The Treaty of Limerick, October 3 1691, which was mainly a military success for the Irish/Jacobite army, was indecisive on its civil articles; and those which were agreed were soon ignored by a vengeful Protestant parliament.
The once great Tribal Families of Galway, if they remained Catholic, were reduced to living in modest homes, and barely permitted to earn a livelihood. Their hard-pressed heirs and younger sons made their way in the world through army careers or working for successful colonial companies such as the East India Company, or Hudson’s Bay Company, and others. Daughters, with meagre dowries, were often trapped in spinsterhood. Many sought a religious life abroad.
Proud, if relatively poor, this petty gentry, however, were fiercely conscious of their status as a caste apart. Whereas there were squabbles over the election of Galway’s mayor and aldermen, there were no difficulties in putting into effect the time honoured agreement allowing the old trading families to elect their own warden and priests which would administer to the Catholics in the town. This special Galway Wardenship, which existed in St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church for two hundred years previously, gave the old families the right to select their own priests.*
Even though St Nicholas’ was a Protestant church since the Reformation, it still adhered to the Wardenship agreement; and at this time of extreme crisis it did not hesitate to cooperate with the appointment of priests, who would say mass and give comfort to the sick and dying, throughout the town in strictest secrecy.
Furthermore the church willingly gathered ‘the scattered remnants of the collegiate property’, and had it sent to France privately, where it was sold and the money invested. Every year the interest earned was sent back to Galway to support the warden and priests.**
Cat and mouse
For ease of administration the town was divided into parishes. Even so, Hardiman tells us the persecutions against the Catholics continued unabated. The elected warden and priests ‘were repeatedly arrested and imprisoned for attempting to perform their clerical duties, insomuch that they were often obliged to officiate in the dead of night, and not infrequently, to steal out, disguised in woman’s apparel, to visit the sick and dying.’
The persecution of Catholics seem to come in waves. In about 1725 there was some relaxation in vigilance, sufficient for the warden and priests to set up a chapel in a warehouse belonging to Anthony Bodkin in Middle Street, where mass was celebrated for the first time since the surrender of the town. Six years later the church was raided and the priests arrested.
A cat and mouse game continued through the decades until, as time passed, a tolerable violation of the laws was accepted, providing the administration of the Catholic church was kept private.
But the Galway situation was unique in Irish history. Despite the Williamite victory at the Boyne, Aughrim and Limerick, and the rise of the powerful all-Protestant Irish Parliament, the expelling of Catholic priests from the country, and the threat of instant execution if found, the two main religions in Galway became a band of brothers in their allegiance to the ancient families, and their right to elect their own warden and priests.
Williams Gate
One of the most remarkable men in all these events was, of course, the Williamite general Godert de Ginkel, a highly effective battle commander and diplomat. For his Irish victories he was awarded the title Earl of Athlone and others, including a large estate in Ireland which he never occupied.
Evidently he and Sarsfield struck up a friendship during the Limerick negotiations. Before Sarsfield left Ireland De Ginkel presented him with two horses, and when Sarsfield arrived in Paris he wrote offering to buy Ginkel’s wife and daughters anything they wished.
Ginkel served King William in several other battles on the continent. His brilliant cavalry officer Hugh Mackay was killed at Steenkirk in August 1692. Sarsfield was shot in the chest the following year at the battle of Landen, and died days later at the nearby town of Huy. At that same battle, but fighting on the other side, Ginkel nearly drowned. But he survived his many wars to die at home in Utrecht 12 years after Limerick.
Galway has a daily reminder of these momentous times when at 12 noon, July 26 1691 Ginkel entered the town after its surrender. It is believed he entered by the East Gate, and he changed the name of the street to Williams Gate Street, after his king whom he served so well.
NOTES: * In the 15th century, the principal 12 families in Galway were highly regarded for their trading skills, wealth, and imports into the town and country. They paid for the original church to be built 700 years ago this year, and greatly enhanced its interior with side-chapels, decorated altars and tombs over time. When the merchants requested permission to by-pass the Archbishop of Tuam to appoint their own warden and priests to St Nicholas’, King Richard III agreed; and Pope Innocent VIII issued his full support in a document dated February 8 1485. This unique situation continued into the 19th century (Galway Diary February 20 2020 ).
** Sacred utensils and church plate, then valued at more than £500, were also sent to France and deposited for safe keeping in the Irish College in Paris. They were seized during the French Revolution.
Sources for this series primarily include James Hardiman’s History of Galway, now in an practical bicentenary paperback edition, published by Clachan, Northern Ireland at €25. Well worth having. A good introduction to these memorable times is 1691 - A Novel by Joe Joyce, at €15. Joe grew up beside the Aughrim battlefield.
Also highly recommended: Irish Battles - A Military History of Ireland by the renowned NUIG historian, the late G A Hayes-McCoy, originally published by Longman’s 1969. Hayes-McCoy refers to Joe’s father, Martin, as ‘the man who knows every blade of grass on Kilcommadan Hill.’
