We are delighted to welcome Prof. Paul McNulty for a lecture on the Anglo-Norman Lynches of Galway, on Friday 7 February at 8pm in the Heritage Room.

Paul McNulty is convinced that genealogy provides a gateway not only to local and family history but also to national history. He supports this assertion through the study of the Anglo-Norman Lynches who settled in Galway. It was an inspired choice because the Lynches left behind a legacy of involvement in Irish society from their arrival with Strongbow in 1169, their settlement in Galway and Mayo until their gradual withdrawal from Ireland in the 20th century. McNulty charts their progress using their dominance of the Galway mayoralty until their expulsion from the city by Cromwell in 1652. Thereafter they settled in the countryside of Galway and Mayo with the support of the aristocratic de Burghs and buoyed by the status of their baronetcy dating from 1634 up to the current 17th Baronet. 

McNulty bolsters his case by reference to ethnicity charts based on genetic profiling, by ancestral charts, by a fragment of the 1821 Census, and by the rich legacy of epic stories celebrated in song, stage and screen throughout the course of Irish history.