Walking the Latin Quarter: Eyre Square to the Spanish Arch

The good news about walking Galway is that the medieval city is barely a kilometre across, and most of it is pedestrianised. You can do this whole route in under an hour if you keep moving, or stretch it to a slow half-day if you stop for coffee, the market and a pint. It runs downhill from Eyre Square to the water, which is the right way round. Wear something for rain. Galway gets it on more days than not.

Start at Eyre Square

Eyre Square is the obvious starting point: the train and coach stations sit on its eastern side, so most people arrive here anyway. It is a flat open green officially named after John F. Kennedy, who spoke here in 1963, though nobody calls it that. Get your bearings, then walk to the bottom corner and turn down William Street, which becomes Shop Street. From here on you are in the Latin Quarter, the name given to the tangle of streets running down to the river.

Shop Street and Lynch's Castle

Shop Street is the spine of the city and usually the loudest part of it. Buskers work it most of the day, and on a fine Saturday you can hit a fiddler, a full band and a chalk artist in the space of fifty metres. A short way down, on the corner of Abbeygate Street, look up at Lynch's Castle. It is a late-medieval merchant's townhouse, one of the best-preserved in Ireland, built by the Lynch family who were among the fourteen tribes that ran the city. The limestone front carries carved gargoyles and coats of arms. It is a working AIB bank now, so you can step inside during opening hours and stand in a 15th-century townhouse while someone lodges a cheque.

St Nicholas' Church and the market

Turn off Shop Street onto Church Lane and you reach St Nicholas' Collegiate Church, which dates from 1320 and is the largest medieval parish church in Ireland still in continuous use. Christopher Columbus is said to have prayed here in 1477, before one of his early voyages; the church leans into the story without overselling it. Inside, the south transept holds the tomb tied to the Lynch legend, a grim local tale about a magistrate who hanged his own son.

If it is a Saturday or Sunday, the Galway Market will be running in the lanes around the church. It trades year-round at weekends from around 8am, and expands to Wednesday through Sunday in July and August. This is the real thing, not a tourist set-piece: hot doughnuts, oysters shucked to order, sausages in a roll, secondhand books, hats, soap. Eat something here rather than waiting for a restaurant.

Down Quay Street to the Spanish Arch

From the church, cut back down through High Street and Quay Street. This stretch is the postcard Galway: narrow, painted, packed with pubs and restaurants, and rammed on summer evenings. Keep going and the street opens out at the river and the Spanish Arch. The arch is a surviving section of the old city wall, built in the 1580s to protect the quays where Spanish and other traders unloaded wine and goods. It is smaller than the name suggests. Beside it sits the Galway City Museum, which is free and worth twenty minutes if the weather turns.

The Long Walk and the Claddagh

Stand at the arch and you are looking at the River Corrib pouring out into the bay. It is one of the fastest-flowing rivers in Europe despite being only about six kilometres long, and you can see it move. To your right is the Long Walk, a short terrace of tall painted houses facing the water. It is one of the most photographed rows in the city, and at golden hour, when the light comes off the bay onto the fronts, you will understand why.

Cross the Wolfe Tone Bridge to reach the Claddagh. This was a self-governing fishing village outside the city walls, Irish-speaking, with its own elected king, long before it became a suburb. The thatched cottages are gone, replaced in the 1930s, but the name carries the famous ring: two hands holding a crowned heart, standing for love, friendship and loyalty. From the Claddagh quays you get the best view back across the water at the Long Walk, the arch and the Latin Quarter behind it.

Doing it well

The whole loop is short, so the trick is timing rather than distance. Go in the morning if you want the streets quieter and the market fresh; go at golden hour if you want the Long Walk at its best. The cobbles in the Latin Quarter are uneven, so flat shoes beat anything with a heel, and a buggy or wheelchair will find Shop Street and Eyre Square easier than the older lanes. From the Claddagh you can keep walking out along the bay towards Salthill if the legs are willing, or turn back into town for the seafood and the pubs you walked past on the way down.