Galway is conveniently located as the most westerly city in Europe, and is also Europes fastest growing due in part to a spate of investment in recent years by mostly american multinationals drawn in by an agressive marketing campaign run by the Industrial Development Agency¹ involving tax incentives, an educated english speaking workforce and alcohol.

Although Dublin was recently named the current "Cultural Capital of Europe" by someone, most people from Ireland born outside of Dublin agree that Galway is a much more fun place to live, admittedly due in part to the fact that getting anywhere in Dublin involves sitting in a traffic jam for an hour or more, whereas in Galway even without a car you can call a taxi, wait for it to show up and still be anywhere in the city in around twenty minutes. Possibly except during rush hours, which also last twenty minutes.

Being the most westerly city in Europe has both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages include the first transatlantic flight landed in the county in 1919, and Christopher Columbus visited before setting sail for The New World. Indeed, Maxwells, a restaurant in town claims, possibly truthfully, that

(a) it was open as an inn during the time of Columbus

(b) that Columbus went for 'a few drinks' with the locals there, and

(c) that he managed to catch the tide the next morning despite a terrible hangover.

The disadvantage is that an awfully large amount of water evaporates off the Atlantic each year, and Galway is the first bit of land it gets a chance to fall on, which it does in great abundance. It rains in Galway a lot. In fact about twice as much as it rains in the east of the country, and that's saying something. However, this allows Galways mostly young population to make the most of the large number of bars scattered around the town.

History

Galway City (Gaillimh in Irish) is situated on the mouth of the river Corrib, which flows from a large lake of the same name. The local county surrounding the city is also called Galway, and it covers a land area of 2350 square miles. This county is itself part of the province of Connaught.

There is evidence people have been living in Galway for almost 10,000 years. Stone monuments on the nearby Aran Islands date back as far as 2000 B.C, and there was even a stone-age axe-head found there which was dated at over 300,000 years old, but debate is ongoing as to how it got there. The famous Dun Aengus fort, which was built on a cliff, and half of which has now fallen back into the sea, dates from around the time of Christ. During the Golden Age of Irish saints and scholars, many monasteries were built around the area as centres of learning and wisdom in an otherwise barbaric Europe. This attracted the attention of the Vikings, who had a vested interest in keeping Europe barbaric, and they used drop by regularly to raid the monasteries. Being learned and wise as they were, this made the monks build round towers (which dot Ireland to this day) as a place to hide out with their precious artifacts during raids.

Galway began as a fishing village, but by the 13th century became a walled town, and was already 500 years old when it was granted its charter by Richard III in 1484. Around this time 14 wealthy merchant families ruled the city, giving Galway its still recognised nickname of 'City of the Tribes'. The tribes ruled over a wealthy and cosmopolitan city for the next 170 years until Cromwells forces laid seige to it in 1651. Galway surrendered and the tribes lost all their power to the English invaders. Although the locals rebelled and temporarily regained control of the city, they soon lost this again after the Battle of Aughrim. Ireland in general was having a particularly bad time around then, its population having been reduced from 1.5 million before the arrival of Cromwell in 1649 to a mere 500,000 by the time of his death in 1658. Cromwell's famous saying "To Hell or to Connaught" was used to evict Catholics from their land for reposession by Protestants, and make them move to parts of Connaught and Galway in the west where the land was poorest.

The 18th century was a particularly depressing time, with the penal laws in full force and over 93% of Irish land held by Protestants landlords. There was even a famine in 1740 called, appropriatley enough "The forgotten famine". Galway was in steady decline during these years, and in 1841 lost its classification as a city, however it did maintain some strong trading links, and in 1845 Queens College Galway was founded by Queen Victoria. This still stands, although it has been renamed to the National University of Ireland, Galway. This was the time of the Great Famine, when many thousands died in the city and the surrounding area. By 1899, the population of Galway had been halved due to deaths and emigration. There were many various risings using direct force against the British throughout the country during all this time, the most recent of which in Galway was instigated in 1916 by Liam Mellowes. They all failed.

