AS WE PUSH our kayaks past reeds into Lough Corrib, on the fringes of Galway, the mist is lifting on Ireland’s largest lake. Ducks and swans are gliding sleepily along the waterway. I can see why Yeats called this city on Ireland’s west coast the “Venice of the West.”

“Galway was a small fishing village that grew up around the bay and coastal loughs and rivers,” my guide, Jim Morrisey, a local, tells me when we pause for a mug of hot blackcurrant cordial. Since 1845, it’s also been a university city, and as we paddle back...