Take a wander along Galway's Poetry Trail
By Darragh Nolan
GALWAY City has done well to retain its character down through the years. Global pandemics notwithstanding, its cobbled streets remain a hub along which local shops do business, artists perform for passers-by and the old low-rise buildings give the place a unique feel compared to the rest of urban Ireland.
That character, like in many others places, is beginning to fade. Shop Street’s cobblestone has bit by bit been tarred over. Local businesses are closing one-by-one, Griffin’s Bakery and Deacy’s Fish Shop recent casualties after each spent well over 100 years in operation. City Council bye-laws have limited busking. Many pubs will surely close their doors for good in the months to come.
Thankfully Galway’s history is captured forever in the plaques of the Galway Poetry Trail. The Trail, jointly operated by Kenny’s Bookshop and the Galway City Council, features some two dozen pieces of poems and prose dotted around the city from some of Galway and Ireland’s finest writers.
The Trail, which includes works of Heaney, Joyce and Yeats among other giants of Irish literature, has plaques of bronze and limestone scattered throughout the town, from Eyre Square and NUI Galway to the Claddagh and Salthill. Each one is specific to its site, offering readers a few words about the very spot they’re standing in.
GALWAY City has done well to retain its character down through the years. Global pandemics notwithstanding, its cobbled streets remain a hub along which local shops do business, artists perform for passers-by and the old low-rise buildings give the place a unique feel compared to the rest of urban Ireland.
That character, like in many others places, is beginning to fade. Shop Street’s cobblestone has bit by bit been tarred over. Local businesses are closing one-by-one, Griffin’s Bakery and Deacy’s Fish Shop recent casualties after each spent well over 100 years in operation. City Council bye-laws have limited busking. Many pubs will surely close their doors for good in the months to come.
Thankfully Galway’s history is captured forever in the plaques of the Galway Poetry Trail. The Trail, jointly operated by Kenny’s Bookshop and the Galway City Council, features some two dozen pieces of poems and prose dotted around the city from some of Galway and Ireland’s finest writers.
The Trail, which includes works of Heaney, Joyce and Yeats among other giants of Irish literature, has plaques of bronze and limestone scattered throughout the town, from Eyre Square and NUI Galway to the Claddagh and Salthill. Each one is specific to its site, offering readers a few words about the very spot they’re standing in.