Like a bomb site: top tour guide blasts Spanish Arch area

Galway City Tribune – A top tour guide has lambasted the state of the Spanish Arch area, likening it to a ‘bomb site’ which destroys one of the city’s most iconic views out over Galway Bay.

Brian Nolan, who leads groups of tourists daily around the city through his company Galway Walks, said he has stopped bringing visitors to this historic part of the town because the Council has left the flood boom and the surrounding metal barriers in place since last September.

“It’s a disgrace. It’s ugly, it’s not being maintained because the barriers block the bins, it’s full of rubbish, it looks completely derelict and yet it’s the entrance to the Claddagh and the Museum. How do you explain that to visitors and we meant to be a Capital of Culture?” he said.

A spokesman for Galway City Council said the local authority is currently in talks with the Office of Public Works (OPW) about progressing a permanent flood barrier after the Minister for the OPW Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran announced funding for it following the widespread flooding of the area as far as Raven Terrace.
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