Three days in Galway: a town that treats a Tuesday like a Saturday

Two nights on the Atlantic coast. The old streets and the pubs on either end, and a day in County Clare between them.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Galway
Places
7 across 3 days
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Galway is a city by charter and a town by every other measure. Eighty five thousand people, a medieval street plan you can cross in fifteen minutes, and a river that comes off a lough and goes straight into the Atlantic through the middle of it. Nobody comes here for the monuments, because there are about four.

What there is instead is a place that goes out on a weeknight. The pedestrianised main street has buskers on it in February, the pubs run traditional music sessions that start when the players arrive and finish when they stop, and the whole thing happens without anybody organising it for visitors.

The other reason to come is what is around it. An hour south is the Burren, a hundred square kilometres of bare grey limestone with Neolithic tombs standing on it, and beyond that the Cliffs of Moher. Two nights in the city and one day out covers both properly.

Highlights

  • A trad session that nobody put on a poster, in a pub that stops serving food at five
  • Fish and chips at a counter that has been frying since 1902
  • A portal tomb on bare limestone, older than the pyramids and standing in a field
  • Two hundred metres of vertical Atlantic cliff, best seen at the end of the afternoon

Where to stay

Galway, two nights

Galway was a walled Anglo-Norman trading town that spent four centuries doing business with Spain and Portugal while the Gaelic west went on around it. Fourteen merchant families ran the place under a charter of 1396, and Cromwell, who besieged it, called them the tribes. The nickname stuck and the walls did not.

What survives is the shape rather than the buildings: a tight grid of lanes running down to the water, a fragment of the town wall by the river, and a university that keeps the average age down. Two nights is the right length. Three and you have run out of city.

Day by day

Day 1 in Galway

The Spanish Arch, fish and chips, and a session

Arrive, drop the bag, and walk down to the river. The old town runs downhill from the square to the water and the whole of it takes twenty minutes to cross, so the first evening is for orientation and dinner rather than for anything with an admission price.

Eat early. Galway kitchens fill from seven and the good chip counters have queues out the door by half six.

  1. 16:30

    Spanish Arch

    Other

    Two stone arches on the riverbank, all that is left of the seventeenth century extension to the town wall. The grass in front of it is where Galway sits out on any dry evening, and the Corrib runs past fast enough to hear.

  2. 18:30

    McDonagh's

    Eat

    A chip shop and fish restaurant on Quay Street, frying since 1902. Take it away and eat it by the water, or sit at the shared tables inside. Cod and chips, and no ceremony about it.

  3. 20:30

    Taaffes Pub

    Visit

    A small pub with traditional music almost every night and no stage to put it on. The kitchen shuts at five, so this is somewhere you come after dinner rather than for it.

With more time: If it is dry, walk out along the seafront to Salthill before dinner instead. It is half an hour each way, the whole of Galway Bay is on your left, and the Clare hills you will be standing on tomorrow are on the far side of it.

Day 2 in Galway

The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher

One long day south into County Clare, and the reason most people come to this side of Ireland. The Burren is a plateau of bare limestone pavement, cracked into slabs, with almost no soil on it and rare alpine and Mediterranean flowers growing in the cracks anyway.

It is also the densest concentration of prehistoric monuments in the country, sitting unfenced in fields beside the road. Start with those in the morning while the coaches are still doing the cliffs.

Then go to the cliffs late. They face west, the afternoon light comes in under the weather, and the car parks empty from about four.

  1. 09:00

    South into County Clare

    Travel

    An hour and a quarter by car around the bay through Ballyvaughan, or the same on a coach tour leaving from the city. Fill the tank first; there is very little out there.

  2. 10:45

    Poulnabrone dolmen

    Historic

    A portal tomb standing on open limestone pavement, built more than five thousand years ago and holding the remains of a couple of dozen people when it was excavated. It is fifty metres from the road and there is nothing between you and it.

  3. 11:45

    Caherconnell Stone Fort

    Historic

    A drystone ring fort a few hundred metres up the same road, lived in from the Iron Age well into the medieval period. The site runs working sheepdog demonstrations, which sounds like a gimmick and is the best half hour of the day for anyone under twelve.

  4. 13:15

    Lunch in Ballyvaughan or Doolin

    Eat

    Two small villages with pubs that do food, at either end of the Burren road. Doolin is the better stop if you are heading to the cliffs afterwards, and it has its own music sessions if you decide to stay.

