Galway Heritage Trails

A Board of First Fruits church built on the base of an older round tower, a former national school, a onetime RIC barracks still in Garda use, and a freestanding limestone market cross — 4 stops through a small South Galway village.

An Anglo-Norman castle, one of Ireland’s best-preserved medieval town wall circuits, and a Dominican priory ruin — 7 stops through one of Ireland’s most complete walled medieval towns.

A walk around Aughrim village and the ridge above it, site of the Battle of Aughrim on 12 July 1691 — the decisive and bloodiest battle of the Williamite War in Ireland, in which a largely Irish Jacobite army under the Marquis de St Ruth was defeated by a Williamite force under Godert de Ginkel. The trail links the village church and interpretative centre with the battlefield ridge, castle causeway and gun position where St Ruth was killed, presenting the event's course and toll without favouring either side.

A Town Hall Theatre built for the centuries-old October Horse Fair, a church with Harry Clarke stained glass, and two bridges over the River Suck — 10 stops through Ballinasloe, Co. Galway.

Ballynahinch Castle, once home to Ranji, the Indian cricketing prince and Maharaja of Nawanagar, its Georgian demesne bridge, a disused railway station on the old Galway-Clifden line, and a bridge over the Owenmore River — 4 stops through a Connemara village famed for salmon fishing.

A short walk through the village that grew up around a plank-bridge crossing of the River Clare, from the restored de Burgo tower house at its southern edge, over the old nine-arch bridge and through the crossroads village, to the ruined Franciscan bell tower that has stood watch since the 13th century.

A 1938 Catholic church, a five-arch limestone bridge over the Clarin River, a thatched public house where the Clarinbridge Oyster Festival began in 1954, and a Redington-family convent turned hotel — 4 stops through a Galway Bay oyster village.

A hotel with a genuine Marconi connection, the terminus of the old Galway-Clifden railway now a pub and museum, and a courthouse and former bridewell at the gateway to Connemara — 10 stops through Clifden.

St Brendan's 6th-century foundation, crowned by Ireland's finest Romanesque doorway and a yew avenue reputed to be just as old.

The turreted Ashford Castle and its ornate estate bridge, the ruined 12th-century Augustinian Abbey where Ireland's last High King spent his final days, and the strange 19th-century canal that never held a drop of water — 7 stops through the village Hollywood made famous.

Inishbofin — Inis Bó Finne, 'island of the white cow' — sits about 8km off the Connemara coast and is reachable only by ferry from Cleggan, Co. Galway; there is no bridge or causeway. This trail gathers the island's layered history: a 7th-century monastery founded by St Colmán after he left Lindisfarne, a harbour guarded by the star-shaped 'Cromwell's Barracks' (built where local tradition places an earlier pirate stronghold linked to Grace O'Malley), an Iron Age promontory fort, the island's three-quarter settlement pattern of East End, Middlequarter and Westquarter, its Famine-era population collapse and 1872-73 transfer from Co. Mayo into Co. Galway, and its present status as a Special Area of Conservation for the corncrake. Because every stop here sits across open water from the mainland, GPS positioning may drift during the crossing — this trail uses a wide trigger radius spanning the ferry route and the island itself, so give location a moment to settle once you're aboard or ashore.

A mid-19th-century Catholic church, a mid-century water tower still visible for miles, a six-arch bridge that carried the Dublin-Galway road for four centuries with rare surviving wicker centring, and a parabolic-arched railway bridge built by a different mason than its twin nearby — 4 stops through a South Galway village.

The ruins of one of Ireland's earliest unfortified great houses, a roofless Georgian market house, twin churches, and a rare 18th-century stepped walled garden — 5 stops through the East Galway village the Eyre family built.

Galway Cathedral, the collegiate church of Saint Nicholas, Blake’s Castle, and the salmon weir where the Corrib meets the sea — 13 stops through Galway city.

Walk the harbour edge of Galway's oldest fishing village — from the Claddagh Basin and St Mary's on the Hill, past the bronze hooker and cormorant of the Claddagh Icon, to Nimmo's Pier and the colourful 18th-century terrace of the Long Walk across the water.

Cross the Corrib into Galway's West End, where a Georgian preacher's birthplace, a Presbyterian church turned arts venue, and a Jesuit spire trace the story of the city's most creative quarter.

