Introducing Galway City
Arty and bohemian, Galway (Gaillimh) is legendary around the world for its entertainment scene. Brightly painted pubs heave with live music on any given night. Cafés spill out onto winding cobblestone streets filled with a frenzy of fiddles, banjos, bagpipes, harps, tin whistles, guitars and bodhráns (hand-held goatskin drums), and jugglers, painters, poets, puppeteers and magicians in outlandish masks enchant passers-by. Actors in traditional Irish theatre tread also the boards around town.
Galway’s streets are steeped in history, yet have a contemporary vibe. Students make up a quarter of the city’s population, while the remains of the medieval town walls lie between shops selling Aran sweaters, handcrafted Claddagh rings, and stacks of secondhand and new books. Bridges arc over the salmon-filled River Corrib, and a long promenade leads to the seaside suburb of Salthill, where at night the moon’s glow illuminates Galway Bay, where the area’s famous oysters are produced.
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A pint of Kilkenny going down very well - Galway, County Galway
- Oliver Strewe
- Lonely Planet photographer
