Galway

Galway or Chathair na Gaillimhe, as it is known in Gaelic, grew from a small fishing village first settled over six thousand years ago around the estuary of the river , a river traditionally called Abhainn na Gaillimhe (the Galway river) after Galvia, a mythological princess said to have drowned in its waters. The first people who settled at the mouth of the Corrib discovered an abundance of salmon, eel, bass, oysters and other shellfish. Today, the legacy of fine tasting seafood is honored annually by Galwegians as they host an internationally renowned Galway Oyster Festival.
 

By the Medieval Ages, Galway had emerged as an opulent town built around the anglo-Norman de Burgos castle (1235). A city wall building program began in 1270 and by the seventeenth century, fourteen massive towers and three corner bastions such as the Spanish Arch extension of 1584 were added, further defining the character and prestige of the town. Galway's harbor located at Spanish Arch was also first developed during this period and the town grew as a center for international trade and commerce. Galway became the third most important trading center after the ports of London and Bristol in these islands. Wines, spices, fish and other commodities were imported from primarily Britain, France, Italy and Portugal. The many buildings bearing fine cut stone facades erected during this golden age (13th to 17th century) in Galway, remnants of which still garnish the streets of the city today, are a testament to its vibrant, wealthy and powerful status in these islands.
 

Galway became a royal borough in 1396 and when in 1484, Richard III of England gave it mayoral status, power was transferred from de Burgos to the leading fourteen tribes or merchant families. The chieftain of the powerful Lynch tribe became the city's first mayor in 1485. The Cromwellian and Willamette armies of 1651-2 and 1691 devastated the town, and as the famous fourteen tribes went into exile, trade declined, and with it the city's pride. A brief industrial recovery based on its water-power industries occurred during the nineteenth century but it is only in recent years that a real revival is evident.

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