Galway City Museum
Amazing natural and regional history, including artefacts that are thousands of years old!
Galway City Museum is a lovely little city museum that combines ancient Irish exhibits, artefacts from medieval Ireland, and sections on the Irish war for independence and even some natural history. We’ve been taking the kids to it since they were little and they still love going today.
We hadn’t taken our second kiddo there in a while and figured it was worth another go now that she’s three and better able to understand what she’s seeing.
They also do a fun thing where kids can hunt down mini lego exhibits that mirror the real ones, done by Lego Artists[^1], and they can get a cute lil’ certificate at the end if they find them all.
It’s also got some welcoming touches, like, well, being free, and inviting folks to hang out there as long as they like.
And the exhibits are no slouch – they even have the first Claddagh ring, forged by the inventory of that style!
And in the obligatory science section (which I’m a little leery of since it was paid for by the medtech multinationals in Galway, which are kind of a mixed blessing for Irish society), there’s this amazing carved artefact of a prosthetic in ancient Irish mythology.
And they have a sweet 300-year old sword that was ceremonial at the time of being added to the collection, but was previously an active combat weapon.
[^1]: Now there’s a job.