About Us
The history of The g Hotel & Spa
The magnificent g Hotel & Spa opened to great fanfare in November 2005. Situated on the banks of Lough Atalia and just five minutes from the centre of one of Europe’s most vibrant and popular cities, to this day it remains the only luxurious, 5-star experience in this iconic city.
While any major European city can have a 5-star hotel, Galway deserved something truly unique and utterly memorable. To help us achieve our vision, we called on one of the city’s most famous sons. With world-famous milliner to the stars Philip Treacy as our esteemed design director, we set about creating something very special.
Philip Treacy, a celebrity milliner to royalty and Hollywood stars, such as Victoria Beckham, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna and Sarah Jessica Parker to Princess Kate Middleton, he cleverly blended his unique brand of flamboyancy and haute couture with his childhood memories of living near the sea in Galway. It’s a magical space where fashion and interiors collide.
Treacy wanted to ensure that from the moment you stepped inside the most luxurious hotel in Galway, you knew you were somewhere different to the norm. A native of a tiny village outside Galway city, he used the picturesque seascape as his main inspiration for achieving this. His dark and intimate reception area sets the tone, with its large black glass walls acting as a frame for a tank of Connemara-bred seahorses. Next to it lies our bespoke concierge wall. Covered in white Venetian plaster and reminiscent of a seashell, it’s a hint of the surprises you can expect throughout the duration of your stay.
One of the many jaw-dropping features in our Grand Salon is the incredible mirrored lighting display. Created in collaboration with infamous lighting designer Tom Dixon, these 200 individual twinkling lights are designed to represent a burst of water bubbles. Behind it, sits a huge shimmering silver wall tile feature, reminiscent of the patterns seen in sand left by ripples of the water.
Treacy’s quirky creative continues through to our famous Pink Room. Here, white coral-framed mirrors sit on pink panelled walls, looking down on monochrome geometric rugs. More so than anywhere else in our wonderful hotel, this is the place that gets the tongues wagging and the champagne flowing.
Treacy’s iconic creativity does not stop at your bedroom door, far from it. Each of our 101 glorious guestrooms have been given the Philip Treacy touch. At the door, you’re immediately greeted by sea wave door handles. Inside, oversized shell cushions and animal print, continue the quirky theme. To top of the unique features in this colourful destination Hotel, is our fabulous Penthouse Suite located on the top floor of the g Hotel and overlooking Lough Atalia on the Wild Atlantic Way.
The Penthouse Suite is named after the iconic 1990’s supermodel Linda Evangelista, one of the world’s most accomplished and influential models of all time. When Treacy designed the g, Linda gifted her bed to him, as a gift in recognition of his first creative masterpiece in the form of a building’s interior. This very supermodels bed is thee bed, now residing in our Linda Evangelista Penthouse Suite. If ever you want to say you’ve slept in a supermodel’s bed the g is the place you can lame claim to that fame!
However, it is not just the look of The g Hotel & Spa that has set us apart since we opened, it’s also the level of service and the quality of the offering that makes us famous. GEO is an AA Rosette-winning restaurant experience that celebrates the finest locally-sourced food, delivered by an exceptional team of enthusiastic service staff. The incredible ESPA at the g is the only 5-star spa in Galway and a haven for those looking to relax, unwind and treat themselves to a unique and memorable experience.
So whatever your reason for visiting us, we hope you enjoy a little self-indulgence and a lot of the 5-star service we’ve become famous for since that first day back in 2005.
The g Team