THE MARTYRS OF CARRAL

To the right and at two kilometres lies the town of Carral, located on the road from A Coruña to Santiago de Compostela. In the centre of the town is a monument in the shape of a large transept. It was promoted by an organisation called the “Liga Gallegan a Cruña” in memory of the martyrs of Carral. The monument was inaugurated in 1905. 

The names martyrs were a group of soldiers from the Spanish army that rose up in arms in order to oust the moderate government of General Narváez. Amongst them were Galician intellectuals that supported the political identity of Galicia. The uprising, captained by Commander Miguel Solís, took place in the city of Lugo on the 2nd of April 1846. Later, they moved to Santiago de Compostela where they were defeated and their ringleaders arrested who were transferred to the city of A Coruña for trial. But on the 26th of April, in Carral, they were subject to summary judgement, condemned to death and executed by firing squad, Miguel Solís in the church of Paleo, his once comrades in an oak grove. Some of the intellectuals were exiled to Portugal.

Galician historians consider this date to be a milestone in the Galician nationalist movement, marking its first step, called provincialism, because one of their primary demands was that Galicia would be a single province.