Galway is a city in the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht. It is the county town of County Galway, which is named after it.

Located near an earlier settlement, Galway grew around a fortification built by the King of Connacht in 1124. A municipal charter, received in 1484, allowed for the citizens of the then walled city to form a council and mayoralty for the city. Controlled largely by a group of merchant families, the Tribes of Galway, the city grew into a trading port. Following a period of decline, as of the 21st century, the city is a tourist destination and is known for hosting numerous festivals, celebrations and events, including the Galway Arts Festival.

In 2018, Galway was named the European Region of Gastronomy. The city was the European Capital of Culture for 2020, alongside Rijeka, Croatia.

Places of interest

• Lynch’s Castle on Shop Street is a medieval town house built by the prosperous Lynch family in the 16th century and is now a branch of Allied Irish Banks.
• The Church of Ireland St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church is the largest medieval church still in everyday use in Ireland. It was founded in 1320 and enlarged in the following two centuries.
• The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas was consecrated in 1965 and is a far larger building constructed from limestone. It has an eclectic style, with a Renaissance Revival dome, pillars and round arches, and a Romanesque Revival portico that dominates the main façade – which is an unusual feature in modern Irish church building.
• The original quadrangle building of NUI Galway which was erected in 1849 (during the Great Famine or An Gorta Mór) as one of the three colleges of the Queen’s University of Ireland (along with Queen’s University Belfast and University College Cork). The university holds the UNESCO archive of spoken material for the Celtic languages.
• The Hardiman, (originally the Railway Hotel, then the Great Southern Hotel and then Hotel Meyrick) built by the Great Southern Railway Company in 1845. Sitting at the southern perimeter of Eyre Square, it is the city’s oldest hotel still in operation.
• The remains of Menlo Castle can be seen outside the city, on the eastern bank of the River Corrib. It was one of the ancestral homes of the Blake family, one of the Tribes of Galway from c. 1600–1910. The façade of the family’s townhouse (“Blake’s Castle”) is still extant next to Jury’s Hotel at the bottom of Quay Street.
• Eglinton Canal, named after a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, joins the River Corrib to the sea, and flows for just more than a kilometre from the University to the Claddagh.
• The Claddagh is the oldest part of Galway but little or nothing remains of its old thatched village. However, in a side altar of the parish church, St Mary’s on the Hill, is the late medieval statue of Our Lady of Galway. The ancient ritual of the Blessing of the Bay takes place on the Sunday nearest the feast of the Assumption.
• The Browne doorway, originally located on Lower Abbeygate Street but now standing at the north end of Eyre Square, was the doorway to the townhouse of the Browne family, one of the fourteen Tribes of Galway.
• The Lynch Window, (on Market Street), at which is a plaque commemorating one of the city’s legends. According to legend, in 1493, the then Mayor, James Lynch FitzStephen, hanged his own son for the murder of a young Spanish visitor who had the misfortune to befriend the girlfriend of the Mayor’s son.
• The Hall of the Red Earl (Halla an Iarla Rua) can be viewed through a protective glass wall off Flood Street. It is the earliest medieval settlement fragment surviving within the walls of the city. It was built by the de Burgo family in the 13th century and was a key municipal building for the collection of taxes, dispensation of justice and hosting banquets. It was the medieval equivalent of tax office, court house and town hall.

The Claddagh

On the west bank of the River Corrib as it enters the sea is the ancient neighbourhood of The Claddagh. For centuries it was an Irish-speaking enclave outside the city walls. Claddagh residents were mainly fisher folk and were governed by an elected ‘King’. The King of the Claddagh settled or arbitrated disputes among the locals and had the privilege of a white sail on his fishing boat. The last true king, Martin Oliver, died in 1972. The title is still used but in a purely honorary and ceremonial context. The current King is Michael Lynskey. The area is also known for its association with the Claddagh Ring.

Museums

The Galway City Museum has two main sections: one about the heritage of Galway and one about Irish artists from the second half of the 20th century. This museum also houses the statue of the poet, Pádraic Ó Conaire which was originally located in the Kennedy Park section of Eyre Square, prior to the Square’s renovation. A replica of the statue was erected in Eyre Square in 2017. The museum is near the Spanish Arch, the historical remnants of the 16th century wall.

The city’s university, NUI Galway, has several museums, including the James Mitchell Geology Museum and the Computing and Communications Museum of Ireland.

The Nora Barnacle House Museum in Bowling Green is the smallest museum in Ireland. Nora was the lover, companion and, later, wife of writer James Joyce.

Cemeteries

Fort Hill Cemetery, on Lough Atalia Road, is the oldest cemetery still in use in Galway City. Inside the main gate is a memorial to sailors of the Spanish Armada who were buried here in the 1580s.

Rahoon Cemetery (officially known as Mount St. Joseph Cemetery), Rahoon Road, on the western edge of the city affords splendid panoramic views of the city. Among the people buried here are Michael Bodkin (an admirer of Nora Barnacle who was the inspiration for James Joyce’s character, “Michael Furey” in the The Dead), Michael Feeney (the “lover” in Joyce’s poem She Weeps Over Rahoon), and actress Siobhán McKenna.

Bohermore Cemetery (or the New Cemetery, as it is more popularly known), Cemetery Cross, Bohermore, was opened in 1880. It contains two mortuary chapels and is the burial place of several important Galwegians, including Pádraic Ó Conaire the Gaelic author, William Joyce, more widely known as Lord Haw-Haw the Nazi propagandist, Augusta, Lady Gregory, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin, a senior member of one the Tribes of Galway and former world president of the International Olympic Committee. A memorial to the 91 people who died on 14 August 1959 when Dutch aeroplane KLM Flight 607-E crashed into the sea 180 km (112 mi) west of Galway can be seen just inside the main gates. Several bodies of the passengers are buried around the memorial.

There are several smaller cemeteries within the city boundaries. Some are no longer in use or are used primarily by families with ancient burial rights. These are St James’s Cemetery (Teampall) in Glenina Heights, Menlo Cemetery near Menlo Castle, Ballybrit Graveyard near the entrance to Galway Racecourse, and a very ancient early Christian graveyard at Roscam near Merlin Park. Several city churches have graveyards attached which were formerly used for the interment of clergy and parishioners – Castlegar Church, Claddagh Church’, St Patrick’s Church on Forster Street and St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church. Several bishops are buried in the crypt below the RC Cathedral but this not usually open to the public.