Things to do in County Galway

Ardamullivan Castle is situated on a rocky outcrop surrounded by trees, about 5 miles south of Gort The castle is a is a restored six storey tower house. Part of the original defensive wall remains. Ardamullivan Castle was built in the 16th century by the O'Shaughnessy family. In 1579, Dermot O'Shaughnessy and his nephew John, fought each other in a dispute over the castle. The fight resulted in the death of both men. The castle fell into ruin and was restored in the last century.

The castle is situated in the centre of the town of Athenry, 15 miles east of Galway in the west of Ireland. Athenry castle consists of a three-storey keep surrounded by a defensive curtain wall with two round towers. The keep was originally two storeys, the Great Hall and the basement. Another floor was added later. There is an area of grass between the keep and the bailey. After being left in ruins for over five centuries restoration on Athenry Castle commenced in 1990. Facilities The castle offers guided tours during the summer but has no facilities for visitors. Opening hours April/May/October, Tuesday to Sunday 10: - 17:00, June to September daily from 10:00 to 18:00. The castle Keep was built in 1253 by Meiler de Bermingham and after an attack in 1316 the large town wall were added. Not long after the completion of the walls, one of Ireland's bloodiest battles was fought outside the town between the King of Connaught and the Normans. Until that time the area and castle were of great importance but the story changed after the battle. Meiler's son raised the height of the first floor; he also embellished the entrance with a fine arched door at the south east end of the castle which was reached by a wooden staircase. During the reordering the banqueting hall was also enhanced with narrow trefoil headed windows; very rare in Irish castles. In the 15th century the tower was raised by two floors to include an attic and two gable ends and battlements were added. The basement only previously accessible by a trap door and ladder also benefited from having a new entrance. In 1596 the castle fell into the hands of the O'Donnell clan and never recovered from the great damage it sustained during the battle for its title and it wasn't until the late 1980's that the National Monuments branch of the Office of Public Works in Ireland started work on its restoration.

Aughanure Castle is situated 2 miles from the village of Oughterard, on the banks of the Drimneed River close to the shores of Lough Corrib. The Aughanure Castle site comprises of a well preserved tower house and circular watchtower with its stone corbelled roof and the ruins of a watch tower, banqueting hall and gatehouse with drawbridge. The tower with battlements is six storeys high. A stone spiral staircase leads to the upper rooms; the uppermost room has a new oak timbered roof. From here you can access the battlements for a view across the lake and surrounding countryside. Facilities The main attraction of the castle is some of the elaborate stone carvings especially in the ruined banqueting hall, some of the soldier's vantage points where they were able to attack unaware 'visitors' and the hiding places where they used to incarcerate prisoners. The castle is open daily between 09:30 - 18:00, April to September and during the rest of the year at weekends only. There are regular guided tours. The castle does not have its own restaurant but toilets are available for visitors. Aughanure Castle was thought to have been built by the Walter de Burgo and was home to the O'Flaherty clan in the 15th century. In 1572 the castle was badly damaged in a battle with the president of Connacht; Sir Edward Fitton and was subsequently rebuilt as it appears today, fortified by Morogh O'Flaherty. In 1618 King James I granted the castle to Hugh O'Flaherty but shortly after it fell into the hands of the Marquis of Clanrickarde who used it as a base against Cromwell's forces. In 1687 the castle was back in the hands of the O'Flaherty clan for a rent of 76 pounds per annum. In 1719 Bryan O'Flaherty bought the castle with the help of a mortgage which he borrowed from Lord Saint George but was unable to keep up the repayments and so the castle was lost again. The castle last changed hands in 1952 when the Commissioner for Public Works took over the building and restored the parapet, chimney and roof in 1963. It is now managed by the Heritage Service of the local government.

Ballynahinch Castle is 41 miles west of Galway between Roundstone and Recess. It is set in 450 acres of private woodland overlooking the Twelve Bens mountain range and the river Ballynahinch. The appearance is more that of a crenellated Victorian mansion than a traditional castle. Made from honey colored stone it has 3 floors in the main building with the wings being only one or two floors. It is set in terraced gardens overlooking the river where fishing piers and the huts built in the 1920's and can still be seen today. Facilities Since 1946, Ballynahinch Castle has been used as a four star hotel offering salmon fishing, cycling, walking and game shooting. The hotel has 40 rooms, half in the older part of the castle with the more luxurious and superior rooms being situated in the two riverside wings. Its main Owenmore Restaurant serves seasonal Irish food and there is also the Fisherman's Pub offering less formal meals. The specialties of both these restaurants being freshly caught fish from the river below. The castle built in the 1750's was originally home to the 'ferocious' O'Flaherty clan who lived there until the end of the century. One of the notable residents was the wife of clan member Donal O'Flaherty, Grace O'Malley also known as Pirate Grace as she was a pirate on the high seas. When her husband murdered by a rival clan she took over as the head of the O'Flaherty family a great honor for a woman. In 1590 the ancestors of Richard Martin also known as 'Humanity Dick', the founder of the RSPCA took over the castle and it was re-built in the 1700's to be used as an Inn. Prince Ranjitsinhji Maharajah of Nawanager stayed at the castle in 1924 as guests of the Berridge family who then owned the estate. He fell in love with the area, castle and the fishing so much that he decided to buy the castle and return once a year until his death in 1932. The Arts One of the castles residents Grace O'Malley was the subject of the film 'The Pirate Queen' and also a book by Anne Chambers published in 2003 called Ireland's Pirate Queen.

