The King's Head Pub on High Street is named after a monarch who never set foot in Galway.

In 1649, King Charles I was beheaded in London, and Colonel Peter Stubbers, one of the soldiers who signed the death warrant, was rewarded handsomely. When Cromwell's forces besieged Galway for eight months, and the city finally surrendered in 1652, Stubbers helped himself to the building, evicting the sitting mayor and installing himself in his place.

A local man named Richard Gunning complicated matters further by touring Galway's taverns, claiming his arm had swung the fatal axe. It was a boast that went unchallenged for years.

VoiceMap's tours use the pub to anchor Galway's Cromwellian chapter, connecting the beheading of a king in London to the seizure of property, the deportation of citizens to Barbados, and the dismantling of the city's Catholic merchant class.