Eyre Square (An Fhaiche Mhór, also known as John F. Kennedy Memorial Park) is Galway's central park, surrounded by restaurants, shopping and transportation hubs. Galway railway station is adjacent to Eyre Square. The park is surrounded by streets that form the major traffic arteries into Galway city centre.
Eyre Square hosted the third longest Occupy Camp in the world, that ran for 216 days consecutively. A small group of concerned Galwegians came together in October 2011, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement that had very quickly spread out across hundreds of cities in the U.S. and the E.U.
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| Eyre's Square today, photo: Google Earth |
Galway’s street market is open all year round on Saturdays (8am-6pm) and Sundays (noon-6pm) and has been a center of city trade for centuries. A wide variety of foods (sushi anyone?), produce, plants and crafts are available.
Back in medieval times, Galway City was enclosed by a stone wall, built by the Normans to protect against attacks. A remaining section can be seen in the modern Eyre Square Shopping Centre mall, giving a disconcerting juxtaposition of the old and the new.
The heart of Galway is the area around Quay Street (sometimes referred to as the Latin Quarter), which is a bustling area of restaurants, pubs, shops and buskers (street musicians). The street shows its Medieval roots in its Spanish Arch (built in 1584), its ancient cobblestones and its narrowness, which reserves it for foot traffic.