Recent History

Galway became an urban municipality again in 1937 and the citys fortunes took a turn for the better in the 1960s with the expansion of tourism and industry in the country. It has since become the technological and 'clean' industry centre for the west of Ireland, its population passing that of Limerick in the last few years. Current estimates put Galways population at about 60,000 and predict a year 2010 population of at least 70,000 people, which works out as a growth rate of over 40% in twenty years. It is a university town, with the local branch of the National University of Ireland, together with the Galway Institute of Technology enrolling over 12,000 students for the 1998/99 term. The university too is growing at an impressive rate with several shiny new buildings constructed for its IT, Biotechnology, Language and Communications departments over the last few years, and more are on the way. The economy is doing so well there are labour shortages in many areas; this summer 1000 workers are being flown in from Newfoundland to make up the summer shorfall of laborers in areas like hotels, catering and tourism.

This impressive growth brought its own problems, however. Especially in the last five years, anywhere near the centre of town that there was an available plot of land, the building there already was torn down and replaced with a modern block of apartments. Fair enough, but there is some group of builders around town who feel compelled to paint the outside of their buildings in bright primary colours! Galway was always notoriously colourful, with narrow medieval streets and these builders are presumably carrying on the tradition. Possibly to distract people from the architecture of their buildings. Note to any interested builders reading this: This does not work.

Fortunatley all the old buildings around town are protected under law from this rampant construction, and the city has managed to retain much of its charm. The city centre was pedestrianised last year, and workers are finishing paving the main street as this is written in April 2000.

Another problem rapid growth has brought is the now seemingly decades old argument about where to locate a badly needed sewage treatment plant. Environmentalists were objecting to it being built on an island in Galway Bay, and a solution was finally arrived at last year, by building it on an island in Galway Bay.

The environmentalists should really have been more worried about the state of the water in the bay itself, which although very scenic, in this reviewers opinion, is not recommended for swimming immediatley around the city. If you want to go for a swim then go out west as far as "Silver Strand", about five or ten miles down the coast where the water is clear of the cities influence. Salthill, the beach in the city is a beautiful place for a stroll, but traces of salmonella were found in the water there last year. I know a scuba diver who went for a dive in Galway bay, across the bay from the city, and the water was beautifully clear with little crabs, lobsters and fish dancing about merrily among the multi-coloured vegetation. Then he went for a dive beside the city, the water was murkier and when he got to the bottom, he just sank up to his waist in mud. Still, after the sewage plant comes on line everyone expects the water quality in Salthill to recover to its previous award winning levels, and I hear some environmentalists are now worried that the food supply of the cities swans which live on algae at the mouth of the river Corrib may dry up. Yuck.

Culture

Situated at the mouth of a wide bay, the gateway to the Connemara Gaeltacht has an eclectic charm. It is regarded as Irelands most vibrant city, due in part to the boom it is undergoing, but also because although it is a progressive modern place, it still values its historic culture and tradition, and the university population mixes well with the large group of artisans who make their home in the area, and with the continuous supply of foreigners who come to see Galway for themselves.

A Dublin newspaper columnist recently wrote of Galway, that whenever he goes there he thinks it's a great place, but he gets the urge to just pick the city up and shake it and tell it "for Gods sake, would you ever get a proper job". The pace of life in Galway is easier than in the other Irish cities, with more emphasis placed on your leisure hours than on your working hours. The large number of students in the town keeps the city colourful and bohemian during the autumn, winter and spring months, and in the summer the visiting population from every corner of the globe gives the city a very cosmopolitan feel. Strolling down the main street you will see a neverending supply of people busking using tin whistles, fiddles, accordions, guitars, bongos, didgeridoos, bodhrans, juggling knives, fire juggling, acrobatics, unicycles, beds of nails, or whetever they found they were carrying when they arrived on the street with the munchies.

Festivals

There has long been a festival mentality in Galway, with festivals held for any old reason from March until October. There is the Festival of Literature, the Galway Film Festival, and many high profile DJs are flown in for various dance festival weekends, the Heineken Weekender being just one of these.

