A major new research project uncovering the overlooked histories of minority communities in Galway during the early decades of Irish independence will launch later this month at the Spanish Arch.
Hidden Histories of Galway: Minorities, Migration, and Belonging in the Early Irish State, 1922–1949 is the first systematic study of Jewish families, Irish Travellers, migrants, and other minority groups who lived in Galway in the years following independence.
Supported by the Royal Irish Academy 2025 Commemorations Bursary, the project challenges the long-held perception of the early Irish Free State as culturally homogenous.
Drawing on extensive archival research – including Poor Law Union minutes, Town Commissioner proceedings, burial registers, and estate papers from the Galway County Council Archives – this project reveals how questions of identity, belonging, and exclusion were negotiated in everyday life. From housing and education to civic participation, the research highlights how local experiences both reflected and resisted national policies of cultural uniformity.
The public launch event, taking place at Galway City Museum and Spanish Arch from 2pm on Wednesday April 22, will feature a research presentation, an interactive digital map demonstration, and reflections from community voices, followed by a reception.
The event is open to councillors, community representatives, researchers, and the general public.
The choice of the Spanish Arch as the launch venue is deeply symbolic. Historically, it served as Galway’s gateway to the wider world — a point of arrival for sailors, merchants, and migrants from across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
Hosting the launch there offers a powerful opportunity to reconnect the city’s present with its diverse and often forgotten past.
“The archive is not neutral,” said Dr Tokie Laotan-Brown, project lead. “The minute books, registers, and correspondence preserved in the Galway County Council Archives are not just records of the past. They are technologies of power that determined whose stories were told, whose lives were valued, and whose presence was erased. By launching at the Spanish Arch, we reclaim this historic gateway as a space for remembering the full diversity of those who have shaped Galway.”
By reframing Galway’s past as one shaped by migration, diversity, and contested belonging, the project contributes to a broader rethinking of Irish history. It recognises the full spectrum of lives that shaped the early State. At a time when questions of identity and inclusion remain central to public debate, Hidden Histories of Galway offers timely and important insights into Ireland’s complex social fabric.
