History
The first inhabitants in the Galway area arrived over 7000 years ago. Shell middens tell us about the existence of people as early as 5000 BC.
The county originally comprised several kingdoms and territories which predate the formation of the county. They included Aidhne, Uí Maine, Maigh Seóla, Conmhaícne Mara, Soghain and Máenmaige. County Galway came into official existence c. 1569.
A number of inhabited islands are administered by the county; they include Oileáin Árann (Aran Islands) and Inis Bó Fine (Inishbofin).
With the arrival of Christianity many monasteries were built, and written records of events in the area and of its people were kept. These were followed by a number of law-tracts, genealogies, annals and miscellaneous accounts. Extant manuscripts containing references to Galway include:
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)