The Spanish Arch
The Irish Times, Wednesday, April 19, 1989
By Pat Liddy.
Galway Today
Galway rose from its millennia of insignificance as a tiny fishing community with the arrival of the Normans under de Burgo in 1232. They recognised the strategic importance of the site and the natural barriers of the River Corrib, the sea and a marsh encompassing it on three sides.
The Normans immediately began to build a rampart around an enclosure of about 25 acres. Merchants were attracted to the relative security of the new town and the place began to prosper. In 1270 a massive defensive wall building programme commenced, which continued almost unabated for the next four centuries. Extensions, bastions, stronger gateways, towers and additional outer walls to take the pounding of the developing heavier cannon were built. Even two huge citadels were constructed by the victorious Cromwellian troops after their 9 months siege of 1651/2. An array of ordnance (one chronicler listed 93 guns) was spread along the walls. Galway became one of the most impressive and up-to-date fortified towns in the British realm.
All this magnificent building was made possible by the accepted imposition of local taxes on the town's prosperous international and internal trade. However, all this changed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Galway went into severe decline and the great walls and towers fell into neglect, were breached in many places to aid smuggling and ultimately were, for the most part, demolished.
The Spanish Arch evolved from the bastion finished in 1584 to protect the old quays. It was connected to the main wall by a 25 yard long section delightfully rediscovered in 1978 when a derelict house was pulled down. An archaeological team under Galway Corporation has unearthed three layers of a cobbled road complete with cart wheel ruts alongside this wall. In an exciting new development awarded to Hillview Securities, which includes a 500 seater municipal theatre, city museum, pub, restaurants, shops and housing, The Spanish Arch (it probably should be more correctly called the Portuguese Arch as there was more trade with Portugal than with Spain), the corbelled and crenellated wall, the foundations and cobbled surfaces will thankfully be preserved.
On a patch of quay jutting put from the Spanish Arch it would be more common good sense from touristic and commemorative considerations to erect a worthy statue of Christopher Columbus. In 1992 is the quincentenary of the discovery of the West Indies and it has been authenticated that he visited Galway on two previous occasions (trial runs?) and on his famous voyage reputedly recruited a Galway mariner.