Galway Hookers are a distinctive form of native Irish boat, and Carraroe hosts an annual regatta of these vessels.

Every year at the festival of Cruinniú na mBád, a flotilla of traditional Connemara boats race across Galway Bay from Carraroe to Kinvara.

[citation needed] Irish (specifically the Connacht dialect) is the main spoken language of Carraroe, the settlement being the most populous Irish-speaking village in the Connemara Gaeltacht.

Of these, Carraroe area recorded the third-largest proportion of daily Irish speakers in Ireland in the 2022 census, at 90 percent.

[citation needed] Áras Mháirtín Uí Chadhain (Máirtín Ó Cadhain House) is one of the Gaeltacht centres of Oifig na Gaeilge Labhartha (the Department of Spoken Irish) of the National University of Ireland, Galway.

[7] The centre is named in honour of Máirtín Ó Cadhain, author of Cré na Cille ('Graveyard Clay').

[10] The village is mentioned in the lyrics of the Waterboys' 1993 hit "Glastonbury Song", which refers to several Irish and British sites associated with ancient Celtic ritual:[citation needed] The town gives its name to the traditional tune "Carraroe Jig".