Lost in translation in Galway, New York | IrishCentral.com

Lost in translation in Galway, New York | IrishCentral.com

The town of Galway is located in Saratoga County in upstate New York and was established in 1792. The town contains a small village also named Galway, similar to how the county Galway’s largest city shares its name. The history of the town’s name travels slightly farther over the Atlantic, however, to our neighbors in Galloway, Scotland. The New York town was originally christened New Galloway after its Scottish counterpart and it is thought that this name was used as early as 1785.

Unfortunately, due to a misspelling when the town was incorporated (or a misinterpretation as can so often happen with place names), Galloway was to become Galway. Despite the name being Hibernicized with this loss of letters, the pronunciation stays true to the original, making it still sound dissimilar to the Irish version.