"All the Ways to Galway" is an Irish reel in 4/4 time or polka in 2/4 time and D Major and D Mixolydian. The parts are played AABB. Breathnach (1976) finds the first printing of the tune in Glasgow publisher James Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs (1780-1803) under the title "The Galway Girls". He quotes Crofton Crocker's The Popular Songs of Ireland (1839) which states "'All the way from Gallaway, early in the morning' is the burden of a popular song descriptive of the march of the Galway militia". The tune appears (in 2/4 time) in vol. 2 of the large mid-19th century music manuscript collection of County Cork cleric and uilleann piper James Goodman and it was also entered into Book 2 of the large c. 1883 music manuscript collection of County Leitrim piper and fiddler Stephen Grier (c. 1824-1894). It was printed in Breathnach's Ceol Rince na hÉireann vol. II (1976), Cole's 1000 Fiddle Tunes (1940), Deloughery's Sliabh Luachra on Parade (2010), Harker's 300 Tunes from Mike Rafferty (2005), P.M. Haverty's One Hundred Irish Airs vol. 3 (1859), Hughes' Gems from the Emerald Isle (c. 1860's), O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907), Robbins Music Corp.'s The Robbins collection of 200 jigs, reels and country dances (1933), Stanford/Petrie's Complete Collection (1905), Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883) and White's Unique Collection (1896). It was recorded by The Chieftains on Chieftains 3 and The Bothy Band on Old Hag You Have Killed Me (1981).