01. St Mary’s Cathedral

The Cathedral was founded in 1127 A.D. by King Turlough O’Connor and was for over five hundred years the most important ecclesiastic seat in Connacht. Three different cathedrals were built in the twelfth, fourteenth and nineteenth century. The present cathedral was built, by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and completed in 1878, on the original site and features the original Hiberno-Romanesque chancel arch. The arch consists of six concentric carved arches without a key stone but supported by inward leaning columns. The second cathedral’s choir has become the Synod Hall at the eastern end of the present structure.[1]

[1] J.A. Claffey, A brief history of Tuam: a town of two cathedrals, (Galway, 2006), p. 43.