Galway County Council: Transforming public web services with LocalGov Drupal

Launched in October 2025 across galway.ie and gaillimh.ie, this completely redesigned bilingual platform was built to lower the technical friction between citizens and their local authority. By moving to LocalGov Drupal, Galway County Council has turned a traditional information silo into a highly transactional, fast and accessible asset.

The project has already made a significant impact on the public sector digital landscape, securing spots as a finalist in both the Local Government and Digital Communication, Public Engagement and Service Update categories at the Ireland eGovernment Awards 2026.

The challenge: putting the user first in two languages

Local authorities serve incredibly diverse demographics, from residents tracking a planning application to business owners looking for local enterprise support. Catering to all of them without creating a dense, bureaucratic maze is a massive user experience challenge.

For Galway County Council, this challenge had an extra layer of vital complexity: the site needed to offer a seamless, 100 per cent bilingual experience that respected the region's deep connection to the Irish language. 

The existing platform was holding back communication, suffering from legacy navigation and struggling to surface dynamic updates like severe weather alerts quickly enough.

Our approach: accessibility, community and the power of shared code

We worked closely with the council team to rebuild their entire digital presence from the ground up, keeping mobile-first layouts and plain language at the absolute centre of our strategy.

Liam Conneally, Chief Executive of Galway County Council, said, “We have incorporated the views of elected members and the public, along with best practices in local government web service delivery, when redesigning the site. This ensures that the most up-to-date information about our services is presented in a modern, user-friendly interface with improved navigation and accessibility features.”

Built on LocalGov Drupal

Rather than building an expensive proprietary system from scratch, the new site leverages LocalGov Drupal – the open-source platform built on Drupal for councils by councils. 

Built on a collaborative "build-once, share-many" philosophy, it allowed Galway to inherit a highly mature, stable and accessible architecture on day one. This freed up the project team to focus entirely on content design and tailored service pathways.

Radical content clarity

The council rewrote its entire content repository in plain English and Irish. Key services – including Planning, Housing, Environment, Libraries, Climate Action, Community and Business – were structured around the Local Government Service Catalogue. This means information is grouped by what the user actually needs, rather than how the council is organised internally.

Real-time community integrations

To bridge the gap between static information and active community engagement, we integrated the MapAlerter service directly into the system. Users can now easily sign up for location-based, mobile-friendly notifications covering planning applications, road works and community notices.

“Local government platforms are the ultimate frontline of civic digital life,” says Stella Power, Managing Director at Annertech. “The massive success of the Galway County Council platform shows what can happen when you marry open-source collaborative code with a relentless focus on the end user. By making 100 per cent Irish-language content a core feature rather than a secondary add-on, we have helped build a highly accessible space that truly reflects its community.”

The results: faster, clearer and universally accessible

The new platform has completely modernised how the council connects with the public, delivering a fast, responsive mobile experience that automatically scales to any device.

Achieving true digital accessibility should never come at the cost of speed, and Galway County Council’s new platform proves you can have the best of both worlds. Built from the ground up to exceed public sector compliance standards, the site achieved a top-tier GTmetrix Grade A alongside a flawless 100% Google Lighthouse score for both accessibility and performance. 

By stripping away bloated code and streamlining asset delivery, we ensured that whether a citizen is accessing critical council services on a rural 3G connection or browsing from a desktop in the city centre, pages load instantaneously. It is lightning-fast, beautifully responsive and engineered so that absolutely no user is left behind.

The project stands as a textbook example of how local authorities can use open-source technology to deliver massive value to taxpayers, slash development timelines and build highly accessible, modern public services.

The transformation of galway.ie and gaillimh.ie demonstrates what is possible when local authorities move away from outdated legacy systems and embrace the power of open-source collaboration. 

By pairing the robust flexibility of LocalGov Drupal with a user-first mindset and absolute language parity, Galway County Council now boasts a future-proof digital hub that serves every member of its community with ease. 

The double nomination at the Ireland eGovernment Awards 2026 is fantastic national recognition, but the real win lies in the daily experience of Galway’s citizens: a fast, stress-free and genuinely accessible platform that simply works.