Thomas Kirwan,

Mayor of Galway The office of Mayor of Galway is an honorific title used by the of Galway City Council. The council has jurisdiction throughout its administrative area of the city of Galway which is the largest city in the province of Connacht, in Ireland. Th ...

1534-35 and 1547-48. Kirwan was the second member of his family to serve as Mayor; a further nine would hold the office. He was a descendant of William Ó Ciardhubháin, who had settled in the town of Galway in the 1480s. During his second term, Kirwan responded to a threat of attack by Scots

gallowglass The Gallowglass (also spelled galloglass, gallowglas or galloglas; from meaning "foreign warriors") were a class of elite mercenary warriors who were principally members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Ireland and Scotland between the mid 13th ...

and Gaelic forces by raising eight hundred men to defend the town within twenty-one days. While confidant of holding out on land, Kirwan expressed to the Lord Deputy in Dublin that Galway was in need of reinforcement from the sea. He pointed out in a second letter that, unlike other towns, Galway had always provided for its own defences. One son, Thomas Óge, who died in 1542 while an

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denotin ...

. His second son, Stephen, was ancestor to the Kirwans of Castlehackett House,

Tuam Tuam (; , meaning 'mound' or 'burial-place') is a town in Ireland and the second-largest settlement in County Galway. It is west of the midland Region, Ireland, midlands of Ireland, about north of Galway city. The town is in a civil parishe ...

References

*''History of Galway'',

James Hardiman James Hardiman (February 1782 – 13 November 1855), also known as Séamus Ó hArgadáin, was a librarian at Queen's College, Galway and an important historian. Hardiman is best remembered for his '' History of the Town and County of Galway'' (1 ...

Galway Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...

, 1820. *''Old Galway'',

Maureen Donovan O'Sullivan Mary Josephine Donovan O'Sullivan was professor of history at Queens College, Galway (now NUI Galway) from 1914 to 1957. Biography One of ten children, four of whom survived infancy, Donovan was born at Fair Hill Road in Galway on 24 November ...

, 1942. *''Role of Honour:The Mayors of Galway City 1485-2001'', by William Henry, Galway, 2002. * Martyn, Adrian (2016). ''The Tribes of Galway: 1124-1642'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirwan, Thomas 16th-century Irish politicians 16th-century Irish businesspeople Mayors of Galway