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GalwayOnFoot.ieLoughrea
The 3D model of Loughrea: every building standing up, with the shops and services pinned

Loughrea, street by street

Crannogs in a grey lake, a de Burgo castle of 1236, a cathedral full of Celtic Revival art, and the last country branch line in Ireland.

Loughrea is a town of 6,322 people, 33 km east of Galway city. This page is a working model of it: every one of its 3,151 buildings stands on the map above, and 223 shops, cafés, schools, churches and services have a page each, with the street, the hours where recorded, the nearest bus stop and car park, and a plan of the streets around it. Everything comes from open map data and says so.

Today
Weather in Loughrea

Live forecast for the centre, hour by hour and the week ahead.

Buses, roads, parking
Getting to Loughrea

33 km from Galway, 60 km from Aerphort Chonamara, 2 bus stops, 4 car parks.

See and do
Things to do

The cathedral, the lake and its crannog, St Mary's Abbey and the town wall, the Walks, the Turoe Stone.

Since 6th to 7th century
The history of Loughrea

Crannogs, de Burgo's town of 1236, Clanricarde, the garrison, the cathedral, the branch line, the mines.

Facts
About the town

Population 6,322 at the 2022 census, where it is, what is here.

What is in Loughrea

11 restaurants, 12 pubs, 26 shops, 8 hairdressers and beauty and 9 supermarkets and more, by kind. Each kind has a page listing every one, closest to the centre first.

Food and drink
Shops
Health
Services
Motoring
Community
Sport and leisure
Places to stay
Things to see
Other

All 81 kinds of place

Guides to Loughrea

All 6 guides
The prehistoric carved granite Turoe Stone in County Galway, Ireland
Monument
The Turoe Stone

The Turoe Stone is a 1.2-metre granite stone carved in flowing La Tène style around 100 BC to AD 100, normally on the lawn of Turoe…

Lough Rea
Lake
Lough Rea

Lough Rea, Loch Riach, the speckled lake, lies against the south side of Loughrea: stocked with trout, pike, perch, rudd, eel and…

Lough Rea
Lake
Loughrea Lake

Lough Rea, Loch Riach, the speckled lake, lies at the south edge of Loughrea and gives the town its name: stocked with brown trout,…

Loughrea station (5). G616 at Loughrea with the 20.10 to Attymon Jct – the classic Loughrea scene.
Transport
Loughrea railway station

Loughrea station opened in 1890 as the terminus of the branch line from Attymon Junction on the Dublin to Galway line and closed on 3…

Lough Rea
Sport
The hurling clubs of east Galway

East Galway's clubs: Loughrea, founded 1884, county champions first in 1941 and again in 2024; Sarsfields of Bullaun, New Inn and…

Loughrea, St Brendan's Cathedral.
Cathedral
St Brendan's Cathedral, Loughrea

The Cathedral of St Brendan in Loughrea is the cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Clonfert, a neo-Gothic church holding one of the…

Food and drink

Where to eat in Loughrea

23 cafés, restaurants, takeaways and pubs on the map, 16 of them within 300 m of the centre. 3 have hours on record.

  1. The Dust InnPubs · Kings Street
  2. Kinsella’sPubs · Main Street
  3. Mike Keary’sPubs · Main Street
  4. The Auld TrianglePubs · Barrack Street
  5. Supermac'sTakeaways · Main Street
  6. Moylan’sPubs · Main Street
  7. John Patrick’sPubs · Main Street
  8. Charlie’s BarPubs · Main Street

Restaurants · Cafés · Takeaways · Pubs

Plan of Loughrea with every place to eat marked

Every place to eat and drink as a pin; tap one for its page and directions.

