Walking Tours of Galway

13/06/2026

Seamus Kelleher, one of the best rock guitarists Galway has ever produced, will play a special gig upstairs in the Quays Bar, tonight, Saturday at 9.30pm.
A Salthill native, Seamus is based in Florida these days but comes home every year with a group of friends to celebrate his Galway roots. If you like Rory Gallagher’s music, you will love Seamus’s gig.

11/06/2026

A wind-swept posie of sea-pinks clinging obstinately to an old sea wall, defying the Atlantic winds and spray to dislodge them from their inhospitable refuge, reminded me of the beautiful poem in Irish, ‘Na Blátha Craige’ or ‘the flowers of the cliff-face’, written by Aran Islands poet, Liam Ó Flaithearta.

It was of course autobiographical for Liam, describing the stoicism of the Aran islanders, living their precarious lives on three tiny islands at the edge of the Atlantic in Galway bay.

Give it a go, no judgement, just read it aloud. It’s beautiful. English translation provided, though the English words do not convey a whit of the poem’s true beauty.

A dúirt mé leis na blátha:
“Nach suarach an áit a fuair sibh
le bheith ag déanamh aeir
Teannta suas anseo le bruach na haille,
Gan fúibh ach an chloch ghlas
Agus salachar na n-éan,
áit bhradach, lán le ceo
Agus farraige cháite,
Ní scairteann grian anseo
Ó Luan go Satharn
Le gliondar a chur oraibh”
A dúirt na blatha craige:
“Is cuma linn, a stór,
Táimid faoi dhraíocht
ag ceol na farraige.”

‘I said to the flowers:
“isn’t it a pitiful place ye ended up
to be having fun
and ye trapped on the side of a cliff
nothing below but grey rock
and the filth of the birds,
a dirty, foggy place,
of spraying sea.
The sun doesn’t shine here
From Monday to Saturday
to gladden your hearts”
And they said:
“We don’t care, dear,
We are entranced
by the music of the sea!”

Photo and story; Brian Nolan

07/06/2026

A tragic tale, from Newbridge in the north east of county Galway. The sinking of the Lusitania in 1914 made international headlines, and also left its mark on this tiny village in Galway.

This photo shows the Kelly family outside their thatched cottage at Newgrove, Newbridge, c.1908. The parents, John Francis Kelly and Margaret Brannelly Kelly, are on the right. The smiling face of Annie, the girl standing on the left, is particularly noticeable and its Annie that was part of an extraordinary episode in the history of emigration from Ireland to America. By the time Annie was 19, many of her siblings had emigrated to the US and Annie decided to join her sister Delia in Boston. She sailed for America aboard the Lusitania on 17 April 1915 and arrived in New York on 24 April, World War 1 was ongoing at this time. During the medical examination at Ellis Island, Doctors discovered that Annie had a valvular disorder in her heart, and she was denied entrance to the United States. On 27 April 1915, the Board of Special Inquiry held a hearing in the presence of Annie, her sister Delia, her brother John, and her uncle Patrick. The board reaffirmed the decision to bar her entry to the United States. Annie's family sought the help of Mayor James Michael Curley of Boston and US Congressman James A. Gallivan of Massachusetts but it was all in vain, Annie was deported back to Ireland aboard the Lusitania. The ship was identified and torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank to the bottom of the Ocean in only 18 minutes. The vessel went down off the Old Head of Kinsale, killing 1,198 people and leaving 761 survivors. Among the dead was Annie Kelly, such a sad and tragic end for the happy, smiling, young lady in this photo, and for her family at home. She was only 11 miles from the Irish shoreline when the ship was struck, almost back in the loving arms of her family. (photo from the Hannon collection. Colorised by Pat McPhilbin))
See an excellent article on this tragedy by Michael Martin and James Farrell here: https://wfha.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2015-01-AnnieKelly.pdf?fbclid=IwY2xjawSOfkVleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFpbEE4RmVMbFBqR3h4M0tRc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHpBLMuClwcH2_8EcTITNHuKzJ6Z_T9kshmFpLIwI-igSIioN0md0NKvjnp7P_aem_tH7DvRkbBzysEfAjnShMGQ

05/06/2026

A unique Galway Memory;
This story is from the extreme north-east of county Galway, where some folks still spoke Irish as their first language, until as recently as 1956!

