Retrace your footsteps to O'Briens Bridge. Here in medieval times stood Galway's only bridge over the Corrib - on which stood the Bridge Gate. Since entering from Eyre Square you have thus wlked the extent of the medieval city. Cross the road and follow the river towards the sea. On reaching the last bridge before the sea, cross the road and stop at the small monument. The inscription tells you that it is dedicated to Christopher Columbus (9). Columbus' visit to Galway is the city's most famous legend, after the Lynch hanging, and is often told in the wildly exaggerated tale that he landed in Galway on his way to discover America. This is patently false, however there is good grounds for believing that he visiting Galway in his earlier years. He mentions the city in his own writings, and claimed to have visited England, and sailed as far north as Iceland.

On the other side of the bridge is the Claddagh Basin (11), a massive dock completed in 1851 to assist boat traffic from the sea to Lough Corrib. A lock gate forms the entrance and a canal (the Eglinton Canal) continues in a crescent on the other side of the river. As often with Galway developments, the canal came too late to be of real use to local commerce. No sooner was it completed than sea and water transportation began to be replaced by the railway and the road. This also spelled the end for the coastal traffic from Galway into hitherto inaccessible Connemara.

As you continue on towards the sea, you can see across the river the modern Claddagh village. A fishing village on this site probably pre-dated the city of Galway itself, and during the periods of Norman occupation the people of the Claddagh and the city were mutually dependent. The city exported salted fish, and needed the fisherfolk of the Claddagh to provide the raw material. A byelaw of the city forbade the Claddagh folk to keep a garden so that they would be fishing as much as possible. On the other hand, they were given the right to be first at the market - legalised queue-jumpers in fact! The Claddagh remained as a quaint, Irish-speaking fishing village right into this century. The fish-market was held in the open space on the left. Alas, deep-sea fishing on a large scale, the spread of retail shops, plus poverty and emigration spelt doom for the small-scale inshore fishing the Claddagh people followed. By the turn of the century the fish-market was gone, and most of the Claddagh boats - the 'hookers', 'pucans' and 'gleoteogs' - were to follow. There may be a 'pucan' tied up at the quay opposite - a small black boat with mast and sail. In the 1930s, it was decided to demolish the old cottages and replace them with a 1930-style housing estate. No doubt the old village was an untidy clutch of pokey cottages, with little indoor plumbing, open drains and chickens, cattle, donkeys and pigs grazing on the green spaces - grossly unhygenic in fact, and a town planners nightmare! However, it is unfortunate in retrospect that no section of the old village was left as a monument to times past. This is the area where the famous Claddagh rings originated. The oldest Claddagh ring is dated to 1710, but the design is probably much older.

The mentality that totally demolished the old Claddagh is still with us. The evidence lies just behind you at the squat building with a tower. This is built over the old docks of medieval Galway, which were excavated just before it was built. It is Galway's finest example of urban blight - there are others, but you can find them out for youself.

At the end of the fishmarket lies Galway's most famous monument, the Spanish Arch (12). This is one example of an name which is totally ironic. The Spanish had no role whatsover in building the Arch - in fact it was built to keep them out! In the 1580s, England and Spain were at war, and the English feared a Spanish invasion of Ireland - with good reason, as the Spanish Armada proved (1588). The structure was originally a bastion built to protest the docks from the sea. Originally longer, with four arches instead of two, and with battlements at the top, it was an imposing fortress. The sea came right up to the outer wall. It was only after the dangers of invasion had long gone that the arch was completed - the Irish name is An Poirse Caoch, the 'Blind Arch'. The original name was Kanavalla, from the Irish Ceann na Bhaile, meaning 'The Top (or Head) of the Wall'. This was indeed the top of the wall, which ran from here along Merchant's Road to Eyre Square, where we earlier viewed another remnant.

Beside the Spanish Arch is the City Museum , another place worth visiting at a very reasonable price. In particular, see the examples of Galway stonework on show there.

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