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Village · Spiddal

Spiddal in the Gaeltacht

Eighteen kilometres west of Galway city the road signs switch to Irish, and Spiddal, An Spidéal, is the first village of the Gaeltacht. The name comes from ospidéal, a hospital, after a medieval leper hospital in the western end of the parish, and hospitals kept coming back: a famine hospital stood here in the 1840s. Today about three quarters of the people speak Irish, and every summer the village fills with teenagers at its Irish colleges.

Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.

Main Street, Spiddal, on the R336 through the village
Main Street, Spiddal, on the R336 through the village
C O'Flanagan, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Coláiste Chonnacht, Coláiste Chroí Mhuire, Ceardlann - Spiddal Craft Village, An Trá Mhór, Trá Sáilín on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.

Famine, missions and the harbour

The 1840s brought evictions and starvation; appeals by the parish priest John O'Grady and A. W. Blake got the Board of Works to employ men on improving the harbour. From 1848 the evangelical Irish Church Missions were active, and in the early 1850s they opened the Connemara Orphans' Nursery, Nead Le Farraige, for up to ninety boys and girls, later affiliated to the Smyly Homes. The Boluisce River, flowing south from Boluisce Lake, enters Galway Bay at the village, beside the beach and the pier.

Irish colleges and a soap opera

According to the 2022 census about 75 per cent of the population are Irish speakers, some 40 per cent of them speaking it daily outside school. Coláiste Chonnacht and Coláiste Lurgan run three-week summer courses for teenagers, and American students come for the autumn term to study Irish-language literature. Ros na Rún, the TG4 drama, is filmed here; the Waterboys recorded part of Fisherman's Blues in Spiddal and later wrote Spring Comes to Spiddal. An Ceardlann, the craft village east of the centre, sells work made on site, and traditional music is played in the pubs. Bus Éireann route 424 runs from the city. The model pins the colleges, the craft village and the beaches.

Questions people ask

What does Spiddal mean?
An Spidéal comes from ospidéal, a hospital, after a medieval leper hospital in West Spiddal.
Is Spiddal in the Gaeltacht?
Yes; about 75% of residents speak Irish according to the 2022 census, and it hosts Coláiste Chonnacht and Coláiste Lurgan summer colleges.
How do you get to Spiddal from Galway?
Bus Éireann route 424, or 18 kilometres by road on the R336 along the coast.

Written from Wikipedia, "Spiddal" (CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-09-19, and from the OpenStreetMap places on the model. Nothing has been added from memory; follow the source for its footnotes.