About

Diocese of Clonfert

The Diocese of Clonfert covers almost the whole of East Galway, with one parish (Lusmagh) in County Offaly while the parishes of Taughmaconnell and Creagh and the half-parish of Ballinasloe lie in County Roscommon. This was the ancient territory of the kingdom of Uí Maine (Hy-Many), as it existed when the diocese was formed. In fact, the bishop of the diocese was sometimes referred to as the Bishop of Hy-Many. The major towns in the diocese are Ballinasloe, Loughrea and Portumna.

The bishopric was established in A.D. 550 and the diocese in 1111. The early Irish monastery and school of Clonfert, founded by Saint Brendan, was the dominant ecclesiastical centre in the area and an important centre of learning in the early Irish church. Cummian, an important theological writer, was from there. It was also deeply involved in the eighth-century spiritual reform movement of the Céli Dé.

Saint Brendan’s fame as a seafaring missionary contributed to its pre-eminence in later times and led to its choice as an episcopal see in the twelfth century. Like most dioceses in Ireland, the present Diocese of Clonfert had its origin in the Synod of Rathbreasail in 1110, reaching its final form at the Synod of Kells in 1152 when it was made a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Tuam.

In 1170, the Annals of Clonmacnois record that “there was a great convocation of the clergy of Ireland at Clonfert by commission from the Pope for the reformation of certain abuses of a long time used in Ireland”, which was presided over by Saint Laurence O’Toole as papal legate.

In the early thirteenth century its bishop was one of those appointed by Honorius III to investigate a dispute over the election of the Bishop of Ardfert. Later that century it was provided with John, a bishop of Italian birth — one of the very few occasions when this happened in Ireland.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, bishops introduced the mendicant orders: the Franciscans to Kilconnell, Kinalehin and Meelick, with their 3rd Order to Clonkeenkerril and Kilbocht; the Dominicans to Portumna, with their 3rd Order to Kilcorban; and the Carmelites to Loughrea.

In 1704, the diocese had forty-one parishes but by 1800 these were amalgamated into twenty-four. There followed a period of church building. Churches were erected in Ballymacward and Ballinasloe, the latter designed by McCarthy, a disciple of Pugin. Landlord intransigence prevented the building of a cathedral in Loughrea until 1897 when Bishop Healy laid the foundation stone, which was fortunate because the era of the Celtic Revival and Irish stained glass had begun, with happy results in its interior decoration.

The Sisters of Mercy were brought to Loughrea in 1850 by Bishop Derry and spread to five towns in the diocese, operating primary and secondary schools, industrial schools at Loughrea and Ballinasloe, and a domestic economy school at Portumna. They also staffed the workhouse hospitals in Loughrea, Ballinasloe and Portumna and latterly the county home in Loughrea. The Nuns of Mount Carmel, who were in Loughrea since the seventeenth century, conducted a school there up to 1860 but then became an enclosed order. Due to falling vocations, the convent has recently closed and the remaining nuns have dispersed to other Carmelite convents. In 1945 Bishop Dignan introduced the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood to Ballinasloe, where they built Portiuncula Hospital, which has been enlarged many times since and is now a general hospital under the Western Health Board.

The diocesan seminary, begun at Loughrea by Bishop Derry in the nineteenth century, was succeeded by St Joseph’s College at Cartron, at Esker, at the Pines in Creagh and finally at Garbally Park since 1923. The land was purchased from the Trench family (Earls of Clancarty) who departed from Ireland after an occupancy of about 250 years.

Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora

The Diocese of Galway was established on 26 April 1831, and the parish chapel in Galway city became its pro-cathedral. The diocese of Kilmacduagh was joined with Galway in 1883, and the Bishop of Galway was made the Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora.

It is one of twenty-six Irish dioceses which are distributed among four ecclesiastical provinces: Armagh, Cashel, Dublin, and Tuam. The Tuam province includes Achonry, Clonfert, Elphin, Galway, Killala, and Tuam.

The diocese does not follow county boundaries: it includes some of counties Clare and Mayo, and not all of county Galway is within the Galway diocese.

The Wardenship (1484–1831)

Sometime in the late twelfth century, a diocese known as Annaghdown came into existence in the area surrounding Galway city. In 1324 this diocese was united with Tuam, its metropolitan see. However, the Anglo-Norman families of the city of Galway (the Tribes of Galway) refused to accept direct government from Tuam, and in 1484 the Archbishop of Tuam exempted them from his jurisdiction. Pope Innocent VIII sanctioned this and made the city church of Saint Nicholas a Collegiate Church governed by a warden (who was not a bishop) and eight vicars, who were ‘presented and elected solely by the inhabitants of the town’, i.e. the ‘tribal’ families. This arrangement survived even penal times.

From the early nineteenth century, canvassing, disputes and semi-rioting became a regular feature of the election of each warden. In February 1828 the Irish bishops recommended to Rome that the wardenship be ended and a normal diocesan structure be established.

Diocese of Galway (1831–1883)

Edmund Ffrench, the last Warden of Galway, was made Bishop of Kilmacduagh in 1824 and in 1831 the Bull Sedum Episcopalium was issued by Pope Gregory XVI, erecting the diocese of Galway. On 23 October of that year the first bishop of the diocese, George Joseph Plunkett Browne, was consecrated in Athlone. In 1844 he was transferred to Elphin diocese and was succeeded by Laurence O’Donnell, a native of Oughterard, who was consecrated on 28 October 1845. Laurence O’Donnell died on 23 June 1855 and in March 1857 John McEvilly was consecrated Bishop of Galway in Tuam Cathedral by Archbishop McHale. In 1866 he was appointed Administrator of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora and though appointed co-adjutor to the Archdiocese of Tuam in 1878 he remained Bishop of Galway until Archbishop McHale’s death in 1881.

Diocese of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora (1152–1883)

The Diocese of Kilfenora and the Diocese of Kilmacduagh were both erected and their territories defined by the Synod of Kells in 1152. In 1751 the two dioceses were united but because Kilfenora was in the ecclesiastical province of Cashel and Kilmacduagh in the province of Tuam, the Bishop of Kilmacduagh was made the Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora, and it was decreed that the next person holding episcopal jurisdiction in Kilmacduagh-Kilfenora would be Bishop of Kilfenora and Apostolic Administrator of Kilmacduagh. This system of alternation continued down to the last bishop, Patrick Fallon, who resigned in 1866.

Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh & Kilfenora (1883–present)

In 1866 the Bishop of Galway, John McEvilly, was made administrator of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora. In 1883, Thomas Carr was appointed bishop, the first to be appointed with the title of Bishop of Galway & Kilmacduagh and Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora.