Galway plans to mark five hundred years since getting a town charter and permission to run its own ecclesiastical affairs.
Although Galway is much older than five hundred years, it wasn't until 1484 that it gained full civic status.
Galway the captial of Connaught in the Kingdom of Ireland
The old walled town goes back at least seven hundred years and in its day it ranked alongside some of Europe's great city-states.
It was by all accounts a fabulously wealthy seaport whose trade extended from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.
In 1484, Galway citizens managed to win a large degree of independence in church and state affairs. King Richard III assigned mayoral status to the city and Pope Innocent VIII allowed Galway to run its own ecclesiastical affairs.
Mayor of Galway, Councillor Michael Leahy announced plans for the quincentennial celebrations at St Nicolas's Church.
It's to be a year of almost non-stop, historical, cultural, community and sporting activity.
The celebrations could be a multi-million-pound tourist attraction. Michael Leahy points out that no other city in Ireland has previously celebrated five hundred years of mayorship.
One of the first events to mark the celebrations was the formal launching by Kenny's Antiquarian Books of a reprinted edition of Professor Mary J Donovan O'Sullivan's definitive history of medieval Galway 'Old Galway'. Michael Leahy believes the publication makes a valuable contribution to unlocking the story of the Galway's famous past. There are further plans to publish books on old Galway throughout 1984.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 16 December 1983. The reporter is Jim Fahy.
