San Fermín 1961: The Running of the Bulls
July 6 to 14, 1961. The fiesta Hemingway made famous opened four days after his death. One runner died on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo.
Curated by Dennis Clancey
· Founder of Encierro, veteran bull runner
1
Encierro Death
1961
Year
Hemingway
The Year He Died
Looking Back at 1961
Dennis Clancey · Founder, Encierro
Looking back at 1961, the San Fermín fiesta carries a weight no other year quite matches. Ernest Hemingway died on July 2, four days before the chupinazo was fired from the balcony of the Pamplona town hall. The man who had made this fiesta a destination for the international literary and artistic world since 1926 was gone before the rockets went up. A fiesta he had made world-famous would now go on, as it always had, without him.
Looking back at July 9, 1961, the record is specific and hard. Vicente Urrizola Istúriz, 32 years old, a Pamplona resident, was gored by a bull from the Álvaro Domecq ganadería on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo. He died the same day. He was the first runner killed in the encierro since 1947. The fiesta continued. It always does.
Dennis Clancey, Founder, Encierro
1961 in contextFour Days After Hemingway
On July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway died in Idaho. The chupinazo that opened San Fermín 1961 was fired four days later. Since his first visit to Pamplona in 1923, Hemingway had shaped how the English-speaking world understood the fiesta. The Sun Also Rises, published in 1926, had sent a generation of readers to Pamplona in search of the same raw energy he had described. In July 1961, many of them arrived to find the man himself gone.
Spain in 1961 was entering the early years of the desarrollismo, the technocrat-driven economic growth program that would transform the country across the 1960s. Pamplona was still a compact Navarran city with a clear boundary between the old walled town and the farmland beyond. International tourism was growing, partly on the strength of Hemingway’s legacy, but the fiesta had not yet reached the mass attendance of later decades. The runners who took to the streets of the old city in July 1961 did so in a more contained, local atmosphere than the one that tourists encounter today. Explore the full record in the year-by-year archive.
The fiesta does not stop for the death of a writer, even one who made it famous. It does not stop for the death of a runner either. It opens, it runs, and it closes. That continuity is the thing Hemingway understood before anyone else did.Morning by morning
Every 1961 Encierro, Day by Day
The 1961 encierros started at 7 a.m. The bulls on July 9 were from Álvaro Domecq.
Fri July 7 · First run
Antonio Ordóñez
7:00 a.m.
The first run of the 1961 fiesta, five days after the death of Hemingway. A historical compilation of the 1961 encierros, “Encierro Historico San Fermin 1961,” has been preserved on YouTube by the channel Encierros San Fermin (video above).
Sat July 8 · Second run
Conde de la Corte
7:00 a.m.
Sun July 9 · Third run
Álvaro Domecq
7:00 a.m.
Fatal run
The third run was with Álvaro Domecq bulls. A bull from this herd gored Vicente Urrizola Istúriz, 32, on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo at the level of the old Hospital Militar. He died the same day. It was the first encierro death since 1947.
Mon July 10 · Fourth run
Garcigrande
7:00 a.m.
The fourth run, the morning after Urrizola died.
Tue July 11 · Fifth run
Marqués de Villamarta
7:00 a.m.
Wed July 12 · Sixth run
Pablo Romero
7:00 a.m.
Thu July 13 · Seventh run
Alfonso Sánchez Fabrés (novillada)
7:00 a.m.
Fri July 14 · Eighth run
Francisco Galache
7:00 a.m.
What the Record Remembers
The fatal morning
Vicente Urrizola on Santo Domingo
Vicente Urrizola Istúriz, 32, a Pamplona resident, was gored by an Álvaro Domecq bull on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo on July 9. He died the same day.
The shadow over the fiesta
Hemingway Dies, Four Days Before the Chupinazo
On July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. Four days later the chupinazo opened the fiesta he had made internationally famous through The Sun Also Rises in 1926.
Vicente Urrizola Isturiz
On July 9, 1961, Vicente Urrizola Istúriz, 32 years old, was gored by a bull from the Álvaro Domecq ganadería on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo, at the level of the old Hospital Militar.
He died the same day, July 9, 1961.
Urrizola was a Pamplona resident. His death was the encierro’s first fatality since 1947 and came in a year already marked by the death of the writer who had made the fiesta world-famous.
Official Sanfermines PosterSan Fermín 1961: Official Cartel
Cartel 1961 by Pedro Lozano de Sotés.
Source: Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, cartel archive
The official San Fermín 1961 poster.
Beyond the runThe City in 1961
The chupinazo fired at noon on Thursday, July 6, 1961, opening the fiesta. The first encierro followed on the morning of July 7 at 7 a.m., the start time in place from 1924 until 1974.
The peñas, the clubs that provide so much of the music, the colour, and the organized energy of San Fermín, were growing in number and influence across the 1960s. Pamplona’s old city was still the compact, walled space that Hemingway had walked, and the crowd filling its streets for the fiesta was still largely Navarran and Spanish, with an international fringe that was growing but had not yet overwhelmed the local character. The Pobre de Mí at midnight on July 14 closed the 1961 fiesta.
In the world press1961, As the World Saw It
Archive links for research into the 1961 fiesta are listed below.
Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, official archive
The recordHow 1961 Came Together
Key facts in the 1961 fiesta, kept on the record.
2 July 1961
Ernest Hemingway died in Idaho, four days before the chupinazo.
6 July 1961
The chupinazo opened San Fermín 1961.
9 July 1961
Third run with Álvaro Domecq bulls. Vicente Urrizola Istúriz, 32, was gored on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo and died the same day. The first encierro fatality since 1947.
14 July 1961
The last day of the 1961 fiesta. Pobre de Mí at midnight ended the week. The first fiesta without Hemingway alive to attend it.
San Fermín 1961, Answered
Was anyone killed in the 1961 San Fermín encierro?
Yes. Vicente Urrizola Istúriz, a 32-year-old Pamplona resident, was gored on the Cuesta de Santo Domingo during the July 9 run with Álvaro Domecq bulls. He died the same day.
Did Ernest Hemingway attend San Fermín 1961?
No. Hemingway died on July 2, 1961, four days before the chupinazo opened the fiesta. His 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises made the fiesta internationally famous.
Which ganadería caused the death in 1961?
The bull that gored Vicente Urrizola was from the Álvaro Domecq ganadería, which ran on July 9.
Sources
Every fact on this page is checked against these sources. Where sources disagreed, the one closest to the day won.
- Público, "La víctima número 15 en la historia de los Sanfermines", 2009-07-10. publico.es
- El Encierro (magazine) n56, via Dialnet, "Arquitecturas alrededor del encierro (Javier Torrens Alzu)", 2020-06. dialnet.unirioja.es
- Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, "Pamplona recordará a los 16 fallecidos en la historia del encierro con adoquines", 2023-12-27. pamplona.es
- Nobel Prize (nobelprize.org), "Ernest Hemingway, Biographical". nobelprize.org
- Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, "Hemingway route". pamplona.es
- Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, "Carteles de San Fermín (cartel archive)". pamplona.es
Explore More of the Encierro Archive
For what followed in 1962, see the year the pre-run prayer tradition was born. Or return to 1960 to see the fiesta Hemingway still attended.