Galway's most-visited historic core — the medieval Green presented to the city in 1710, where JFK addressed a crowd in 1963; a 1627 merchant doorway saved from demolition; and the 1584 city-wall arch, damaged by the Lisbon earthquake's tsunami, that gives the promenade its name. 3 stops through the heart of the City of the Tribes.

A 1930 sculpture of Christ the King by Albert Power, a library housed in a former Church of Ireland church, and a courthouse on Market Square — 8 stops through Gort.

Start at the crossing that gave Headford its Irish name, Áth Cinn, then loop through the Georgian market square, the 1865 parish church and the site of the old St George castle demesne before following the Black River out to Ross Errilly Friary — one of the best-preserved Franciscan complexes in Ireland, tucked in the water-meadows northwest of town.

Follow the ruined cloisters and carved tombs of one of Connacht's best-preserved Franciscan friaries, founded by the O'Kelly lords of Uí Maine on the site of an older church of St Conall. The short walk moves from the tower and nave through the cloister and former friars' quarters before finishing in the small village of Kilconnell that grew up beside the friary gate.

Dún Aonghasa, a prehistoric stone fort perched on a sea cliff, the ancient monastic remains of the Seven Churches, a 19th-century harbour pier, a disused fish factory, a Celtic cross by the Pearse family workshop, twin churches, and a coastguard station turned Garda station — 8 stops across Ireland's largest Aran Island.

A roofless 18th-century windmill, a Catholic church and its crenellated presbytery, and the harbour quay with its four-storey limestone warehouse — 5 stops through a picturesque Galway Bay village.

A Quaker-founded temperance hotel, a former Christian Brothers monastery now a hostel, and a graveyard holding the marked graves of children from the town's industrial school — 3 stops through a Connemara village founded on Quaker principles in the 1840s.

A cathedral filled with Irish Arts and Crafts stained glass by Sarah Purser, Michael Healy and their contemporaries, a Carmelite monastery on a medieval friary site, and a former railway station — 7 stops through Loughrea.

Walk the tree-lined greens of one of Ireland's rare surviving 18th-century planned estate villages, laid out by the ffrench family for their linen-bleaching industry, then follow the old demesne road into Monivea Woods to find the ffrench family's ruined tower-house castle and granite mausoleum.

A former estate forge now the village museum, a parish church, and a stone road bridge alongside a cast-iron pedestrian footbridge — 4 stops through a planned estate village founded by the Bellew family.

A restored 16th-century tower house at the head of Galway Bay, its Georgian quay below, a former church turned village library, and an Albert Power-sculpted independence monument — 4 stops through Oranmore.

Aughnanure Castle, a 16th-century O'Flaherty tower house and National Monument on the shores of Lough Corrib, alongside a Catholic and a Church of Ireland church standing near each other in the village, and a Victorian railway station whose stationmaster's house survives as a shop — 4 stops through the traditional gateway town to Connemara.

A National-rated castle on Lough Derg, a Dominican friary founded in 1254 where Patrick Sarsfield was married in 1689, and two churches of the same name a few steps apart — 9 stops through Portumna, Co. Galway.

Twin churches of two faiths, a harbour quay personally designed by the village's founding engineer Alexander Nimmo, and the last standing bell tower of a former religious community in what is now a public park — 4 stops through a Connemara fishing village.

A former fishing village turned Victorian bathing resort, home to the 2 km promenade every Galway visitor knows as 'the Prom', and to Blackrock Diving Tower — built in 1953 and the traditional site of Galway's Christmas Day sea swim. 3 stops along Galway Bay.

An Arts and Crafts house remodelled by William A. Scott for Lord Killanin, a Gaeltacht church, convent and school, and a former boys' school turned county library — 5 stops through a Connemara Gaeltacht coastal village.

Two cathedrals from two different faiths, an archbishop’s house, and a seminary founded in 1858 — 10 stops through Tuam, Co. Galway, seat of the Archdiocese of Tuam for over 800 years.

A former national school turned heritage centre, a mid-19th-century Catholic parish church, a former bridewell prison, and a onetime RIC barracks — 4 stops through the East Galway village at the heart of the 1880s Land War evictions and protests.