Overview
In the 1800s this small island in the River Corrib was the industrial engine of Galway, and its Persse Distillery sent 400,000 gallons of whiskey a year out the gate – some of it to the bar of the House of Commons in London. The mills and the distillery are gone now, and Nun’s Island is a quiet run of lanes and college buildings a few minutes’ walk from Galway Cathedral. If you have twenty minutes between the Latin Quarter and the cathedral, it is worth crossing the bridge for the river, the old stone and the whiskey story.
A convent, then a distillery
The name goes back to 1649, when a community of Poor Clare nuns – an enclosed, contemplative order living under vows of silence and poverty – established a convent on the island, and a Poor Clare presence has been tied to the place ever since. It gave the island both its name and its quiet character.
By the nineteenth century the character had flipped from contemplation to trade. The Corrib is short, about 6km, but one of the most powerful rivers in Ireland by volume, and that flow drove the mills and factories that clustered here. The best known was the Persse Distillery, whose Nun’s Island whiskey went out at around 400,000 gallons a year at its height and supplied the House of Commons. It closed in 1911. Its reputation outlived it by a long way: a rare surviving bottle sold at auction for £150,000.
Walking the island
You can cover the island comfortably in half an hour, but it rewards a slower loop along the river. Watch for the weathered stone walls and brick foundations left over from the industrial years, worked into the current streetscape rather than preserved as monuments. The Corrib here is tidal, so the level and even the direction of the current shift through the day; watching the water push against the bridge pillars is a small, understated bit of theatre.
Two buildings are worth clocking. Nun’s Island Mill – a seven-bay, six-storey former flour mill from around 1810 – now serves as a lab for the University of Galway. It is not open to the public, but the scale of it reads plainly enough from the lane outside. St Joseph’s Patrician College, known to everyone in Galway as ‘The Bish’, opened in 1862 and its Victorian buildings still hold the middle of the island; you can walk the grounds and paths around it even while the school is in session.
What else is here
Nun’s Island Theatre is the island’s one ticketed draw, a small community venue with local productions and acoustic gigs – worth checking the listings before you visit, because the room is intimate and the programme leans local. The University of Galway grounds spill onto the island too, with lawns and paved paths that fill with students on a fine afternoon. For a photograph, the pedestrian bridge is the spot: it lines up the Corrib, the cathedral dome and the West End rooftops in one frame, and early or late light does the rest.
Getting there and access
Nun’s Island is a public space, open all day, every day, with no entry fee. It works mainly as a college and residential quarter, so there are no cafés, shops or public toilets on the island itself – bring water if you plan to linger, and use the benches along the university grounds and the river walk.
The theatre and the lanes are step-free and level, with a wheelchair-accessible entrance at Nun’s Island Theatre; a few older stretches near the riverbank keep their uneven cobbles.
Getting there
- On foot: from the city centre, head west past the cathedral; the pedestrian bridge is just north of it.
- Bus: city route 414 stops on Dominick Street, about four minutes’ walk from the theatre.
- Parking: none on the island. Mill Street car park is a four-minute walk (around €2 an hour, 08.30–18.30 Mon–Sat, 13.00–18.00 Sun); the Galway Cathedral car park is similar (around €5 a day). There is one accessible bay across from the theatre and three more at Mill Street.
Nearby
The island slots easily into a wider Galway walk. Across the river, the Latin Quarter packs in traditional pubs, buskers and independent shops, and a short walk south brings you to the Galway City Museum by the Spanish Arch, free to enter and strong on the city’s maritime past.
Come on a weekday morning for the quietest version of the island, or time your crossing for the turn of the tide to catch the Corrib changing its mind about which way to run.