page_title: Galway
section_title: Places of interest
hierarchical_section_title: Galway / Geography / Places of interest
caption_attribution_description: English: The Millennium Children's Park in Galway, next to one of the city's many canals. Taken by me, User:Sulmac, August 2007.
context_page_description: Galway is a city in County Galway in the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay, and is the sixth most populous city in Ireland, with a population at the 2016 Census of 79,934.
  Galway is renowned for its vibrant lifestyle and for hosting numerous festivals, celebrations and events such as The Galway Arts Festival. In 2018, it was named the European Region of Gastronomy. The city is currently the European Capital of Culture for 2020, alongside Rijeka, Croatia.
context_section_description: Lynch's Castle on Shop Street is a medieval town house built by the prosperous Lynch family in the 16th century and is now a branch of Allied Irish Banks.
  The Church of Ireland St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church is the largest medieval church still in everyday use in Ireland. It was founded in 1320 and enlarged in the following two centuries.
  The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas was consecrated in 1965 and is a far larger building constructed from limestone. It has an eclectic style, with a Renaissance Revival dome, pillars and round arches, and a Romanesque Revival portico that dominates the main façade – which is an unusual feature in modern Irish church building.
  The original quadrangle building of NUI Galway which was erected in 1849 (during the Great Famine or An Gorta Mór) as one of the three colleges of the Queen's University of Ireland (along with Queen's University Belfast and University College Cork). The university holds the UNESCO archive of spoken material for the Celtic languages.
  The Hardiman, (originally the Railway Hotel, then the Great Southern Hotel and then Hotel Meyrick) built by the Great Southern Railway Company in 1845. Sitting at the southern perimeter of Eyre Square, it is the city's oldest hotel still in operation.
  The remains of Menlo Castle can be seen outside the city, on the eastern bank of the River Corrib. It was one of the ancestral homes of the Blake family, one of the Tribes of Galway from c. 1600–1910. The façade of the family's townhouse ("Blake's Castle") is still extant next to Jury's Hotel at the bottom of Quay Street.
  Eglinton Canal, named after a former Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, joins the River Corrib to the sea, and flows for just more than a kilometre from the University to the Claddagh.
  The Claddagh is the oldest part of Galway but little or nothing remains of its old thatched village. However, in a side altar of the parish church, St Mary's on the Hill, is the late medieval statue of Our Lady of Galway. The ancient ritual of the Blessing of the Bay takes place on the Sunday nearest the feast of the Assumption.
  The Browne doorway, originally located on Lower Abbeygate Street but now standing at the north end of Eyre Square, was the doorway to the townhouse of the Browne family, one of the fourteen Tribes of Galway.
  The Lynch Window, (on Market Street), at which is a plaque commemorating one of the city's legends. According to legend, in 1493, the then Mayor, James Lynch FitzStephen, hanged his own son for the murder of a young Spanish visitor who had the misfortune to befriend the girlfriend of the Mayor's son.
  The Hall of the Red Earl (Halla an Iarla Rua) can be viewed through a protective glass wall off Flood Street. It is the earliest medieval settlement fragment surviving within the walls of the city. It was built by the de Burgo family in the 13th century and was a key municipal building for the collection of taxes, dispensation of justice and hosting banquets. It was the medieval equivalent of tax office, court house and town hall.
caption: The Millennium Children's Park in Galway, next to one of the city's many canals.
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