Street by street

All 90 streets
  1. Main Street
    regional road R942 · 301 m
    50 places
  2. Bride Street
    regional road R942 · 1.8 km
    10 places
  3. Dunkellin Street
    regional road R942 · 224 m
    8 places
  4. Abbey Street
    residential street · 333 m
    7 places
  5. Barrack Street
    regional road R351 · 636 m
    7 places
  6. Loughrea Plaza
    road · 248 m
    6 places
  7. Caher Court
    residential street · 61 m
    4 places
  8. Church Street
    minor road · 140 m
    3 places
  9. Lake Road
    regional road R351 · 1.7 km
    2 places
  10. Station Road
    minor road · 453 m
    2 places

Things to see around Loughrea

St Brendan's Cathedral
St Brendan's Cathedral
Vanessa Kennedy, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The piers on Lough Rea
The piers on Lough Rea
P L Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The nave of the cathedral
The nave of the cathedral
Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Castles, abbeys, old churches, beaches, viewpoints and parks within 12 km, closest first, plus 21 ringforts and ancient sites and 7 holy wells on their own pages.

  1. The WalksParks · 188 m
  2. Saint Mary’s AbbeyRuins · 193 m
  3. Lough ReaLakes · 1.3 km
  4. The Long PointParks · 1.6 km
  5. Earlspark DeerparkRuins · 2.1 km
  6. Earlspark DeerparkRuins · 2.2 km
  7. Brick LoughLakes · 3.1 km
  8. Earlspark DeerparkRuins · 3.2 km
  9. Field System, EarlsparkRuins · 3.3 km

Castles · Ringforts · Holy wells · Hotels

Loughrea in pictures

Photographs of the place and the country around it, each from an open archive and credited to the person who took it.

View from the N65, County Galway
View from the N65, County Galway
Sarah777, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Another view from the N65, County Galway
Another view from the N65, County Galway
Sarah777, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Two piers and lakeside walk, Loughrea Lake, Loughrea, Co. Galway
Two piers and lakeside walk, Loughrea Lake, Loughrea, Co. Galway
P L Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
St Brendan's cathedral, Loughrea
St Brendan's cathedral, Loughrea
Vanessa Kennedy, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Cullenagh Bridge
Cullenagh Bridge
Jason Keane, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Lisheenaclara Bridge
Lisheenaclara Bridge
Jason Keane, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Nave of St. Brendan's Cathedral, looking south (liturgically east) towards the main altar.
Nave of St. Brendan's Cathedral, looking south (liturgically east) towards the main altar.
Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
[Shane's Castle, 1903] Two women, a man and a dog standing in front of the ruins of Shane's Castle Randals…
[Shane's Castle, 1903] Two women, a man and a dog standing in front of the ruins of Shane's Castle Randals…
National Library of Ireland on The Commons, no restrictions via Wikimedia Commons
Loughrea, St Brendan's Cathedral.
Loughrea, St Brendan's Cathedral.
Eurovision2013, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Loughrea, St Brendan's Cathedral.
Loughrea, St Brendan's Cathedral.
Eurovision2013, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Questions people ask

Where is Loughrea?
Loughrea is in County Galway, in the west of Ireland, 33 km east of Galway city and 154 km west of Dublin.
What is the population of Loughrea?
6,322 people at the 2022 census, up from 5,556 in 2016.
How far is Loughrea from Galway?
33 km in a straight line from the centre to the centre of Galway city; the road is a little longer.
What is Loughrea known for?
St Brendan's Cathedral and its Celtic Revival art, the lake with its crannogs, the walled medieval town of the de Burgos, hurling, and the Tynagh mines that brought industry in the 1960s.
What is the history of Loughrea?
Crannog dwellers on the lake from the sixth century, a Norman castle and town in 1236, the Clanricarde Burkes, a garrison and market town in the eighteenth century, a centre of the Gaelic Revival, a cathedral in 1902, the last rural branch railway in Ireland until 1975, and a fast-growing town today.
What is the weather like in Loughrea today?
The weather page shows the live forecast for the centre, hour by hour for the next day and day by day for the week.

How the model is built

The buildings are OpenStreetMap footprints, read on 2026-09-18, stood up to the height the map records or a plain two storeys where it records none. Streets, water and the base map come from the same project through OpenFreeMap. Places are the named shops, services and public buildings on the map; each has its own page.

A building takes the colour of the kind of place inside it: restaurants in red, pharmacies in green, schools in yellow. Nothing is invented to fill a gap: a missing fact is shown as missing, with a link to add it to the map. More about the model.