Galway

Hall of the Red Earl, must, for example, be an ancient place? Not so. The street has been through several names in its history and was only given its present name by Galway City Council in 1996. This was to commemorate the 21st birthday of the Druid Theatre Company which was set up by a group of NUI Galway graduates and was the first professional theatre company outside Dublin, with a mission to bring world-class theatre not only to the citizens of Galway, but to people across Ireland. The fact that the theatre company that is not even named after ancient Druids but rather the Asterix books fits the Galway story perfectly. It is just one of many creative organisations that have flowered in the ambitious and independent air of Galway; indeed, this love of creativity is an important part of its identity. Annual cultural highlights include the Arts Festival where Macnas, another Galway-born theatre company, leads the Macnas Parade, bringing the arts to the wider community through processions and spectacle, and the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, which is held every spring at Galway Arts Centre. Music you can find year-round, in pubs and venues such as Monroe’s, the Quays and the Crane, and Galway itself is often the subject of song, most famously in The Pogues’ ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ and Steve Earl’s ‘Galway Girl’. Galway’s independent spirit can also be found in its retail sector, which bustles with life and is still dominated by independent shops. The high street, part of which is called with admirable simplicity Shop Street, runs through the town to the Spanish Arch and is lined with brightly coloured shops and thronged with shoppers. Around a busy weekly farmers’ market in St Nicholas’ Square is a hardcore of good food shops including Sheridans cheesemonger, on the square itself and local institutions Colleran butchers and traditional deli McCambridge’s, founded in the 1920s. Next to the Spanish Arch embedded in the town walls stands the recently completed Galway City Museum. This gives an excellent introduction to some of the many stories of Galway, not always focused on the centre itself. These include Galway’s love affair with the dance hall and the cinema.