Connemara National Park in County Galway is one of the most wild and most beautiful landscapes in Ireland, a national park of approximately 2,000 hectares covering a section of the Connemara uplands and lowlands between Letterfrack and the Twelve Bens mountain range whose combination of the blanket bog, the mountain scenery, the Atlantic light and the character of the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht communities surrounding the park creates one of the most powerful natural landscapes in the west of Ireland. The park visitor centre at Letterfrack provides interpretation and the starting point for the walking routes into the mountains. The Twelve Bens, the quartzite mountain range visible from across a wide area of Connemara, provide the mountain walking of the most challenging and most rewarding character available in the national park. The summits of Benbaun, Bencullagh and the other peaks of the range offer views across the full extent of Connemara to the Atlantic in the west and the inland loughs of Galway to the east in panoramas of extraordinary quality. The quartzite rock gives the upper slopes a pale, almost white colour that creates a distinctive visual character quite different from the darker gritstone or granite mountains of other Irish upland regions. The blanket bog of the lower park, one of the finest remaining examples of intact Atlantic blanket bog in Ireland, supports a remarkable community of specialist plants including sundews, bog rosemary and various bog mosses, and the characteristic Connemara ponies that graze the park provide a living connection to the traditional livestock management of this landscape.

Coole Park near Gort in County Galway was the country estate of Lady Augusta Gregory, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre and one of the central figures of the Irish Literary Revival, whose house was the gathering place for the greatest writers of early twentieth-century Ireland and whose influence on W B Yeats, John Millington Synge and the other writers she supported and encouraged was one of the most significant cultural patronage relationships in Irish literary history. The house itself was demolished in 1941, but the grounds and woodland of the estate are managed by Coillte and the Office of Public Works as a nature reserve and heritage site. The most celebrated feature of Coole Park is the Autograph Tree, a large copper beech in the walled garden whose bark bears the carved initials of many of the writers and artists who visited Lady Gregory, including W B Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, J M Synge, Douglas Hyde and others. The tree provides the most direct physical connection to the extraordinary circle of creative talent that gathered at Coole in the first decades of the twentieth century and makes an entirely unique piece of literary heritage. Yeats wrote about Coole Park in several poems, most notably in Coole Park, 1929 and Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931, elegies for a place and a time that he knew were passing. The visitor centre provides an excellent introduction to the history of the estate and its cultural significance in the context of the Irish Literary Revival.

Cromwell's Fort is located on Inishbofin Island about 5 miles off the Connemara coast in County Galway, Ireland. The fort is a star-shaped fort perched on a rocky headland on Inishbofin Island, a relatively small island about 5.5 km long and 3 km wide. Cromwell's Fort is at the entrance to the harbour. The fort is now in ruins but much of the walls are standing, although some of the stonework has gone. The structure is about 120 feet by 80 feet with walls about 6 feet thick. . Facilities Inishbofin Island can be reached by ferry from Cleggan. The island has three hotels - Murray's Doonmore Hotel , Day's Inishbofin House Hotel and the Dolphin Hotel, and also a hostel. There is an airstrip on the island. The fort was built in the 1650's during Oliver Cromwell's occupation of Ireland. Inishbofin was captured by Cromwell's army and occupied by his troops until the end of the 17th century. Cromwell's forces used the fort as a detention centre for Catholic clergy and others who were waiting to be transported to the West Indies. After Cromwell's rule ended and Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, Cromwell's Fort was used as a defensive structure. During the Jacobite War it was occupied by Irish Forces who held it until 1691, after which they surrendered to the Williamite Forces.

Dunguaire Castle is one of the most photographed tower houses in Ireland, built in the sixteenth century on the shores of Galway Bay near Kinvara, its reflection mirrored perfectly in the still waters of the inlet. The castle gained cultural significance when the surgeon-poet Oliver St John Gogarty purchased it in 1924 and hosted W.B. Yeats and other figures of the Irish Literary Revival. Today operated by Shannon Heritage offering medieval banquets with traditional Irish music and poetry, Dunguaire sits at the northern edge of the Burren landscape near Kinvara's traditional boat festival and the broader heritage of the south Galway coastline.

