When Galway's Great Southern Hotel opened in 1845 with the coming of the railway, guests passed beneath an ornate chandelier in the foyer and ascended a magnificent staircase leading to more than 100 bedrooms and suites furnished with muted Victorian elegance.
Looking out on Eyre Square in the city centre, the Great Southern was for decades the main centre of Galway social life and the cynosure for tourists from many lands.
More than a century and a half later, the gracious old stone building still presides reassuringly over the square in the now greatly expanded city, and only recently underwent a total makeover.
It now has 115 newly-decorated suites and remains an icon in Galway life. But the GSH is no longer alone in the field of Galway city centre hospitality.
A whole array of newly-arrived hotels are crowding in on it, all within a few minutes' walk from its front railings.
Almost next door on one side is the Eyre Square Hotel, and on the other, the Victoria Hotel, each with 60 rooms and both owned by the Byrne Hotel Group.
Some 200 yards away on Forster Street is the Park House, a 57-room hotel, while the newest arrival, the 50-room Forster Court is located a little further along the street beside the Western Tourism office.
Close by, off a new road skirting the railway and bus station that runs down to Lough Atalia, stands the handsomely modern Radisson SAS Hotel, one of the well-known world-wide chain.
The Radisson looks out on Lough Atalia, a finger of still, brackish water running in from Galway Bay, and has emerged as a significant competitor for the traditional business on which the Great Southern once had a virtual monopoly.
Not far away, closer to the docks, is another newcomer of substance, the Harbour Hotel, which also is only a short walk from Eyre Square.
Situated on the square also, and within sight of the Great Southern, are two hotels that pre-date the new arrivals by a long distance - the Skeffington Arms and the Imperial (once the Royal) , both of which have become institutions in their own right.
The new hotels sprang up over the past 10 years in response to the accelerated economic and spatial expansion of Galway, as it shook off generations of inertia and responded to the growl of the Celtic Tiger more dramatically than almost any other part of Ireland.
As Galway grew in leaps and bounds (at one stage, it was the fastest-growing city in Europe) developers and hoteliers recognised the pressing need for increased hotel accommodation.
That is why, in quick time, the 115 rooms in the Great Southern were joined almost overnight by some 500 more rooms in newly- built establishments nearby.
Hotel development became an integral part of general commercial development in and around Galway city.
The new hostelries crowding in on Eyre Square were replicated by the growth of hotels in other parts of the city.
Jurys developed the new concept of fixed rate rooms with multiple occupancy in the hotel it built on the Corrib opposite Spanish Arch.
An IBIS economy hotel went up on the Headford Road directly opposite another new hotel, the Menlo Park.
New hotels also appeared in almost all the fast-spreading suburbs.
Of course, such long standing and well-loved hotels as the Ardilaun on Taylor's Hill still flourished through their traditional high standards and even expanded with new leisure facilities and conference centres.
The continuous increase of tourists to Galway is still keeping all the hotels, new and old, busy.
Well-known Galway estate agent Danno Heaslip thinks the city's hotel business may now have just about filled the market's need for accommodation.
"There was a shortage of hotels, but a lot of fine establishments have opened in the past seven or eight years to meet that shortage.
The hotel market in Galway may have been satisfied."
Perhaps. On the other hand, a new five-star hotel is part of the Wellpark development at Moneenageesha, and there's talk of yet another hotel going up near the new Galway Clinic (modelled on the Blackrock Clinic) on the city's eastern outskirts.
