[Illustration: _Photo, Lawrence, Dublin._ At Galway.] In the twelfth century, when De Burgo conquered O'Connor, he made Galway the citadel of his western possessions. During the next century there gathered into the prosperous town from far and near adventurers and merchants--the Blakes and the Bodkins, the Lynches, the Morrises, the Martins, the Joyces, &c.; founders of the great families, whose names have since been inseparable from Galway. In after times the clanship and attachment of these families to their members and each other, drew from the Scripture-loving Puritans the scornful appellation--"The Tribes of Galway"; but the expression was afterwards adopted by the Galway men as an honourable mark of distinction between themselves and their cruel oppressors. In old times the merchant princes of the place were renowned for their hospitality, which they carried to such an excess that the civil authorities interfered with it, in 1518, with a law to the effect that "No man of this town shall oste or receive into their houses at Christmas, Easter, nor no feaste elles, any of the Burkes, MacWilliams, the Kellies, nor no cepte elles without license of the Mayor and Councill, on payn to forfeit L5; that neither O nor Mac shall strutte nor swaggere through the street of Gallway." Indeed, the O's and Mac's seem to have made their history by more than enjoying the hospitality of their neighbours, and what was not given them willingly they at times took by the strength of their right hands. Over the western gate of the city was the following meaningful inscription:-- "From the fury of the O'Flaherties, good Lord, deliver us." The trade with Spain was for centuries a source of great prosperity to the town, and those familiar with the characteristics of Spanish architecture will see much in Galway to remind them of it. The sympathy of the townspeople seems always to have been with the leaders of forlorn hopes in Irish history. It was almost destroyed by Ludlow for its fidelity to the King in 1652, and having been rebuilt, it again fell before the siege trains of the victorious Ginckle in 1691 after the battle of Aughrim, the Culloden of Ireland. With the fall of the Jacobite standard in that battle, the hopes of the western Irish declined. The surviving sons of most of the old families sought service abroad in the armies of France, Spain, and Austria. There are many love songs of the time in Irish, which have been translated, such as-- AFTER AUGHRIM. Do you remember long-ago, Kathaleen! When your lover whispered low-- "Shall I stay or shall I go, Kathaleen?" And you answered proudly, "Go, And join King James and strike a blow For the Green."