Fiddaun Castle is a tower house situated between Lough Doo and Lough Aslaun, near the village of Tubber, about five miles south west of Gort. The most notable feature of this rectangular tower house is the remarkably well preserved inner bawn wall. The tower is a six storey structure with vaulted ceilings over the first and fifth floors, and an attic on the top floor. There are square box-shaped bartizans on the northern and southern corners at third floor level. The bawn is a rectangle with a three storey gatehouse in the north western wall, and a triangular point on the south west wall. The outer wall is now mostly in ruins, but at one tie enclosed a massive twelve acres. Facilities Fiddaun Castle is on private land and is now maintained by the Office of Public Works. Fiddaun Castle was built around 1574, and is one of three castles in the area owned by the O'Shaughnessy family. (The other O'Shaughnessy castles were Gort Castle, Ardamullivan Castle). Fiddaun guarded the western parts of the O'Shaughnessy lands. Most of the O'Shaugnessy land was forfeited in 1697 when Sir William O'Shaughnessy, who had fought as a captain in the Jacobite cause, was forced to flee to France. The O'Shaughnessy family continued to occupy Fiddaun Castle until 1729.

Glinsk Castle is situated in the River Suck valley about 4 miles south east of Ballymoe and 4 miles north west of Creggs village in County Galway. The Castle is rectangular in plan with two square towers projecting from the southern side. It has three storeys and a raised basement. The main entrance way was on the first storey on the south side, between the two towers. The roof has gone, but was gabled with an attic. The interior walls and floors have gone. One of the most impressive features remaining are the prominent chimney stacks in the end walls. Each chimney stack has five tall shafts. The mullioned windows give the castle an elegant appearance more in keeping with a luxurious home than a traditional castle. Glinsk Castle did have defensive features such as gun loops, bartizans and high basements. The main door and the basement windows have gunloops at either side. It also used to have a surrounding defensive bawn wall with turrets, most of which has gone. Facilities Glinsk Castle is accessible to the public, and a key may be obtained from the house near the castle. Access is signposted. The castle is now a National Monument. Also in the area you will find the ruins of Ballinakill Abbey, built in the early 1700s. There is a 60 mile long walking trail nearby along the River Suck valley. Glinsk Castle was one of the last defensive castles to be built in Ireland, and shows the architecture transition from traditional fortified castle to a residential castellated house. It as built as a fortified tower house around in the mid 17th century, and was the home of Sir Ulick Burke, the Baronet of Glinsk. The castle was destroyed by fire in ??, and is now a well preserved ruin.

Inishbofin off the coast of Connemara in County Galway is one of the most beautiful and most welcoming of the accessible Irish Atlantic islands, a small island of approximately 9 square kilometres accessible by ferry from Cleggan whose combination of the excellent beaches, the spectacular coastal scenery, the small permanent community of farmers and fishermen and the remarkable history including a seventeenth-century Cromwellian star fort and the earliest recorded Christian monastery in Connemara creates a destination of exceptional variety and character. The beaches of Inishbofin, particularly the East End Beach and the sheltered bay of Day's Sand, provide some of the finest bathing in Connemara in clear water with the quality only available at islands and remote beaches relatively unaffected by land drainage and agricultural runoff. The walking on the island circumference provides access to spectacular cliff scenery, the seal colony on the rocks below the western cliffs and the coastal views back toward the Connemara mainland and the Twelve Bens mountains. The star fort on the island, built by Cromwellian forces in the 1650s and subsequently used as a prison for Catholic bishops and priests during the Cromwellian persecution, provides the principal historical monument on the island in a remarkably complete condition. The combination of the fort, the early Christian site and the Cromwellian history creates a layered heritage narrative appropriate to an island with over 1,500 years of recorded habitation.

Inishmore, or Inis Mór in Irish, is the largest of the three Aran Islands lying across the mouth of Galway Bay off the west coast of Ireland, and it is one of the most remarkable landscapes in Europe. The island covers approximately 31 square kilometres and is built almost entirely from bare Carboniferous limestone, a landscape of extraordinary austerity and beauty where stone walls run in every direction across flat grey pavements, dividing tiny fields created over centuries by generations of islanders who carried seaweed and sand up from the shore to build soil where none existed. The island's most famous landmark is Dún Aonghasa, a prehistoric cliff-top fort perched on the edge of a sheer drop of nearly 100 metres above the Atlantic. The fort's massive semicircular walls and the band of jagged upright stones, known as a chevaux de frise, designed to impede attacking forces, date back around three thousand years and represent one of the finest examples of prehistoric fortification in Europe. Standing at the cliff edge inside Dún Aonghasa looking out over the open Atlantic is one of those experiences that stays with you: there is simply nothing between you and America. The island's human culture is equally compelling. Irish is the first language of most Inishmore residents and the island preserves a Gaeltacht community of genuine vitality. Traditional life here was shaped entirely by the sea and the stone, and the knowledge of currach building, fishing, farming and storytelling that evolved over millennia in isolation has produced a cultural landscape recognised as exceptional. J.M. Synge visited the islands in the 1890s on the advice of W.B. Yeats and drew deeply on what he found here for plays including The Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea. Other prehistoric and early Christian sites are scattered across the island. Dún Eochla and Dún Eoghanachta are further hilltop forts, while the early Christian church site of Teampall Bheanáin, one of the smallest chapels in the world, clings to a hillside with improbable determination. The natural landscape includes rare limestone pavement habitats supporting plant communities found almost nowhere else in Ireland, including mountain avens and other species more typically associated with Arctic or Alpine environments. Visitors reach Inishmore by ferry from Rossaveal near Galway or from Doolin in County Clare, or by small aircraft from Connemara Airport. On the island, bicycles and the local minibus service provide the main means of getting around. The pace of life here is genuinely unhurried, and giving yourself two days rather than one will allow a much more satisfying experience of this remarkable place.

