Galway is one of the most modern of the Irish provincial capitals. It does not figure at all in ancient annals. The first mention of it in the annals of the Four Masters is under the year 1124, when it is stated that the men of Connacht erected a castle in Galway. The first mention of it in the annals of Loch Key is under the year 1191, when it is stated that the river Gaillimh, from which the town takes its name, was dried up. The cause of this phenomenon is not stated. Galway was at one time a place of considerable wealth and trade. It was, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the port to which most of the Spanish wine destined for Ireland used to come; and it is generally believed that a Spanish type of features can still be noticed on some of its inhabitants. But whatever mercantile prosperity Galway enjoyed some centuries ago, very little of it unfortunately remains; for of all Irish towns the decrease of its population has been the most terrible. In 1845 it contained very close on 35,000 inhabitants, in 1891 it had only 14,000! It is painful to walk in the outskirts of the town and pass through whole streets in which nothing remains save the ruins of cottages. Galway ought to be a prosperous place, for it is situated on a noble bay that forms a spacious harbour, sheltered from the fury of the Atlantic by the Isles of Arran. It is pleasant to be able to state that the condition of this once fine city is improving.
OLD HOUSES IN GALWAY.In spite of the signs of decay that are only too visible in Galway, it is a very quaint and interesting town. It contains many buildings that were erected centuries ago, in the days of its prosperity, that are evidences of its former wealth and trade. In what may be called mediÆval remains, it is, perhaps, richer than any other town in Ireland, and will well repay a visit. It is one of the few large towns in Ireland in which a majority of the people are bilingual, using both the English and Irish languages.
There is not much either of scenic or antiquarian interest in the immediate vicinity of Galway; but if those who wish to see the most ancient and gigantic cyclopean remains in Europe, or perhaps in the world, go to the Isles of Arran, to which a small steamer sails from Galway, they will be well repaid for a two hours’ trip. The Arran Islands contain more antique monuments of the pre-historic past and of a more interesting kind than any other places of equal extent in these Islands. These monuments consist of vast drystone fortresses that were raised by some pre-historic race. There is what may be called historic tradition that they were built by a remnant of the Firbolgs in the century preceding the Christian era; but those most learned in things pertaining to Irish antiquities, do not think there is any reliable historic evidence as to where or by whom they were erected. The principal fortresses are, Dun Aengus, Dun Connor, Dun Onacht and Dun Eochla. They are all in the Great Island, or Arran MÓr, except Dun Connor, which is in the Middle Island, or Inis Maan. Dun Connor is the largest. It is considerably over two hundred feet long, and over a hundred feet wide. Its treble walls are still twenty feet high in some places, and from sixteen to eighteen feet in thickness. These vast fortresses look as if they were the work of giants. Like almost every relic of the past, they seem to have been more marred by men than by time. They have evidently been injured by people looking for treasure; and a good deal of their stones have been removed to build cabins and outhouses. Miss Margaret Stokes, who has devoted almost all her life to the study of Irish antiquities, and who consequently knows more about them, perhaps, than any one in Ireland, says of these vast fortresses in Arran: “They are the remains of the earliest examples of architecture known to exist in Western Europe.” There is something awfully grand and grim in the aspect of these ruined fortresses. To gaze on their colossal dimensions and barbaric rudeness seems to carry us back almost to the beginning of time, when the earth was inhabited by beings unlike ourselves. But however old the forts in Arran may be, it is evident that they were the strongholds of a seafaring people; for the whole products of the barren islands on which they stand would not be worth the labour of erecting such gigantic fortresses for their protection. These islands support a good many people now, thanks to the potato; but in ancient times, when it was unknown, it is hard to understand how the multitude of men it must have taken to build so many vast fortresses could have found sustenance on these barren isles; and we are, therefore, almost driven to the conclusion that the fortresses in the Isles of Arran were built by pirates or seafaring men of some kind.
