Galway City

A medieval walled town of fourteen merchant families, and most of it is still standing. You can cross it on foot in ten minutes, with a fishing village on one side of the river and a university on the other. The Galway walking tours all work this square kilometre. This is the order you will meet it in.

A walled town of fourteen families

The Anglo-Norman de Burgo family founded the town in the thirteenth century. Richard de Burgo built its first municipal building — a tax office, courthouse and town hall in one — and it is the oldest excavated structure here. Fourteen merchant families, the Tribes of Galway, ran the place for centuries afterwards: Lynch, Blake, Browne, Joyce, Martin and the rest. You will see their names on the streets, the shopfronts and the stained glass.

Eyre Square and the Browne Doorway

Every walking tour starts here, and so does every coach. The square is officially the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, and one tour's first stop is the memorial in it. At its northern end you will find the Browne Doorway. It is the carved front of a seventeenth-century merchant house, moved here from Lower Abbeygate Street — a Tribes doorway with no house behind it.

Shop Street, Lynch's Castle and the Latin Quarter

From the square the town runs downhill in one line of street that changes name four times: Williamsgate, William, Shop, High and Quay. Lynch's Castle stands where Shop Street meets Abbeygate Street. It is the fortified townhouse of the Lynch family, and its carved stone front and gargoyles are still on the outside. Below it the Latin Quarter is the painted, pedestrianised half, where the buskers play and where both tasting tours spend most of their time.

Off it you will find Kirwan's Lane, a seventeenth-century merchants' lane barely two metres wide. Thomas Dillon's on Quay Street has sold Claddagh rings since the eighteenth century, and keeps a small museum at the back of the shop.

St Nicholas' Collegiate Church and the Hall of the Red Earl

The Spanish Arch, the Claddagh and the Long Walk

Where the street reaches the Corrib you meet the Spanish Arch, what remains of the town wall at the river. Galway City Museum sits beside it: free, with a suggested €5 donation, open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00. Across the water the Claddagh was a fishing village outside the walls, with its own customs and its own king. The ring that carries its name came from there. The Long Walk runs along the far quay in a row of painted houses, and the hookers moor in front of them.

Galway Cathedral and the university

Cross the Salmon Weir Bridge and you reach the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas. It was dedicated on 15 August 1965 and calls itself the youngest of Europe's great stone cathedrals. It opens about 08:00 to 20:00 and asks for a €3 donation rather than an admission fee. Do not go in during Mass unless you are taking part. Beyond it the university quadrangle closes the walk, and two of the city tours finish there.

Salthill and the prom

Half an hour west along the bay, or four stops on the open-top bus, Salthill is where the city goes to walk. The promenade runs two kilometres above the shore to the Blackrock diving tower, and local custom is to kick the wall at the end before you turn back. On a clear evening the Aran Islands and the hills of Clare are visible across the water, which is the best free view in Galway.

The medieval core, in the order a walk meets it

Every guided walk in the city takes some version of this line. The whole of it is about ten minutes end to end if you do not stop, which nobody does.

Where the Irish is, and the Tribes' names

You will meet the Tribes before you meet anything else here, because their names are the street signs: Lynch, Blake, Browne, Joyce, Martin, Kirwan. Fourteen families held the town for centuries, and the buildings they left are what the walking tours stop at.

Irish is a living language a few miles west of the city rather than in it. Drive out through Barna and Spiddal and you are in one of the largest Gaeltacht districts in the country. In the city itself you will see it on the signs and hear it in the university quarter.

Frequently asked about the city