maintain Sidonia's course, despite the hardships on board their ships. Most of the fleet – 84 ships – avoided land, and most of those made it home, although in varying degrees of distress. The remainder were forced toward the coast of Ireland – perhaps 28 – and included several galleons and many merchantmen. The latter had been converted for battle and were leaking heavily, making sail with severely damaged masts and rigging, and with most of their anchors missing. The ships seem to have maintained contact until the beginning of September, when they were scattered by a south-west gale (described in the contemporary account of an Irish government official as one "the like whereof hath not been seen or heard for a long time"). Within days, this lost fleet had made landfall in Ireland. Government preparations The head of the English Crown administration at Dublin was Lord Deputy William Fitzwilliam. In August 1588 he was presented with credible intelligence that the battle in the English Channel had been won by the Spanish and that the invasion of England was set to be completed. Then it was understood that the Spanish were in the Atlantic and the entire fleet was about to fall on the coast of Ireland. The degree of alarm among the English at Dublin was extreme, and Fitzwilliam put out false reports that reinforcements from England were due to arrive with 10,000 troops. The English feared the Spanish would land in disciplined formations, with the Irish rising out to join them from territories that were almost beyond the control of the government. But reliable intelligence was soon received at Waterford and Dublin that the ships were fetching up in a chaotic manner at disparate locations in the provinces of Ulster, Connacht and Munster, along a coastline spanning . Fitzwilliam ordered that all Spaniards be captured and hanged summarily; and that anyone aiding them be tortured and charged as a traitor to the Crown. Landfall Munster The Armada first made landfall in the southern province of Munster, which had been colonised by the English in 1583 following the suppression of the last of the Desmond Rebellions. Fitzwilliam received orders from London to lead an expedition there, and intelligence from the governor of Connacht, Richard Bingham, soon confirmed that further landfalls were being made throughout the west and north of the country. Thomond: Many ships were sighted off the coast