Lovely photo of the late, great, Pat Gately from Carrowntarriff, Dysart, the lady that is with him is not named so if anyone knows who she is please let me know. They are coming from the well with water. Pat Gately was always known locally as 'Paitín Phait Sheáin', and was one of the last native Irish speakers in our area. Luckily, in 1956, Professor Tomás Seosamh Ó Máille (1904-1990), recorded Paitín Phait Sheáin and a neighbour, called Seamus Coyne (known as Jamesey), see link below to these recordings. These two men were great Irish speakers and in fact that area near Dysart was known as a 'mini Gaeltacht' in the early to mid 20th century. Pat worked as a drover and was in Ballinasloe 'driving' cattle when Professor Ó Máille arrived in Carrowntarriff from Galway. Word was sent to him and they met half way, with the recording being made in 'Patsy Jacks' pub, near Taughmaconnell. Pat Gately was born in 1868 and in the 1901 census he is living in their thatched cottage in Carrowntarriff with his father Patrick, his mother had died by this time. The cottage had one room, no windows on the front and had one out-building. By 1911 Pat's brother John was living with them, also an Irish speaker. Pat Gately, Paitín Phait Sheáin, died in 1958 and is buried in Dysart cemetery. Here are the recordings taken by Professor Tomás Seosamh Ó Máille: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbef/6100110/6253041?fbclid=IwY2xjawSP5d5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFpbEE4RmVMbFBqR3h4M0tRc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtvqAsrFQA4I0DAoqZVMfOjJbgEPFYV8rXzYjCv5sq10mKueyt6VgWT2lF6y_aem_id13o-QGP90y0X3HdPk9kA (photo courtesy of Frank Coyne)

04/06/2026

From Galway to Graceland, to be with the King!

02/06/2026

A beautiful blizzard of bog-cotton at Barna!

02/06/2026

I took this photo two years ago.
It was a beautiful day in early June and the flowers along the riverbank were decadent in their glory, the white dog daisies, the yellow buttercups and dandelions, the majestic purple and pink valerian, all abuzz with insects and hints of summer, when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the lady in her garden, at the back of a Nuns Island house, hers full of carefully planted and cultivated flowers, whose names I don’t know, but whose fragrant scents waft daily across the river, in a forbidden embrace, the tame and wild fragrances combining together to spray a hybrid perfume across this little oasis of calm, peace and beauty, down by the river Corrib.
Stop and smell the summer flowers. They are with us such a short time, and the winter is so long and dreary.

Photo and story; Brian Nolan

01/06/2026

‘The silvered moon reflects off the spray of the racing river torrent, and off the silvery scales of the silver salmon as they sweep silently up the Corrib, swimming in from the silvery sea, pursued by silver-slashing seals, silver prospecting porpoises, silver-seeking seagulls, and oir-opportunist otters, while dark-eyed cormorants and hungry herons, silent, shadowy sentinels, await their chances to sn**ch a tasty bite from the back of a slithering salmon traversing the dangerous ‘Dardanelles’ of the fish-ladder at the salmon weir, and all the while, the cathedral dome, verdigris green by day, tarnished silver by night, looms over the shoals of silver salmon, tallying every grilse, christening every silver swimmer sinner as they pass under the granite eye of God, and the polarised gaze of the ghillies, the sn**chers, and the bailiffs!’

Painting by Galway artist Brian Mac Gabhann
‘Above the Salmon Weir, Galway’

Story; Brian Nolan Walking Tours of Galway

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