Galway, city in western Ireland, in Connacht Province, county borough of county Galway, seaport on Galway Bay. The city of Galway, in addition to being an export center for wool and agricultural produce from its hinterland, has fisheries, distilleries, iron foundries, flour and corn mills, and marble-polishing works. The older section of the town is built in an irregular fashion, and many of the older buildings are Spanish in architecture. The new town, with spacious streets, is built on rising ground, which slopes gradually toward the bay and the Lough Corrib. Among the churches in Galway is Saint Nicholas, a cruciform structure dating from 1320. Walls, fragments of which remain, were built around the town about 1270, and the commercial development began about that time. Galway is the site of University College (1845), a constituent college of the National University of Ireland. From the 13th to the 17th century, Galway had considerable trade with Spain. Population (1996) 57,000.