  5. 15:00

    Cliffs of Moher

    Other

    Eight kilometres of sea cliff rising to a bit over two hundred metres, with a paved path along the top and a good deal of unpaved one beyond it. Puffins nest on the stacks from April to July. Stay behind the wall on a windy day and mean it.

With more time: With a car and a second free day, go north instead of south: Connemara, the mountains and blanket bog between Galway and the sea, with a Victorian abbey and a walled garden at Kylemore. It is the better landscape and the worse road.

Day 3 in Galway

St Nicholas, and the museum by the river

A short morning in the old town before the train. Both of these are five minutes apart, cost nothing or nearly nothing, and are the two places that explain how a small Atlantic port ended up trading with Spain.

There is a market around the church on Saturdays, and on Sundays through the summer, which is the best thing in Galway on the days it runs.

  1. 09:30

    Saint Nicholas Collegiate Church

    Religious

    Founded in 1320 and enlarged twice, the largest medieval church in Ireland still in ordinary weekly use. Look for the Lynch tombs and the window where a fifteenth century mayor is said to have hanged his own son, a story the city has never wanted to check too closely.

  2. 10:45

    Galway City Museum

    Culture

    Three floors on the city's archaeology, its Spanish trade and its fishing, next to the arch you walked past on the first evening. Free, and about an hour if you read the labels.

With more time: With a later train, take the ferry from Rossaveal out to the Aran Islands. It is a long day for three days in Galway, but the middle island in particular is a limestone version of the Burren with a prehistoric fort on a cliff edge.

Before you go

Where to stay

Stay in the small grid between the square at the top of town and the river. Everything here except the day out west is then within ten minutes on foot, which matters more than it sounds when it rains sideways.

Salthill, half an hour west along the seafront, is the other option: cheaper, quieter, with a view of Galway Bay and a long promenade to walk back along. It is a good choice in summer and a bleak one in January.

Getting here, and getting out west

Ten trains a day run from Dublin Heuston and take two and a half hours through Athlone. Coaches from Dublin airport take about the same and cost less. Galway has no airport of its own any more; the nearest are Shannon, ninety minutes south, and Knock.

For the day in County Clare you need either a hire car or a seat on a coach tour. Tours leave Galway every morning, cost around forty euro, and stop at the Burren and the cliffs; a car costs more but lets you stay at the cliffs for the light. There is no useful public transport to any of it.

Weather, and what it means

This is the wettest side of Ireland and the rain arrives in bands rather than in days, which is why nobody here cancels anything. Bring a waterproof with a hood rather than an umbrella; the wind at the cliffs will take an umbrella out of your hand and keep it.

The upside is that a wet morning turns into a clear afternoon often enough to plan around. If the forecast is bad on your one free day, swap the order of days two and three rather than giving up on the coast.

Music, and how to find it

Sessions are not advertised and there is no ticket. Musicians sit in a corner or at a table by the door, usually from about half nine, and play tunes at each other. You are welcome to listen and expected not to talk over the slow airs.

The pubs along Quay Street and High Street have music every night and are busy with visitors. The ones a street back have music most nights and are busy with locals. Both are worth an evening, and neither charges to get in.

Galway does not reward planning. The best evening you have here will be the one where you meant to go somewhere and stopped in a doorway to listen to four people playing reels instead.

Go west from here if you have longer. Connemara starts twenty minutes outside the city and the road gets emptier, wetter and better the whole way to the coast.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is three days enough for Galway?
For the city, two nights is generous. Galway has four or five things to look at and a great many places to drink, and the point of it is the second category. The third day earns its place because of what is an hour away, not because of what is in town.
Do I need a car?
Not for the city, where a car is a liability and parking is expensive. For the Burren and the cliffs you need a car or a coach tour, because there is effectively no bus. If you are only going out once, the tour is cheaper and someone else drives the Corkscrew Hill.
Cliffs of Moher or Connemara?
The cliffs if you only have one day, because they are the more famous and the day includes the Burren on the way. Connemara if you have two, or if you have seen big cliffs before: it is emptier, wilder and the drive is most of the pleasure.
When is the best time to come?
May to September for daylight and for the festivals, of which there are many. Late July is the race week and the arts festival almost back to back, when the city is at its loudest and every bed is booked. Winter is wet and dark and the music is unaffected.
Can I change this itinerary?
Yes. Copy it, swap the cliffs for Connemara, add a night and put the Aran Islands in the middle. The two city days are short on purpose, so there is room to move things around them.