Salthill and the Prom

How a village became a resort

The promenade opened in 1856, but the bathing came first. In 1831 Dr Robert Rogers Gray opened artificial medicinal baths on the ground that is now the reclaimed Claude Toft Park, at a time when seaside bathing and mineral waters were both in fashion. Those baths were Salthill's main draw until a fire destroyed them in 1870.

Visitors needed somewhere to stay. Bathing lodges went up at Blackrock House and along what is now Upper Salthill Road; the Freeman's Journal called them more substantial than showy, and Gort Ard, Lisgorm and St Mary's still stand as examples. John Gill's Eglinton Hotel, built in 1860, was the first hotel of note and was crowded every summer; others followed from that decade on. The bandstand in Salthill Park dates from about 1880.

The tram, the tower and the twentieth century

By the 1870s horse buses seating 25 ran between Salthill and the city. In 1877 William Leadbetter Barrington got a bill through Parliament for a tramway, which cost about 15,000 pounds and opened on 1 October 1879. It closed in 1918. A Salthill railway station opened the same day as the tram and closed to passengers in January 1918; the nearest station now is Galway's.

The Prom was extended in the middle of the twentieth century and the Blackrock Diving Tower was built in 1953. The 1970s added casinos and leisure centres, and Leisureland, with its pool and theatre, is still on the seafront.

Swims, races and the Christmas jump

On Christmas Day people jump off the Blackrock tower into the sea, now as a fundraiser for local charities. Through the summer the prom swims run parallel to the shore between Blackrock and Grattan Beach, from 500 metres to 2.5 kilometres, and each July the Galway Bay Swim crosses 10.5 kilometres from Aughinish in County Clare to the tower.

Until 2007 the Salthill Air Show over the bay drew more than 100,000 people each June. The seafront was a centre for the Volvo Ocean Race stopover of 2008 to 2009 and the Round Ireland powerboat race in 2010.

Sport

Pearse Stadium on Dr Mannix Road is one of Galway GAA's two main grounds. The local club, Salthill-Knocknacarra, won the All-Ireland senior club football title in 2006 and the ladies' junior title in 2022, and fields hurling and camogie too. Salthill Devon played League of Ireland football from 2010 to 2013 before merging into Galway FC, and the Galway Lawn Tennis Club on Threadneedle Road was Irish club of the year in 2002.

Getting to Salthill

Bus Éireann's 401 runs between Salthill and Eyre Square, and its 424 to Lettermullen passes through on the way out of the bus station; City Direct's 410 from Knocknacarra also serves the Prom on its way to the square. On foot it is about half an hour from the Spanish Arch along the shore. Steve Earle's Galway Girl names both the Long Walk and the Salthill prom, which is why so many people arrive humming it.