Galway ( ) is the only city in the province of Connacht in Ireland. The city is located on the west coast of Ireland. In Irish, Galway is also called Cathair na Gaillimhe: "City of Galway".

The city takes its name from the Gaillimh river (River Corrib) that formed the western boundary of the earliest settlement, which was called Dún Bhun na Gaillimhe, or the fort at the bottom of the Gaillimh. The word Gaillimh means "stony" as in "stony river". (the mythical and alternative derivations are given in History of Galway.) The city also bears the nickname City of the Tribes / Cathair na dTreabh, because fourteenThey were the merchant families of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Darcy, Deane, Font, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwin, Lynch, Martin, Morris, Skerrett. “Tribes” (merchant families) led the city in its Hiberno-Norman period. The term Tribes was originally a derogatory phrase from Cromwellian times. The merchants would have seen themselves as English nobility, and hence were loyal to the King. Their uncertain reaction to the siege of Galway by Cromwellian forces earned them this label, which they subsequently adopted in defiance. It is one of the constituent cities of the Cork-Limerick-Galway corridor with a population of 1 million people.

The population of Galway city, as at the 2006 census, is 72,414. Galway is Ireland's fastest growing city.

History

main: History of Galway

Demographics

The population of Galway city and its environs is 72,729 (based on the 2006 census carried out by the CSO), of which 72,414 live in the city limits and 315 live in the city's environs in County Galway,. If the current growth rate continues, the population of the city will hit 100,000 by 2020.

Galway City (that is, the population inside the city limits) is the third largest in the Republic of Ireland, or fifth on the island of Ireland. However, the population of the wider urban area, is fourth largest in the Republic of Ireland (sixth on the island) after Dublin, (Belfast,) Cork, Limerick (and Derry).

At the time of the 2002 Census, 16.3% of the population were aged 0 to 14; 75.5% were aged 15 to 64, and 8.2% were aged 65 and above. Also, 52.9% of the population were female and 47.1% were male. The part of the city with the highest population density was the Claddagh (5,756 people per km²), and the area with the lowest density was Ballybrit (823 people per km²).

Climate

Galway, like the rest of Ireland, experiences a year-round mild, moist, temperate and changeable climate, due to the prevailing winds of the Gulf Stream. The city experiences a lack of temperature extremes, with temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) and above 30 °C (86 °F) being rare. The city receives an average of 1,147 mm (45.2") of precipitation annually, which is evenly distributed throughout the year. Rain is the most common form of precipitation - hail, sleet and snow are rare in the city, though will sometimes be experienced during particularly cold winters. Galway is also consistently humid, with humidity normally ranging from 70% to 100%, and this can lead to heavy showers, and even thunderstorms breaking out when drier east winds, originating in the European continent, clash with this humidity particularly in the late summer.