Galway’s population has rocketed to almost 278,000 – marking close to a fifty per cent increase in residents over the past quarter century, a trend well ahead of the national average.

That’s according to a new report from the Western Development Commission, tracing trends on the region over its own lifetime – showing a 35 per cent increase in the region’s population as a whole.

The report also reveals that an area once blighted by disadvantage and emigration is now exuding life in a wide range of developments, both social and economic, with average disposable income now doubled and every second person with a university degree.

The percentage increase in population in Galway, at 47.1 per cent, exceeds that 42 per cent rate of population growth in the State over that same 25-year period  albeit that the overall population growth in the region is seven per cent behind that national average.

Galway’s population jump of 89,000 brings it to 277,737, over 110,000 ahead of Donegal’s 167,000, followed by Mayo’s 138,000 and Clare’s 128,000. Roscommon and Sligo have populations of just over 70,000 and Leitrim’s population is just over 35,000.

All of that means that there are 886,385 people living in the counties of Connacht, Clare and Donegal now – up from 657,000 a quarter century ago.  That equates to 17.2 per cent of the total population of the Republic of Ireland.

Caption: Galway city…growth outstrips national average.

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