Eyre Square

Eyre Square (Irish: An Fhaiche Mhór), also known as John F. Kennedy Memorial Park) is an inner-city public park in Galway, Ireland. The park is within the city centre, adjoining the nearby shopping area of William Street and Shop Street. Galway railway station is adjacent to Eyre Square.

The park is rectangular, surrounded on three sides by streets that form the major traffic arteries into Galway city centre; the west side of the square was pedestrianised in 2006.

The origin of the square comes from medieval open space in front of a town gate, known as the Green. Markets mostly took place in the northern part of the space. The earliest endeavour to formally enclose it was recorded in 1631. Some ash-trees were planted and the park was enclosed by a wooden fence. The plot of land that became Eyre Square was officially presented to the city in 1710 by Mayor Edward Eyre, from whom it took its name. In 1801, General Meyrick erected a stone wall around the square, which was later known as Meyrick Square. In the middle of the 19th century, the whole park underwent a redevelopment in Georgian style. In the 1960s, a full-scale reconstruction started and iron railings were removed and raised around the backyard of St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church.

In 1965, the square was officially renamed "John F. Kennedy Memorial Park" in honour of U.S. President John F. Kennedy; despite the renaming, the square is still widely known as Eyre Square. Kennedy had visited Galway city and made a speech in the square on 29 June 1963, the first U.S. president to do so during his term of office.

A controversial and massively over-budget redevelopment of the square began in 2004. There was considerable unease in the city when it was reported that the original building contractors, Samuel Kingston Construction Ltd, had left the site and were not returning. After many long delays the square finally reopened on 13 April 2006 having astonishingly cost over €20 million to redevelop. Despite an unpopular reception by Galway natives, the finished square received the Irish Landscape Institute Design Award in 2007.

Eyre Square hosted the third longest Occupy Camp in the world, that ran for 216 days consecutively. A small group of concerned Galwegians came together in Oct 2011, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement that had very quickly spread out across hundreds of cities in the U.S. and the E.U. The main aim was for regular people to set-up a base in their local areas, utilising public spaces to facilitate general assemblies, workshops and debates to discuss and try find solutions to alarming social injustices and lack of accountability amongst states and banking institutions.

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