More rain in Galway — A walk there — and the second Galway Night’s Entertainment.

“Seven hills has Rome, seven mouths has Nuns’ stream,

Around the Pole seven burning planets gleam.

Twice equal these is Galway, Connaught’s Rome:

Twice seven illustrious tribes here find their home.a

Twice seven fair towers the city’s ramparts guard:

Each house within is built of marble hard.

With lofty turret flanked, twice seven the gates,

Through twice seven bridges water permeates.

In the high church are twice seven altars raised,

At each a holy saint and patron’s praised.

Twice seven the convents dedicate to heaven, -

Seven for the female sex-for godly fathers seven.”b

Having read in Hardiman’s History the quaint inscription in Irish Latin, of which the above lines are a version, and looked admiringly at the old plans of Galway which are to be found in the same work, I was in hopes to have seen in the town some considerable remains of its former splendour, in spite of a warning to the contrary which the learned historiographer gives.

a By the help of an Alexandrine, the names of these famous families may also be accommodated to verse.

“Athey, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Dorsey, Frinche.

Joyce, Morech, Skereth, Foote, Kirowan, Martin, Roche.”

b If the rude old verses are not very remarkable in quality, in quantity they are sill more deficient, and take some dire liberties with the laws laid  down in the Gradus and the Grammar:]

“Septem ornant montes Romam, sept ostia Nilum

Tot rutilis stellis splendet in axe Pollus.

Galvia, Polo Niloque bis aequas. Roma Conachtae,

Bis septem illultres has colit illa tribus.

Bis urbis septem defendunt moenia turres,

Intus et en duro est marmore quaeque domus.

Bis septem portae sunt, castra et culmina circum,

Per totidem pontum unda vias.

Principle bis septem fulgent altaria templo,

Quaevis patronae est ara dicata suo,

Et septem sacrata Deo coenobia, patrum

Foeminei et sexus, tot pia tecta tenet.”

The old city certainly has some relics of its former stateliness; and indeed, is the only town in Ireland I have seen, where an antiquary can find much subject for study, or a lover of the picturesque an occasion for using his pencil. It is a wild, fierce, and most original old town. Joyce’s Castle in one of the principal streets, a huge square grey tower, with many carvings and ornaments, is a gallant relic of its old days of prosperity, and gives one an awful idea of the tenements which the other families inhabited, and which are designed in the interesting plate which Mr. Hardiman gives in his work. The Collegiate Church, too, is still extant, without its fourteen altars, and looks to be something between a church and a castle, and as if it should be served by Templars with sword and helmet in place of mitre and crozier. The old houses in the Main Street are like fortresses the windows look into a court within; there is but a small low door, and a few grim windows peering suspiciously into the street.

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