The Macleay Chronicle 25th July, 1917 p.6 (Kempsey NSW)
Galway.
Talk of making Galway, with its magnificent harbour in which the whole British navy could ride at anchor, a port for direct trade with America is again to the fore; but probably nothing will come of it.
Little over four hundred years ago, the seaport of Galway, on the west
coast of Ireland, was one of the great trade centres of Western Europe. It did special business with Spain. Galway merchants went to Spain, and Spanish merchants came to Galway, to talk trade, exchange views, and plan new enterprises. Galway men of affairs were wealthy and prosperous, and it came to be a saying, in those days “as proud as a Galway merchant.” So well off, indeed, was the city, and so many its extravagances, that, towards the end of the Sixteenth Century, an inquiry was held by direction of the Lord Deputy, Sir John Perrot, with the result that rigid sumptuary laws were passed. No young man, “prentice or other wise, ” was to wear ‘ gorgeous apparell ne silks, either within or without their garments, non yet fyne knitt stockings either of silk or other costlie wise. ‘ And there was much else to the same purpose.
Galway, in fact, had always been a specially favored town. There is little known as to its history, it is true, before the coming of the English, but, once William Fitzandelm de Burgo, the Norman, under a grant from Henry II, had finally dispossessed Rory O’Connor, and converted the town into his own principal stronghold, it grew rapidly in importance. After the building of the walls and fortifications, about the year 1270, its trade, indeed, increased by leaps and bounds.
It was at about this time too, that there came to the city those famous settlers from England, known, in subsequent history, as the ‘tribes of Galway,’ the Blakes, the Bodkins;, the Joyces, the Lynches, the Martins, and so on. There were fourteen of them altogether. This strong growth of an urban community, as one writer justly points out, self-controlled and distinct was typical of the time. While the country was torn with perpetual strife between English, Irish, and Anglo Irish rulers, the towns of Waterford, Limerick, and Galway virtually developed into self-governing republics. “They elected their own magistrates, excluded the King’s judges, contributed nothing to the King’s revenue, declared war and concluded peace, without the smallest regard for the Deputy and the Dublin Parliament. ” Thus, in 1524, Limerick and Galway went to war with each other, and the hostilities were ultimately concluded in the most formal manner by a formal treaty. It was the civil war in England which finally put an end to this prosperity and independence. It dealt hardly with Galway. The city stood for the King, but ultimately was obliged to surrender to the
Parliamentary forces under Sir Charles Coote. The surrender, it is true, was made on honorable terms, but the treaty was shamelessly broken. The town was plundered, and the ancient inhabitants were, for the most part, driven out, many hundreds of them being sold as slaves to the West Indies.
The Burren and Beyond 