To celebrate the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race in Galway a free public talk entitled “The Making of Galway Bay” will be held on Monday May 25 at 6pm in the Cairnes Lecture Theatre, NUI Galway.
Delivering the lecture will be Professor Mike Williams, head of Earth and Ocean Sciences at NUI Galway, who has spent many years researching the natural history of Galway Bay and the Aran Islands.
According to Professor Williams, “The talk will be a tale of earthquakes, tsunami, great storms and climate change that have, over thousands of years, shaped Galway Bay into what it is today.
In 1755, the Lisbon earthquake triggered a tsunami which swept up the Bay, damaging the Spanish Arch and drowning many citizens. Our brave city, perched on the Atlantic coast, also took the brunt of one of the biggest storms Europe has ever known in 1839.
