Christmas Morning on Shop Street
You step out early and the city is quiet in a way it never is otherwise. Shop Street, usually thick with buskers and tour groups, belongs to a handful of people walking off dinner from the night before. The Christmas lights strung across the street are still on, and the shopfronts along Williamsgate Street and Eyre Square hold their displays behind closed shutters. Galway's Christmas market runs through the season in Eyre Square, and by Christmas Day the stalls are shuttered, but the wooden chalets and the big tree still stand there, and you can walk the square alone with a coffee from whatever hotel bar is open.
Swim at Blackrock and Walk the Claddagh
The Christmas Day swim is the real ritual here, and the city empties toward the water mid-morning. You do not need to be registered for anything — you need a towel, something warm to change into, and the nerve to walk down the slipway. Blackrock Diving Tower in Salthill is the traditional spot, with crowds gathering on the promenade to watch and a steady stream of swimmers going in off the tower and the nearby beaches. Further east, the Claddagh quay and the Long Walk give you a gentler entry and a view back at the city, the Spanish Arch, and the Corrib running out to the bay. Afterward, walk the Salthill promenade — the wind will do the drying for you — and take the hour it takes to get back into town at a slow pace.
Christmas Dinner, and Where to Find It
Most of Galway's restaurants close for the day, so Christmas dinner is either booked months ahead at a hotel or cooked where you are staying. The city's hotels — around Eyre Square and along the waterways — traditionally serve a Christmas lunch to residents and to those who booked well in advance, and these fill up early. If you are self-catering, do your shopping on Christmas Eve: the Galway Christmas Market in Eyre Square is where you pick up seasonal food and drink in the days before, and the city's food shops and the Saturday market at St Nicholas' Church will see you right for cheese, smoked fish, bread and the rest. Expect brown bread, smoked salmon, and a turkey-and-ham dinner as the standard Christmas table here. Pubs are largely closed on the day itself; the ones that open do so for a short window.
Between Christmas and New Year: When the City Wakes Up
Christmas Day is the quiet one. The life comes back on St Stephen's Day, 26 December, when the pubs reopen and the town fills again, and it builds through to New Year's Eve. If you are in Galway for the whole stretch, plan your Christmas Day as a walking and swimming day and save your evenings out for the days either side. The Christmas market in Eyre Square runs through the season and into the days after Christmas, so you can still get a hot drink and a look at the stalls once the shutters come up again. Check locally for what is open on the day itself — the pattern is consistent year to year, but individual venues set their own hours.
If You Want a Quieter Day
Walk the Corrib. The river walk from the Salmon Weir Bridge up past the cathedral and the university gives you herons, swans and a city seen from the water's edge, and it is at its best on a clear, cold Christmas morning with almost nobody else on the path. The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas holds Mass on Christmas Day, and the doors are open to visitors regardless of whether you are there to pray. From the Claddagh you can look back at the Spanish Arch and the old city wall, and from Salthill you can keep walking west along the prom until the houses run out.
Book your accommodation and any Christmas lunch well before autumn — Galway fills up for the season, and the hotel dining rooms take reservations early. Build your day around the swim, the walk, and one long meal, and let the quiet do the rest. The city is at its most itself on 25 December: cold, bright, and unhurried, with the lights still up and the water waiting.