"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 £5; 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--
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."
Mavrone! your hair is white as snow, Kathaleen, Your heart is sad and full of woe-- Do you repent you bade him go, Kathaleen? But still you answer proudly, "No, Far better die with Sarsfield so, Than live a slave without a blow For the Green."
Many of the old houses remain. Far and away the most interesting is Lynch's mansion at the corner of Abbey Gate-street. On the walls are the arms of the Lynches and their crest, a lynx, which it is said was given them for the watchfulness with which they guarded a besieged Austrian town in the middle ages. Behind Saint Nicholas' Church, in Market-street, is the Lynch stone, inscribed with a skull and crossbones, and "Vanity of vanity, and all is but vanity," above which is an inscription:--