Norwich bulletin., 1917-04-05
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

GaIway-The announcement that the corporation of Dublin has urged the British Government to create a great harbor at Galway to deal with Canadian and American trade gives rise to the hope that the day is not far distant when the ancient glOries of that historic mart may be revived. A war geography bulletin prepared by the National Geographic Society and issued from it's headquarters in Wash ington describes it as follows:
 Galway is the capital of Galway County, where the river Shannon flows It is situated on Galway Bay, in direct line west from Dublin, 2385
 miles from Boston and 270o miles from New York. On his remarkable map Ptolemy marked Galway Bay. calling it Ausoba. Today is contains not more than Is 900 inhabitants, emigra- ton to America having sadly depleted the population.
 ''In the Ogyia of O'F'Iaherty we read: "GaiIleamh. daughter of lasting Brea- sail, bat thed in the full cold stream, when the bright branch was drowned. From her the river Gaillimh is named And thus was named the town which had stood on the banks of this small stream from time immemorial. Additionally known as BafIinsruane, the name Gaillimh became in the mouths of the Norman settlers 'Galvia' hence Galway
 Any attempt to compass in brief space the sanguinary history of this neighbOrhood must end in failure. For centuries it was in a ferment of hand robbery, pillage and fanaticism beg garing description Centuries before the Christian era the Carthaginians and Romans traded with the descend ants of a still earlier period. Tighe speaks of one Parthoianus, Scythian, settling in Ireland some centuries after the Flood, and in dying divided the country into four parts, assigning one to each of his four sons' They were dispossessed by the Firbolglians. Con and Eoghan made partition A. D. 166. Tn all these partitions the cities of Dublin and Galway were the ternini of one or the other lines of divisions.'
 ''In the ninth century the town suf- fered from the rayages of the Danes, and for one hundred years following 1171 the de Burgos, the O'Conors and the O'F1ahertys were engaged in a battle royal for the possession of the surrounding territory, the house of OConnor being wiped out in 1916.
 'Tn 1473 the town was burned. Be tween 1851 and 1860 Galway was the to 1793 the zeal Of Protestant and Catholic made living a delightfully."- exciting pastime, while the man who died peacefully in his bed left to his cism. With the advent of the English into Galway at the close of the 18th Century [ became al important com mercial and military center, and the Galwegian bas-bleu of today traces his ancestry to one of those families in the local verse; 'Athy. Blake. Bodkin, Deane, Darcy, l
 Lynch, Joyce, Kirwan, Martin, Morris, sher-
 ret, French,'- known as the Tribes of Galway.
 "Hely Dutton, writing in 1924, in the vicinity of Galway erected be- tween the 5th and 18th centuries, which are worth visiting, and be- relations with this port a trace of Spanish influence may be discovered in some of. the old buildings. A trav- 1 eler of 30 years ago wrote that at every second step I saw something to recall Spain to my recollection-the | wide entries and broad stairs of Cadiz and Malaga but more recent visitor, | W. B. Blake, found few relics of the past, only nunneries thrive in this shrunken capital of the west that once traded with all the world and rang !! with the wit and paths and commerce 1 of French and Spanish captains There is still to be seen Lynch Castle, | with its scu1ptured monkeys, from the l windows of which James Lynch Fitz- 1 stephen, mayor of Galway in l4S5, hanged his own son with his own hands, for the treacherous murder of a Spanish nobleman on account of | Jealousy.
 Some three-score years ago the | plan of establishing a transatlantic l line between Galway and New York | was projected, and came so near to l realization that at least one ship made l the voyage only to finish disastrolsly | on the rocks at the entrance to the harbor, while another shipSdestined | for that route was burned on the 1 American side There were ugly ru- ! mors af1oat at the time that the pilots