people hid some of the survivors and they eventually made it back to Spain. (I have another link to send with an interesting description of the Irish by one of the survivors, will send later)

Anyway, I am getting long winded here, but I came across a google book mentioning a familiar last name for this group.... Hurtado Mendoza (see page 107 on the link below) Hope this link works, if not let me know and I will give you a phrase from the book that will allow you to search.

http://books.google.com/images/cleardot.gif

Thought you Mendoza fans might like this.

Now for my question, does anyone know if the Spanish kept records of names their survivors and how they survived to come back to Spain? Where might I get my hands on some information on this subject?

Maureen Bejar nee Gallagher