Motto: Un Dieu, un Roy (One God, One King)
The D’Arcy family of Galway claim descent from French nobility near Paris, originally taking the name from Château d’Arcie. They came to England with William the Conqueror, and Sir John D’Arcy was appointed Justiciar of Ireland in 1323. There were Normans with the name who settled in Leinster. However, the Connacht antecedents of the Galway D’Arcy tribe were the O’Dorchaidhe of Partry, Co. Mayo.
The earliest reference to the family in the Galway city records occurs in 1578 when ‘James Dorsey’ was bailiff. From him descended the family which became noted in Galway. James Riabhach D’Arcy consolidated the Galway branch during Elizabeth I’s reign, when the family moved into Galway’s upper ranks enabled through marriages, property acquisition, and changing from Catholic to Protestant. Distinguished for political influence and trade, their residences included Kiltullagh and Newforest.
Martin Darcy was the second of the seven sons of James Riabhach Darcy (d.1603), who was vice-president of Connacht in Elizabethan times. The mansion house of Martin Dorsi, citizen, was one of the fourteen eminent private houses listed on the mid-seventeenth century Galway city map.
The Pictorial Map clearly depicts his house as a tower within a courtyard, in the Galway manner. It was fronted by an elaborately decorated doorway dated 1624, which was transferred to the Sisters of Mercy convent in the mid-19th century. Apart from the doorway which is still extant, no visible remains of the castle have survived on site. (Marked as a on the map)
The house of James Riabhach Darcy was also on Abbeygate St Upper, roughly where ‘Electric’ nightclub now stands.
The other noted seats of the D’Arcy family were at Kiltullagh and Newforest in Co Galway, but their most remarkable achievement was the building of the new town in the county, Clifden. This town was established after the Napoleonic wars and is the capital of Connemara. It was established by John D’Arcy of Kiltullagh.
