Galwegian Gaelic is an extinct Goidelic dialect formerly spoken in South West Scotland. It was spoken by the independent kings of Galloway in their time, and by the people of Galloway and Carrick until the early modern period. It was once spoken in Annandale and Strathnith. It is not to be confused with forms of Irish Gaelic spoken in County Galway in Ireland, for which the adjectival form Galwegian is sometimes also used. Gaelicization in Galloway and Carrick occurred at the expense of Old English and British.
Although Galloway was peripheral to Scotland until 1234, in the aftermath of the rebellion of Gille Ruadh and the dissolution of the Lordship, Galloway and Galwegians became critical. The demise of Cumbric in the region is even harder to date than Gaelic. The likely eastern limit reached by the language was the Annan. Under the post-1234 Franco-Gaelic lorship were several powerful kin-groups, or clans, for instance, the MacLellans, the MacDowalls and the Kennedys of Carrick. It was probably through these groups that Galwegian society operated for the remainder of the Middle Ages. Dialects on both sides of the Straits of Moyle linking Scottish Gaelic with Irish are now extinct.
It is thought that Galwegian Gaelic probably had more in common with the Manx and Ulster Irish than with Scottish Gaelic as spoken in the Highlands. Perhaps the Gaelic dialect of the Isle of Arran of North Ayrshire parallels the Galwegian language most as Gallowegian Gaelic seems to have borrowed certain words from Old English. Saint Columba and Saint Ninian are said to have stayed on Arran, and there are other Irish connections, e.g. a stone circle named Fingal's Cauldron. The Norse-Gaels settlement in England was concentrated in the North West. This migration of Norsemen from Ireland spread out to places like the Lake District, Arnside and Silverdale, Howgill Fells, Yorkshire Dales but not as heavy in Cheshire and may or may not have went to the North Pennines.
Gaelicized Scandinavians dominated the Irish Sea region until the Norman era of the twelfth century, founding long-lasting kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Man, Argyll, Dublin, York and Galloway. The Lords of the Isles, a Lordship which lasted until the sixteenth century, as well as many other Gaelic rulers of Scotland and Ireland, traced their descent from Norse-Gaels. Norse-Gaels are recorded as the allies of Harold Godwinson's sons in their battles against the Normans, which occurred circa 1069-1070. In 1133, Norse-Gaels in the Debatable Lands populated the Diocese of Carlisle including Bees of the lakeside. In 1541, the Anglican Diocese of Chester was formed upon the area settled by Norse-Gaels, but appeared as English when the Domesday Book was recorded. It is recorded in the Landnamabok that there were papar or culdees in Iceland before the Norse, and this appears to tie in with comments of Dicuil. They were called "Vestmen", and the name is retained in Vestmanna in the Faroes, and the Vestmannaeyjar off the Icelandic mainland, where it is said that Irish slaves escaped to.
Although the Galwegian language died out somewhere in the two-century period between 1600 and 1800, with the balance of evidence strongly indicating an effective disappearance in the seventeenth century. It is notable though, that nearby areas such as the Isle of Man, east Ulster and Arran all had native Gaelic speakers into the 20th century.
Many of the leading settlers would have been Norse speaking, but this would not appear to have been to the same extent as in other Norse-Gaelic regions, such as parts of the Hebrides and Sutherland-Caithness. It is quite possible that even as late as the twelfth century, Cumbric (a Brythonic language related to Welsh) was still spoken in Annandale and lower Strathnith. The likely eastern limit reached by the language was the Annan. The reason for that is that Gaelic placenames disappear quite rapidly after this boundary, although a handful of Gaelic names also appear in Cumbria. In the north it was possibly cut off from other Scottish dialects in the fourteenth, if not the thirteenth century.