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"right of voting in and electing their warden and "vicars."-N. B. It must be understood that the Protestant warden and vicars have nothing to do with this affair. The following is the answer to the above:

OBSERVATIONS on the disputes existing between the tribes and the non-tribes of Galway relative to the right of presenting a warden and vicars for the collegiate church of St. Nicholas in Galway, submitted to the consideration of the public by

A NON-TRIBE.

Galway, July 1792.

As the first of August is rapidly advancing, and will probably be a day on which the election of a warden will again bring to light, and to the people's recollection, the disputes which have arisen on the death of the late Rev. Augustin Kirwan, deceased, relative to the right of election of a warden and vicars for the collegiate church of St. Nicholas and town of Galway, and as that right or privilege has been exercised for some time past by a certain description of people, generally denominated the thirteen tribes of Galway, to the utter exclusion of their fellow citizens or townsmen, who are of different names or families, I think it incumbent on every person that wishes well to civil society; on every person divested of narrow prejudices and bigotry; on every person of a tolerant and enlightened mind; for the public good; for the benefit and advantage of himself, his contemporaries, the rising generation, and their posterity to the end of time, living in the town of Galway, to step forward and give whatever information and assistance in his power for the elucidation of an affair that has been buried in obscurity for so many years, and by which, without the smallest shadow of reason,

justice, or equity, the larger part of the inhabitants of the town and parishioners of the said church of St. Nicholas are excluded from a participation of the beforementioned privilege, which they undoubtedly have and ought to exercise for the presentation of a warden and vicars for the government of the said church.

Upon that presumption I have committed the following thoughts to paper, without the smallest intention of giving offence, for there are many individuals amongst the tribes for whom I have the greatest respect, and whose minds I am convinced are not narrowed by idle and vulgar prejudices, but enlarged by the tolerant and enlightened ideas of the age we live in. As some of the other inhabitants of Galway only behold the hardships and other oppressive circumstances of their situations, without making any particular enquiries into the merits of the case, some little explanation may be necessary to shew them where the grievance lies, and if possible to do away a distinction so odious and disagreeable in itself, the bane of all society and connexion amongst the inhabitants of the same place, and to bring them upon that equality with each other, which was the original institution of Pope Innocent VIII. when he constituted Galway with a wardenship; but we must first recur to whatever knowledge may exist relative and prior to that institution. Galway was built about the year 1300, by a colony of Englishmen, whose descendants at this day go by the name of the thirteen tribes of Galway, to distinguish them from the posterity of the other inhabitants of this county, but we have no account of its being erected into a wardenship until the year 1484; before that time (as is manifest by a Bull granted in the said year by the abovementioned Pope Innocent) it was commonly governed by vicars, but how they were elected or constituted does not appear, nor is it necessary for the

present; however it is evident that a petition in behalf of that part of the parishioners living within the walls of the town was transmitted to the Pope, in which the petitioners took every care to represent themselves as modest and moral people, and to paint the inhabitants of the country near the town in the most dreadful and barbarous colours, as "A parcel of savages "brought up in woods and mountains, unpolished "and illiterate; that they were disturbed in exercis"ing the divine duties of their religion, according "to the English decency, right, and, custom by those "barbarians; that they were often robbed and mur"dered by them; that their lives were always in

danger, and that they were likely to suffer many "other losses and inconveniences for the future if not "speedily succoured by the Court of Rome. That "they had made an application to the Archbishop "of Tuam, who commiserating their deplorable con"dition, had by his own proper authority erected the "said church of St. Nicholas into a Collegiate, to be governed by a warden and vicars, who must be all "learned, pious, and well bred men, and should be "presented for institution to each other by the corpo"ration of the town, or mayor, bailiff, and their "equals," &c. The prayer of their petition was, "That his holiness would graciously confirm the said

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constitution of the Archbishop with his apostolic "power, and protect them from the dangers those

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savages above mentioned threatened them with, in "respect to the privilege of electing the said warden "and vicars." In consequence of a petition so speciously and pathetically put together, Pope Innocent VIII. was pleased to grant a Bull, dated the sixth of the ides of February, in the year 1484, in which he confirms the continuation of the said Church of St.

Nicholas into a collegiate church, to be governed by a warden and eight vicars, who must be moral, well bred, and virtuous men; and to follow the English decency rite and customs in celebrating the divine mysteries of their religion. He confirms the right of presentation to the corporation of Galway, or to the mayor, bailiffs, or sheriffs, and their equals, for ever, or in the words of the Bull" Superiori proposito, sive majori, ballivis, "et paribus dictæ villæ." The petitioners are styled in it "Dilectorum filiorum universorum parochianorum "parochialis ecclesiæ St. Nicolai villæ Galviæ," or "Our beloved children, all the parishioners of the pa"rish Church of St. Nicholas, of the village of Gal"way." And the people who by it are deprived of the right of franchise, are called in one part of the Bull "Montani et Sylvestres homines," men who live in woods and mountains, and in another place "indocti illiterati." Only for the democratical word "universorum," the thirteen tribes might boast that they were the only favourites of the Pope, and we might now find a curious aristocracy in the town, embodied and enabled by a patent granted 300 years ago in Rome; but unfortunately the word is of such a comprehensive signification as to prove that the Bull was granted at the request of the whole, and not of a part of the parishioners of St. Nicholas, without any distinction or compliment being paid to any particular names, tribes, or families. It appears that the right of presentation was settled with the mayor, sheriffs, and their equals, who I conceive to be the common councilmen of the town; and the corporation of the town, consisting of the said mayor, sheriffs, bailiffs, &c. I consider to be the bulwarks by which the inhabitants were to be protected from encroachments of their troublesome neigh

bours; the people proscribed by the Bull are a parcel of savages without learning or education, who were brought up like wild beasts in the woods and mountains, supporting themselves by rapine, plunder and robbery, living on the prey they forcibly carried away from the people of Galway. In short they are represented in a greater state of barbarity than the Indians of North America, only they had not refined in cruelty so much as to scalp their unfortunate victims, and finish by devouring them like cannibals. However, certain it is that the Bull, in no particular part, makes the smallest mention of granting the privilege of presenting a warden or vicar to any particular name, tribe, or family, or any particular description of men whatsoever (the mayor, bailiffs, and their equals excepted). It does not even mention them at all except by the word "Pares," which in my opinion signifies equals.-The Pope meant the thirteen tribes of Galway, as I have heard very humoursly remarked.

But those advocates of the dignity of the thirteen tribes contend that their ancestors have been the original inhabitants of Galway, and that by right of inheritance they and no other are entitled to derive a privilege from any grant made in favor of their predecessors. Allowing them to be the Aborigines of the town, does it follow that those other names or families who since settled in Galway are entitled to no other privilege but that of occasional visiters? It cannot. They settled in it with their families and fortunes, they made it their place of residence and abode, and though they may not boast of the same antiquity in the town, its being a place of residence for themselves and successors for many generations, gives them a claim to the rights of naturalization. Will those advocates for the thirteen tribes candidly declare, if on their first

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