Galway City

Galway occupies a particular position in Irish life that few other cities manage — it is simultaneously the gateway to Connacht, the cultural capital of the west, and the place people mean when they talk about Irish traditional music being embedded in daily life rather than performed for tourists. The city has around 80,000 people, a large student population from the University of Galway, and a concentration of pubs, restaurants and independent shops in a compact medieval centre that is almost entirely walkable.

The Latin Quarter — Shop Street, High Street, Quay Street and the connecting laneways — is the commercial and social heart. The streets here follow the medieval street plan; the narrow layout, three-storey buildings and continuous shopfronts give it a density and character that distinguishes it from most Irish provincial towns. Lynch's Castle on Shop Street (c.1490) is the finest surviving medieval townhouse in Ireland still in daily commercial use. The Spanish Arch (1584) at the river mouth is a remnant of the town walls built to protect the quayside where wine from Spain and Portugal was unloaded — the connection with Iberia is old and real, not touristic invention.

The Claddagh, across the Corrib from the city centre, was the last Irish-speaking fishing village within an urban area in Ireland. The Claddagh ring — a pair of hands holding a crowned heart — originated here and is one of the most copied jewellery designs in the world. The original Claddagh settlement was demolished in the 1930s and replaced with social housing; a small plaque on Claddagh Quay marks where it stood. Galway Bay opens to the west; on a clear evening the light off the bay from the Salthill promenade is one of the better sunset views on the Atlantic coast.

Galway is the natural base for the Aran Islands (ferry from Rossaveal, 45 min west of the city), Connemara, Kylemore Abbey and the Burren. Allow at least two nights to do the city and its surroundings properly.