GALLOWAY, an extensive district in the southwest of Scotland, once somewhat larger, but now comprised in the shires of Wigtown and Kirkcudbright. To-day, the designation is nothing but a name, having no political bearing. It enjoys a mild climate, and is famous as a pastoral district, its breeds of small horses and of large, hornless, black cattle being well known. Dairy-farming is now an important in dustry. The old district or province is about 70 miles in length by 40 at its utmost breadth, and contains the greatest diversity of scenery — mountain, lake and stream, as well as dreary waste and almost pathless moor. There is no mineral wealth and few industries. The prov ince owes its name to the fact that the natives were called Gall-Gad, or Foreign Gaels, at first because of their falling under the foreign rule of the Anglians; but as the Picts of Galloway they continued to be known so late as 1138. Their geographical position had shut them off from their northern kinsmen and they continued under their ancient names a distinct people till the 12th century, and preserved their language —a dialect of Gaelic — down to the 16th cen tury, when it finally disappeared before the Reformation and the use of Lowland Scotch in the churches and schools, leaving only a rich crop of place names similar to those of Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. The earliest inhabitants are styled by Ptolemy the Novante and their towns are given as Luco phibia, Perigonium, Corda and Carbantorigum.
Tacitus tells us that Agricola concentrated a force in that part of Britain which looked on Ireland, and most authorities identify this with Galloway, and they are borne out by discovery of Roman forts in Wigtown. Galloway was subdued by the Northumbrian Anglians of Bernicia in the 7th century, and governed by them for about 200 years, and it was to this period apparently that the modern name is due. After about three centuries of more or less complete independence, interrupted only by Norse ravages and at length by a period of Norse supremacy, it was recovered by Mal colm Canmore, granted as an earldom in 1107, to his youngest son David, and on his accession to the throne in 1124, formally united with Scotland. Of the native lords of Galloway several rose in revolt in attempts to throw off the Scottish yoke, even offering fealty to Eng land. Finallly in 1455 the lordship of Gallo way was attached to the Crown. Consult Briggs, 'Angling and Art in Scotland' (New York 1908) ; Mackenzie, 'History of Galloway' (1841) ; M'Kerlie, 'Galloway in Ancient and Modern Times' (1891) ; Maxwell, 'History of Dumfries and Galloway' (Edinburgh 1900) ; Skene, 'Celtic Scotland' (ib. 1876).