In medieval times, the islands were under the sway of the O Briens of Munster, who built a fortified tower house within the old walls of a Celtic cashel in Inis Oirr, until they were in turn ousted by the O’ Flahertys who were regarded by the merchants of Galway as pirates and smugglers and referred the matter to Queen Elizabeth who found that as the Islands were once monastic lands, and the monasteries having been declared dissolved, belonged oddly enough neither to the O’Flahertys or the O’Briens but to the crown itself. So in 1587 the islands were granted to an Englishman on condition that he kept a force of English foot-soldiers there, a garrison which waxed and waned over the next three and a half centuries.