Lynch's Castle on Shop Street is the best-preserved medieval townhouse in Ireland still in commercial use: you can do your banking inside a 15th-century fortified tower.

Built after a city fire in 1473, it was home to the Lynches, one of Galway's fourteen merchant tribes, who grew rich on Spanish wine.

The carvings on the facade demand a closer look. Midway up the wall, a monkey cradles a child. It depicts the legend that the Earl of Kildare's pet monkey rescued a baby from a burning castle, a debt the Tribes repaid by enlisting the Fitzgeralds to expel their overlords in 1504.

The building lends its name to a darker story: Mayor James Lynch allegedly hanged his own son from an upper window in 1493 after the young man murdered a Spanish guest.

VoiceMap's tours use the castle to trace Galway's merchant dynasties, its Spanish trade, and the grim etymology of "lynching."