And in Clonmacnoise they laid the men of Teffia, And right many a lord of Bregh; Deep the sod above Clan Creidé and Clan Conaill, Kind in hall and fierce in fray.
Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-fighter In the red earth lies at rest; Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers, Many a swan-white breast.
IT was in the dusk of early evening that our train started westward from Athlone, and we soon found ourselves traversing again the dreary bogs which we had crossed on our way from Athenry. I have seldom seen a more beautiful sunset than the one that evening, and we watched the changing sky and the flaming west for long hours; and then, just as darkness came, the great reaches of Galway Bay opened before us, and we were at our journey's end--Galway of the Tribes, the beautiful old town which is the gateway to Connemara.
There is a good hotel connected with the railway, and we had dinner there, and then went forth to see the town. We were struck at once by its picturesqueness, its foreign air. The narrow curving streets do not somehow look like Irish streets, nor do the houses look like Irish houses; rather might one fancy oneself in some old town of France or Belgium. We were fascinated by it, and wandered about for a long time, along dim lanes, into dark courts, looking at the shawled women and listening to the soft talk of the strolling girls.
Nobody knows certainly how Galway got its name. Some say it was because a woman named Galva was drowned in the river; others maintain that the name was derived from the Gallæci of Spain, who used to trade here; and still others think that it came from the Gaels, who eventually occupied it in the course of their conquest of Ireland. Whatever the origin of the name, the town was but a poor place, a mere trading village of little importance, until the English came. Richard de Burgo was granted the county of Connaught by the English king in 1226, and six years later he entered Galway, rebuilt and enlarged the castle which had been put up by the Connaught men, threw a wall around the town, and so established another of those centres of Norman power, which were soon to overshadow the whole of Ireland. It was a very English colony, at first, with a deep-seated contempt for the wild Irish. Over the west gate, which looked toward Connemara, was the inscription,