The network of streets and squares of the old town responds to the primitive medieval planimetry. On one side was the fenced town (it was at least since the 14th century) which was accessed through various gates and gates. Only remains of that wall remain around the church of Santiago. On the other, the seaside neighborhood, outside the walls and developed from the small tidal port and the Jacobean route. Even today in the local toponymy there are testimonies of that past linked to the sea: Rúa das Regateiras, Cabo dos Fumeiros, Campo das Redes, Ribeira… It extended from “Porta da Vila” to Santa Mariña. It reached the top of the Esfarrapada, where there was a chapel dedicated to the Holy Spirit. It went down to the riverside area and from there to the shipyard, today Plaza de la Constitución. The fishermen’s houses, with their gabled roofs, their whitewashed walls and the fishing tools at the door, divided the space between hórreos to store the crops, and some noble houses such as that of the Sotomayors in Cabo dos Fumeiros. John O’Dogherty, an Irish nobleman considered one of the heroes of the War of Independence, lived and died in the 19th century on Rúa Loureiro. In times the Council House was in this neighborhood.
