Statue of Pádraic Ó Conaire

Born by the docks in Galway in 1882, Patrick Joseph Conroy (later Pádraic Ó Conaire) became the most important Irish-language writer of his generation. When he died in 1928, the Gaelic League commissioned Dublin sculptor Albert Power to create a memorial statue. Unveiled in Eyre Square in 1935, it quickly became a Galway landmark. The statue was beheaded in 1999 and afterwards moved into Galway City Museum for safekeeping. A bronze replica now sits in its place in Eyre Square.