Was it because his name had escaped the memory or that he was a lowly member of the staff, or was it that he had a foreign-sounding Irish name, difficult for the scribe of the domestic accounts of the household of Lord Fitzgibbon? (These accounts covered various periods between 1558 and 1599 of his Lordship's employment as vice-treasurer and treasurer at wars, lord justice and lord deputy of Ireland).
Whatever, this man was simply referred to as "The Galloglas". The Oxford Dictionary gives galloglass (also gallowglass) as deriving from the Irish gall≤glach (gall foreigner + ≤glach, youth), servant, warrior. "One of a particular class of soldiers or retainers formerly maintained by Irish chiefs".
Essentially he was a mercenary, a soldier serving in the army of a country other than his own.
But were individual galloglasses employed in households in a security capacity, or was "The Galloglas" engaged in other duties?
These records of household expenditure listed the prices of services, foods and clothing. In the year 1590 Kellie the footman had a round cassock of broadcloth at 9s 6d the yard; it cost 12d a yard for the 21/2 yards of 'popingaie grene' for a cloak for Symon Bowyer, gent. "The Galloglas: 21/2 yards of 'grene Carsey' to make him Trowes, 6s 6d; 1 pr of brogges, 12d; a band and towards the buying of a shirt, 2s 6d; strings for shirt-bands, 5d".
Carsey was kersey, a kind of coarse narrow cloth woven from long wool and usually ribbed. As late as 1831 kersey was still used in the making of trousers, and as early as 1588 it was also taken the meaning "plain, homely".
Gall≤glach gave rise to the surname Mac an Ghall≤glaigh, a name that was Anglicised Gallogly. As gall means "foreigner" this name was betimes made into English and Englishby. This then extended to Ingoldsby, and, attempting to retain the initial and final letters, into the English surname Golightly.
Peadar Livingstone in The Fermanagh Story(1969), locating the Galloglys in Lurg, says that this family has nearly become extinct, but current telephone directories list some 22 of the name south of the Border, and around the same to its North. He noted John Gallogly as having been an informer in 1798, while Patrick Gallogly was one of three sergeants in the Fermanagh Militia in 1798, all of whom boasted that they were Orangemen.
The people of the Western Isles of Scotland have been described as "hardy, predatory, and accustomed to the sea", and it was from here that came the first galloglasses in the 13th century. These were the MacDonalds from Cantyre who remained the most prominent, with the possible exception of the MacSweeneys. "Yet the MacDonalds, though they remained strongest in Ulster and became hereditary fighting men to the O'Neills, appeared in three provinces" (Elizabethan Irish Wars: Cyril Falls 1997).
Other galloglass families were the MacSheehys, prominent in Munster where they formed the backbone of the Desmond rebellion; the MacDowells, MacCabes, and MacRorys who seem to have remained for the most part in Ulster, though the MacDowells and MacRorys are also found in Connaught.
A fiant of 1553 notes the granting of English liberty to Alexander m'Tirlaghe O Donnell of Ballybwye, gent, captain of the King's Scotici, otherwise galloglas.
Thomas Chattirton of Lydyard, Wiltshire, with his friends and followers being natural Englishmen was commissioned to "to invade, subdue and expel or bring to mercy the people of the countries of Ohrere alias O Hanlons and Galliglas country and the Fues". (It almost sounded like inviting ones better-class friends to a day's hunting!).
Among the requirements of Molaghlan Modder O Maddy, noted in a 1558 fiant, was to give bonaght for forty galloglas; in 1566 Hugh mac Molaghlyn ballagh O Madden was to provide 80 scottici or galloglasses for four weeks each year.
A fiant of 1584 notes the pardon of Mollaghlen O Dowgan, Donoghe enlogurt O Dowgan and Edmund oge m'Edmund m'bairy m'Swyny, all of Macroom, Co. Cork, and all gallowglasses.
"Bonnought and gallowglass" are mentioned in that well-known song O Donnell Abu. Buannacht, Anglicised bonnought/bonaght, has acquired the meaning of "Irish mercenary", though its basic meaning is "free quarters of soldiers, billeting tax".
The Irish for the Co Donegal town of Millford is Baile na nGall≤glach, "the town of the galloglasses", its old original name.