Galway Bay (Irish: Loch Lurgain or Cuan na Gaillimhe) is a bay on the west coast of Ireland, between County Galway in the province of Connacht to the north and the Burren in County Clare in the province of Munster to the south; Galway city is on the northeast side. The bay is about 50 kilometres (30mi) long and from 10 kilometres (6mi) to 30 kilometres (20mi) in breadth. The Aran Islands (Oileáin Árann) are to the west across the entrance and there are numerous small islands within the bay. To the west of Galway, the rocks are granite but to the south they are limestone.[1]
The coastal parts of Galway Bay have been designated a Special Area of Conservation. This is because of the wide range of important habitat types which include intertidal mud and sandflats, other littoral habitats, coastal lagoons, saltmarshes, turloughs, vegetated cliffs, calcareous grassland and limestone pavements. Galway Bay offers habitat to common seals and otters, and is an important ornithological site for seabirds, waders and waterfowl.[1]
On 4 May 1902, eight fishermen from a nearby village lost their lives while sailing on Galway Bay, near Kilcolgan.[3][4] Seven (Patrick Folan, Patrick Burns, Patrick McDonagh, John Barrett, Michael Burke, Michael Dwyer and Stephen Hynes) drowned; Patrick Walsh swam to shore at nearby Kilcolgan, but died of exhaustion on the beach.[4] A fundraising campaign was organised for the families of the drowned fishermen.[5]
If you ever go across the sea to Ireland
Then maybe at the closing of your day
You will go and see the moon rise over Claddagh
Or see the sun go down at Galway Bay.
There's a full moon over Galway Bay tonight
Silver light over green and blue
And every place I travel through, I find
Some kinda sign that you've been through
O'Carra, B., Williams, D.M., Mercer, B. and Wood. B. 2014. Evidence of environmental change since the earliest medieval period from the inter-tidal zone of Galway Bay. Ir. Nat. J.33: pp 83–88.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Galway_Bay, and is written by contributors.
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