The Galway Arts Festival, held in July, and now in its 23rd year always has something for everyone, with performers from all over the world flying in to take part. Widely regarded as Irelands most popular festival of the performing and visual arts, over 300 seperate performances are carried out over the twelve day festival, running from morning time until the early hours of the following morning, drawing crowds of over 40,000 people. Macnas, the community based arts and theatre company put on a parade during the festival, which is always very impressive, and which draws even larger crowds. Last year the parade was held at night to take full advantage of the fact that it was a good excuse for people around town to play with flame throwers in the street while dressed as 20 foot tall monsters.

Usually just after the Arts Festival has finished, the Galway Races start up. Running since 1869, this is another two weeks of madness around town, with huge crowds of tourists and locals alike flocking to the track to place a bet and retiring to a bar in town with their winnings. Around this time of the year the main street and Quay Street in particular are transformed at night as the bars are unable to contain the huge numbers out enjoying themselves, and crowds of people standing around drinking in the street build up to densities that would make any night club owner proud.

In September and October, the Clarenbridge Oyster Festival, and the Galway International Oyster Festival are held which again draws in the rich and famous, and the not so rich and famous for a weekend of oysters and Guinness. I was lucky enough to be given some tickets to this last year, so as well as mingling with many famous people from around the country, was given a feed of delicious seafood, plenty of oysters and, most importantly, a free bar which the locals put to great use, and then started making fun of the many famous people, who then left to let the serious business of drinking get underway properly.

So, what are Crusties?

Even outside of festival season, there is plenty to do as Galways centre is riddled with shops, bars and restaurants. Reflecting the high concentration of artistic types who live there, there are four theatres around the town, although The Druid theatre has been playing successfully on Broadway for some time now instead of at home. Some 'crusties' (what New Age Travellers are called when they move to the west of Ireland), congregate in the Galway region each summer² from all over the UK to get away from the establishment, man, and to draw Irelands generous unemployment benefit. These are often unpopular with the Gardai ³ as some of them are not averse to supplimenting this income by selling marijuana, and most of the rest of them certainly aren't averse to partaking in the occasional smoke. For some reason, many of the local college students seem to get on well with them however. You will find some crusties at the Saturday market, selling ethnic food, or bizarre multi-coloured hats they've knitted or multi-coloured candles they've made, or whatever meaningful sculptures they've knocked together since the last weeks market. Recommended.

Things to Do

With the large number of tourists that arrive in Galway each summer, you can do all the activities you would expect in the west of Ireland: scenic walks, cycles, wild-life tours, tours of Connemara and the Burren, cruising the river and the lake, trout fishing, power boat racing, jet-ski, go-karting, deep sea angling, golf, yachting, wind-surfing, scuba-diving, horse riding, hill-walking, visiting old castles and abbeys, forest parks, boats to the Aran Islands, etc etc etc. A new world-class golf course opened in the last few years, though the jury is still out on whether you meet more of the richest people from around town there, or out at the yacht club in Oranmore. Predictably enough, the scenery is great from both places.

No, really, Things to Do

For some real fun, instead of just looking at scenery you'll want to get a few pints in at a local pub. There are a lot of pubs in Galway, though obscure licensing laws mean that to make a new pub in a town, you have to buy out two other pubs from around the country first⁴. With the huge increase in size of Galway over recent years this has led, not to many new bars, but instead to the creation of the 'super-pub', where a regular sized bar is 'renovated' into one ten times the size with a whole load of crazy crap on the walls.

Super-pubs around town include: The Quays, The Front Door, Busker Brownes and The Skeff. Super-pubs are popular with night-club goers who want to start pretending they're already in a club by eight in the evening. The large size and huge crowds sometimes found in the super-pubs can make getting to and from the bar a time consuming ordeal. In my opinion, this defeats the whole purpose of going to a pub in the first place.

