Motto: Si Deus nobiscum quis contra nos (If God be with us, who can be against us)
The Morris family settled in Galway in 1485. Initially written as Mares or Morech, they contributed several mayors and sheriffs to the city’s governance. Lord Killanin, former IOC president, was a descendant. Properties included homes in Galway City (in the suburb of Wellpark) and Spiddal, Co. Galway
The name had by 1300 been established in Tipperary having come in with the Anglo-Normans. The Morris family, though named as one of the Galway Tribes, was not a predominant one. Neither did it purchase land to any great extent in pre-Cromwellian Connacht.
Andrew Morris was one of the citizens who refused to sign the articles of capitulation forced on the city in 1652. He had defended Galway under General Preston against the Cromwellians.
Other Morrises were to serve in the East India Company in the eighteenth century, which they could do without changing religion. Martin Morris became in 1841, the first Catholic High Sheriff of the county and town of Galway since 1690. His son, Michael, was M.P. for Galway 1867-1869 and a noted lawyer. He was raised to the bench as Justice of the Common Pleas, became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1887 and was in 1900 raised to the peerage as Lord Killanin. His grandson was Lord Killanin (died 25th April 1999), who was internationally known for his work as President of the Olympic Council.
The Morris family of Ballinaboy House, Clifden, is descended from James Morris of Galway city who was born in 1710 and married Anne Lynch. Another James Morris was, in the late eighteenth century, the Recorder of the unofficial Corporation of Galway which existed in order to appoint the Catholic wardens.
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