Kinvara is a small village on the south shore of Galway Bay in County Galway whose combination of the perfectly scaled harbour, the sixteenth-century Dunguaire Castle on the headland above the bay and the character of an authentic Galway Bay fishing community creates one of the most rewarding and most photographed small village destinations in Connacht. The castle reflected in the still water of the harbour at high tide provides one of the most frequently reproduced images of the west of Ireland. Dunguaire Castle, a sixteenth-century tower house associated with the kings of Connacht, stands on a low promontory extending into the bay and the combination of the water on three sides, the intact tower and battlements and the views across Galway Bay to the Burren hills to the south creates a castle setting of considerable charm. The castle hosts medieval banquets in summer in the tradition established at other Shannon Heritage properties, providing a theatrical dimension to a building that is already scenically exceptional. The annual Cruinniú na mBád, the gathering of traditional sailing vessels on Kinvara Bay each August, is one of the finest traditional boat festivals in Ireland, the Galway hookers and other traditional western Irish sailing vessels racing in the bay in a celebration of the maritime heritage of the Galway coast that draws large crowds of spectators and participants.

Kylemore Abbey stands in one of the most dramatically beautiful settings in Ireland, a Victorian neo-Gothic castle reflected in the still waters of Pollacapall Lough beneath the dark peaks of the Connemara mountains in County Galway. The combination of architectural grandeur and wild natural scenery makes it one of the most photographed buildings in Ireland and arguably the most romantic building on the island. The castle was built between 1867 and 1871 by Mitchell Henry, a Manchester physician who had made a substantial fortune and purchased 9,000 acres of Connemara as an expression of both love and ambition. According to family tradition, Henry first saw this location while on his honeymoon and determined to build a home there worthy of the landscape. The resulting building, designed in the Gothic Revival style with 70 rooms, a private church and its own Gothic church set within landscaped grounds, was one of the great Victorian building projects in Ireland. Tragedy struck when Henry's wife Margaret died in Egypt in 1874, and Henry subsequently built the miniature Gothic cathedral on the estate as her memorial. It remains one of the most perfectly proportioned small churches in the country. After Henry sold the estate in the 1900s it passed through several owners before being purchased by the Benedictine nuns of Ypres in 1920. The nuns had fled Belgium during the First World War after their ancient monastery was bombed, and they established a new community and a girls' school at Kylemore that continued until 2010. The Benedictine community continues to maintain the abbey and the estate today. The Victorian walled garden, restored by the nuns over many years, is one of the great horticultural achievements of contemporary Ireland. The four-acre garden is divided into pleasure and kitchen sections and was completely reconstructed using the original Victorian planting plans, bringing it back from a state of complete dereliction to its current splendour. Seasonal plantings provide colour and interest throughout the year, and the gardeners' glasshouses, restored to their original function, produce the plants that fill the beds. Visitors can explore the abbey's furnished reception rooms, the Gothic church, the walled garden and woodland walks around the lake. The café within the abbey is known for the Benedictine nuns' baking traditions, including their distinctive pottery made on the estate. Kylemore is open year-round and is an essential stop on any visit to Connemara.

Portumna Castle on the shore of Lough Derg in County Galway is one of the finest early seventeenth-century semi-fortified manor houses in Ireland, built around 1618 by Richard Burke, Earl of Clanricarde. The building marks the transition from purely defensive castle to comfortable Renaissance house, combining castellated features with larger windows and classical decorative details. The elaborate entrance facade with its carved heraldic panels and classical doorway is one of the most sophisticated pieces of early seventeenth-century architectural decoration in Ireland, reflecting the Clanricarde earls' connections with the English court and continental Europe. The castle and associated Cistercian priory are managed by the Office of Public Works and the formal gardens have been restored to their seventeenth-century layout.