Galloglass

A poetic description of a galloglass warrior in Ireland, from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen:

"All armed in a coat of iron plate,
Of great defence to ward the deadly fear,
And on his head a steel cap did wear
Of colour rusty brown, but sure and strong;
And in his hand an huge pole-axe did bear,
With which to wont his fight, to justify his wrong."

 Spenser, a colonial administrator in Ireland as well as a poet, knew the galloglass well. He was writing in the 16th century but his account could apply just as well to the galloglass of the medieval era.

Their first certain appearance in Irish history is apparently in the Annals of Loch Cé for 1259, which records a band of eight score óglaigh (young warriors) as part of the escort of the daughter of Lord Dugall MacRory of Garmoran, Argyll, on the occasion of her wedding to Aodh O'Connor of Connacht. Attached is a pic of stone carvings of galloglass on a tomb at the Dominican Priory of St Mary in Roscommon.