Motto: Mors aut honorabilis vita (Death, or Life with honour)
The Joyces, of English descent, first settled in Munster before establishing themselves in western Connacht. Thomas Joyce married into the O’Brien family and acquired extensive lands in what became known as Joyce Country (Duthaidh Sheodhoigh) in Connemara. The family was renowned for their physical stature and influence in Connemara, and also had with branches in Mervue, Foxford, and Woodquay.
The first notable person of the name to affect Galway city’s history was William Joyce, who, as Archbishop of Tuam in 1486, extended the wardenship of the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas to include Moycullen, Oranmore and Skryne. Henry Joyce, Mayor in 1542, was the only person of the name to attain that office.
It is worth noting that no mansion of the Joyce family is noted on the Galway map of the reign of Charles II, although it appears that it was engraved at the behest of Rev. Henry Joyce.
A house of the Joyce family in Market Street is now Finnegan’s Restaurant. The building contains a fine fireplace in situ, with Joyce and Skerrett arms. It may have been part of their main residence in the city. The major Joyce property at Galway was Mervue and the old family house contained the showrooms of Royal Tara for many years.
A three-storey stone house owned by the Joyce family stands on the narrow Church lane and was probably built around 1786 on the site of an earlier medieval building. The Joyce town house built by John Joyce, a Galway merchant, is one of a terrace of town houses on St. Augustine Street, and dated from 1795.
The name Joyce is also associated with the earliest Claddagh Ring, through Richard Joyce, an eighteenth-century Galway silversmith
1651 Map: https://galwaycivictrust.ie/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Cantec_Scan-of-1651-map.pdf
Sources Consulted
Books
Dargan, Pat, Galway – City of Heritage, Eastwood Books, Dublin, 2024
Dowd, Peadar, “A Family Heritage in Stone”, Galway Roots- Journal of the Galway Family History Society West, Summer 1993, (pp6-8)
Hardiman, James, Hardiman’s History of Galway, 1820 (reprint, Connacht Tribune 1985)
Larkin, Patrick “SOME TOWN CASTLES OF GALWAY.”Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 72 (2020): 157–72.
Martyn Adrian, The Tribes Of Galway; 1124- 1642, Galway; Adrian Martyn, 2016
O’Neill T.P., The Tribes and other Galway families, (1984), reprint, Galway Civic Trust, 2013
Prunty, Jacinta; Walsh, Paul, Galway- Irish Historic Town Atlas No 28, Royal Irish Academy, 2016
Walsh, Paul, Renaissance Galway- Delineating the Seventeenth Century City, Royal Irish Academy, 2019
Internet
Welcome to County Galway Guide, ‘’Tribes of Galway”, (2007), https://www.galway-ireland.ie/galway-tribes.htm
