Galway

The City of the Tribes: fourteen merchant families, mostly Norman, ran Galway as a small trading republic facing Spain rather than Dublin, and kept the Gaelic Irish outside the walls by statute. Wine came in and hides went out. Today it is the most Irish-speaking city in the country, with Connemara's Gaeltacht at its back.

Dún Gaillimhe, the fort at the mouth of the Gaillimh, was completed in 1124 by Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair, King of Connacht and High King, as a base for his fleet, and a town grew up around it. Richard Mór de Burgh took it in the 1230s. As the de Burghs went native, the town's merchant families, the fourteen Tribes of Galway, took control, and the Crown gave the city a mayor in 1484. The town kept its Gaelic neighbours at arm's length: a notice over the west gate in 1562 asked God to protect it "from the ferocious O'Flahertys".

Galway was the main Irish port for trade with Spain and France, and the Spanish Arch, built in 1519–20, is the best-known reminder. Christopher Columbus visited in 1477 and later noted that people "of extraordinary appearance" had come ashore at Galway on timbers from the west, probably Inuit carried by the currents. The city joined the Confederates in 1642, fell to Cromwell after a nine-month siege, and was taken by the Williamites soon after Aughrim in 1691; the great families were ruined. The Great Famine followed.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Galway ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Roscam · round tower · 5 km
• Blake's Castle · castle · under 1 km
• Lynch's Castle · castle · under 1 km
• Menlo Castle · castle · 3 km
• Merlinpark Castle · castle · 4 km
• Killeen Castle, Castlegar · castle · 7 km
• Cloonacauneen Castle · castle · 7 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Knockdoe · 1504: the Great Earl of Kildare, with half of Ireland, against the Burkes with the other half — the largest battle Ireland had seen, over a private quarrel.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.