At the other extreme is whats known as an 'old mans pub'. These can be recognised by their small size, 1970s or earlier decor, and old men. Not usually too big on hygeine, nonetheless they invariably serve great tasting Guinness. If ordering Guinness in an old mans pub, you should only order pints of Guinness, never a glass, because if you do, although the locals may not say anything, they will secretly think you are a big girls blouse. This also applies to girls. Old mens pubs around town include Garavans, PJs, Hughes and Murphys.

If you want to hear a bit of the genuine Irish traditional music, there are bars for that too. If you go to The Crane, you will hear the most hardcore trad in town, but many other bars have trad music playing most, if not all nights. These include Taylors, Tigh Neachtains⁵ and Taaffes. Taaffes bar is not to be confused with old Mrs. Taaffes shop next door, which is owned by an eccentric old aged ex-beaty queen who uses it to keep her dogs, and although she possibly believes the shop is still open for business, most people aren't brave enough to enter and find out.

Not all the music pubs in town are trad music however. Roisin Dubhs regularly has quality live bands playing, as does The Quays and to a lesser extent The Cellar. The Blue Note plays a selection of funk, house, dance, trance, acid-jazz or hip-hop depending on the DJ they have in for the evening. The Drum is attached to the GPO Nightclub and it too often has a DJ or live band playing. The band usually doesn't start until after the club though, and you'll be thrown from the bar and have to buy a ticket at the door to get back in at around 11:30. Recently, O'Malleys bar have DJ's playing a techno night on Thursdays and a jungle night on Fridays. This is just a small fraction of the bars in town that play music.

After the bar closes at midnight⁶ (although you can get lucky with illegal late drinks in some old mens bars) its time to go off to a night-club. Ones in the city centre include Central Park, The GPO, The Alley, Cuba, and Church Lane. If you have a regular job, are wearing a nice shirt and don't like the idea of meeting lots of scummy kids then Central Park is probably the place for you. If you want to go out and dance to some house music surrounded by 20 year old students on ecstacy then the GPO on friday nights is the place for you. Church Lane is one of those "used to be great last year" clubs that isn't as popular now. The Alley is full of lots of college students and farmers drinking tremendous amounts of beer, and Cuba is being touted by some people around town as "a great place to spend your weekend if you are bored with everywhere else". Salthill also has a few nightclubs, Liquid being one with better music, but is nowhere near as good as it was a few years ago when the Gardai shut down some clubs using a new law that technically outlaws dance music and places that may encourage drug taking. A pity because "The Castle"⁷ ran some of the best clubs Galway had ever seen, unfortunatley there was enough debauchery going on there for some peoples sense of moral righteousness to be outraged, and when one of those people was a new Garda Superintendent over Galway the clubs in Salthill got a good kicking.

Come on, at my age?

If you don't fancy going to a club, there are a few wine bars that serve until about 1am, and plenty of coffee shops around town, some of which like Javas and Apostasy stay open until four or five o'clock in the morning.

If none of this is to your tastes however, you may be more interested in a good book. Kennys Bookshop and Art Gallery carries over 160,000 titles and specialises in antiquated old books, plus there is a great second hand book shop next to it. The famous Claddagh Ring shop and museum is also a good place to get a bargain if you're in to that sort of thing, and tourists always seem very impressed by the low price of knitted sweaters in Galway compared to elsewhere in the country.

There are also a ton of good restaurants, including Kirwans Lane, The Malt House, Nimmos and McDonaghs, who it is said make the best fish and chips in the world!

Famous People from Galway

Famous people from around the county include writers such as Walter Macken, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Liam O'Flaherty, Breandán Ó hEithir, Muiris Ó Súileabháin, Eoghan Ó Tuairisc, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Pádraic Ó Conaire, Dónall MacAmhlaigh, Frank Harris, Ellis Dillon and Lady Gregory, the founder of Abbey Theatre. Also from Galway are revoloutionaries like Eamonn Ceannt, Liam Mellowes and John Lynch, a signatory of the American Declaration of Independance. And miscellaneous, like Lord Haw-Haw, executed radio presenter propagandist for the Third Reich, Robert O'Hara Burke, the leader of the first European expedition to cross Australia, and Nora Barnacle the wife of James Joyce.