Galway Cathedral celebrates 50 years

Galway Cathedral was officially opened and blessed 50 years ago this month.

But the story behind the iconic building goes much further back, to the 1870’s in fact when fundraising first started.

In our exclusive free supplement with this week’s Tribunes local historian Peadar O’Dowd outlines the history of the cathedral and its construction.

Former Mayor Billy Cameron recalls his time as a member of the first choir and Fr Diarmuid Hogan gives a clerical perspective to ‘Taj Micheal’

Photos from the time of the construction and the opening 50 years ago this Sunday also feature in this souvenir supplement.

Below is an extract from Diarmuid Hogan’s reflection

The Cathedral is fifty – the imposing limestone building, which dominates the Galway skyline built when Dr. Michael Browne was bishop and still known affectionately as the Taj Micheál.

Sitting majestically at the west end of the Salmon Weir Bridge, the great church with the green dome has, over the past five decades, become a beloved and immediately recognizable icon of the city.

The largest of all Irish cathedrals is not only a place of religious ritual, though the passing of each day, week and year is marked by solemn liturgies and services, it is also a destination for visitors, a meeting place for locals, a transport hub, a photo opportunity, a place to park and an oasis of quiet, calm, prayer and solitude in the middle of a very busy, very fast moving, very loud cityscape. There is something powerfully emotive and cathartic in the realization that this great new hymn-filled cathedral stands on the site of much sadness, pain, hurt, tears and loss – the old city jail. The prison buildings have been demolished but not the memories. The jailers’ key is still kept safely by parish staff in respectful memory of those darker times.

The place of execution is also cordoned carefully in the car-park as a grim reminder and as a place where a prayer should be whispered by passers-by.

Pride is one of the deadly sins so maybe it is with thankfulness rather than pride that today at the very centre of the most western city in Europe, the darkness and despair of the prison cell and the hangman’s noose has been transformed into to light-filled praise, celebration, hope and prayer of a great modern cathedral.

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