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Sheltered from the great Atlantic Ocean, Galway is one of the most western cities in Europe, but its location does not mean that it is isolated. A port city, trade with countries far and wide has been a long tradition in Galway. Today it continues this considerable history by welcoming people from even more countries. It is a crossroads, a place where people meet, coming from different directions, a lively and bustling place which boasts an amazing cultural diversity.
Known as the cultural heart of Ireland, Galway is a small but vibrant university city. Home to the National University of Ireland Galway and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, the city has a population of some 72,000 (2006). It is renowned the world over for its music, both traditional and modern, for its theatre and performing arts and, perhaps most of all, for its many festivals throughout the year.
Galway people are friendly and helpful people who are proud of their city and their region and happy to show it to the world, as they have been doing for many hundreds of years. They have much to show. The city is a maze of small, winding streets filled with shops, traditional pubs, street performers, weekend markets and some of Ireland’s finest restaurants.
With much to do in the city of Galway, there is also plenty to do outside it too. The city is a gateway to explore the striking scenery of the West of Ireland from the contrasts of Connemara to the magnificent Cliffs of Moher that face the Atlantic Ocean to the unspoilt karst Burren to the isolation of the Aran Islands off the coast, unique for their language – Irish ( Gaelic) is spoken here as a mother tongue – archaeology and heritage. |
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Galway Arts Festival
The Arts Festival takes place each summer during the month of July: this is one of the public performances that took place at a recent Arts Festival in the plaza at the Spanish Arch in Galway
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