Search Results for 'George Joseph Plunkett Browne'

RONAN FAGAN

It is a sign of the passage of time that we now have a bishop of Galway who is younger than the Cathedral in which he serves. At his installation Mass on Sunday afternoon, which was delayed by a quarter hour because of traffic congestion on what was an unusually busy Bank Holiday Sunday in the city, he spoke of the great honour it is to be appointed to work in the Cathedral which he said has “lived up to Bishop Browne’s dream that it would be “solid, dignified and worthy of Galway.”

In the late 12th century, the Diocese of Annaghdown came into existence in the area surrounding the city of Galway. In 1324 it was united with Tuam, but the Anglo-Norman families refused to accept direction from Tuam. In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII made St Nicholas’ Church a Collegiate Church governed by a warden (not a bishop) and eight vicars. Edmund ffrench, the last warden, was made Bishop of Kilmacduagh in 1824. On April 27, 1831, the Bull ‘Sedium Episcopalaism’ was issued by Pope Gregory XVI erecting the Diocese of Galway. On October 23, 1831, the first Bishop of the Diocese, George Joseph Plunkett Browne, was consecrated, and in 1844 he was succeeded by Laurence O’Donnell. John McEvilly became Bishop in 1857.