High Mass for Galway Cathedral 50th Anniversary

This afternoon, members and friends of the Catholic Heritage Association of Ireland gathered for an historic High Mass in the Gregorian Rite to mark the 50th Anniversary of the dedication of Galway Cathedral.  The Mass was offered for the benefactors of the Catholic Heritage Association of Ireland.

Given the date, months after the Instruction 'Inter Ocumenici' (26th September, 1964), and the Decree of the Congregation of Rites (27th January, 1965) issuing the 'interim' Missal, it is likely that today's Mass was the very first time that Mass was celebrated using the Missal of 1962 in Galway Cathedral.

Priests from several Dioceses and servers from several branches of the Catholic Heritage Association around Ireland were very ably accompanied by the Lassus Scholars of the Dublin Choral Foundation for the Mass of the Ember Saturday in September.

On the previous day, a very successful training day for Priests on the celebration of Mass in the Gregorian Rite was organised by the Catholic Heritage Association, again in Galway Cathedral, with the support of the Archdiocese of Tuam and the Diocese of Galway, and a further series of training days are planned for the Western Dioceses in the coming months.

Galway Cathedral is the eighth Cathedral in which the Catholic Heritage Association has organised a pilgrimage with Mass in the Gregorian Rite in the past year.  Two further pilgrimages to Cathedrals, including Traditional Latin Masses are scheduled for October.  The Catholic Heritage Association of Ireland now has branches based in half of Ireland's 26 Dioceses.

The Diocese of Galway is the youngest Diocese in Ireland.  While most of our native Dioceses date from the Synods of Ráth Breasail (1111) or Kells (1152), the Diocese of Galway didn't come into being until much later.  In 1485, Pope Innocent VIII created the Wardenship of Galway, a quasi-diocesan structure removed from the Ordinary jurisdiction of the Archbishops of Tuam.  Only in 1831 did it become a Diocese, later to be joined with Kilfenora and perpetual Apostolic Administration of Kilmacduagh (1883).

The Diocese is young in another sense.  The population of the Diocese has doubled since 1950, 91% of them being Catholic.  Thanks to the presence of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, 17% of the population are students and 30% are aged between 15 and 24 years.

The youngest Diocese in the Country also has the youngest Cathedral.  The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and Saint Nicholas was built upon the site of Galway gaol, which was, as Dr. Browne, the then Bishop of Galway wrote: "...Now that the site has become available, I submit to you there could be no more noble or more fitting use than to erect on it a Cathedral in thanksgiving to God, Who sustained our people in their days of trial. A Cathedral replacing a jail is the most perfect symbol of the triumph of a people who were proscribed for being Irish and Catholic. A noble Cathedral on this site would be also a fine addition to the beauty and dignity of this City of Galway, and an object of pride to all in the country..."

The Cathedral is built upon Nun's Island in the River Corrib, which was granted by the City Council of Galway on 10th July, 1649, to the Poor Clare Nuns, whose present Convent on the site has been in continuous occupation since 1825.

Construction of the Cathedral began in 1958 in an eclectic style that was a fusion of baroque, gothic and American missionary styles.  It was the last Catholic Cathedral to be built in Ireland - although a few Dioceses still retain their Pro-Cathedrals in expectation - and the last Cathedral in Europe to be built of stone.  The Cathedral was dedicated on 15th August, 1965.  Richard, Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, was the Papal Legate.

The Diocese also has a regular Gregorian Rite Mass offered every Sunday at 2.30 p.m. in the Dominican Church, the Claddagh, by Canons of the Institute of Christ the King.

Pilgrimage to Galway Cathedral

Saint Nicholas: the Irish Connection

Below is a post which first appeared on my former blog Under the Oak in 2009. I have now closed this site but continue to blog about the Irish saints at my new blog Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniae. 

December 6 is the commemoration of an eastern saint who is truly loved the world over - Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra. A Russian lady once told me that her people love Saint Nicholas so much that they are apt to forget he isn't actually Russian himself. This set me wondering if there might be an Irish dimension to the veneration of the great bishop of Myra. I found that there is, but that it owes more to the Normans and the Crusades than to the earlier native church. In his 12th-century Martyrology, Marianus O'Gorman begins the list of saints commemorated today with 'Nicolaus a holy man'. The Cathedral of Galway, constructed in 1320, was dedicated to Saint Nicholas in his capacity as a protector of seafarers. He was seen as an appropriate patron for a rising commercial city and indeed, the great bishop of Myra is the diocesan patron of Galway and is honoured as such in the Litany of Irish Saints. But Ireland makes an even more extraordinary claim in relation to Saint Nicholas - it claims to be the place where he is buried! Below is an article from an Irish newspaper which summarizes the story:

Santa's Irish resting place

CURIOSITIES: SANTA CLAUS may well be buried in a little country graveyard in south Kilkenny. Incredible as this might seem there is evidence to substantiate the possibility that Saint Nicholas of Myra, the original Santa Claus, is buried just west of Jerpoint Abbey, one of the finest Cistercian ruins in Ireland, in Co Kilkenny. The unmarked grave is in the ruined church at Newtown-Jerpoint (two kilometres outside Thomastown) once the site of a thriving Norman town that was abandoned in the 17th century probably due to plague, writes Gerry Moran.

St Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra in Turkey, died in AD 342 and was buried there. How his remains, or a portion of them, arrived in south Kilkenny has much to do with the Norman crusaders.

Jerpoint Abbey was founded around 1158 by Donnchadh Mac Giolla Phádraig, King of Ossory. In 1180, it was taken over by the Cistercian order. In 1200, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, of Kilkenny Castle, decided to build a new town just across the river from Jerpoint Abbey. He called the town Nova Villa Juxta Geripons meaning "The New Town Across from Jerpoint". That same year the Church of St Nicholas of Myra was built in the town and, according to the historian Canon Carrigan, the tomb was laid that same year also.

When Strongbow invaded Ireland in 1169, his most trusted lieutenant was Sir Humphrey De Fraine. When the church of Newtown-Jerpoint was built and dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra in 1200, the most powerful Anglo-Norman baron in south Kilkenny was Nicholas De Fraine, son of Sir Humphrey.

The story goes that the Norman Knights of Jerpoint, the crusading De Fraines (or De Freynes) when forced to evacuate the Holy Land exhumed the remains of St Nicholas of Myra and brought them to Normandy from where they eventually found their way to Jerpoint. The remains were laid to rest beneath a slab, now broken across the centre, depicting a monk in habit and cowl. The grave, whether it be that of the real Santa Claus or not, can still be seen to this day. [see photograph above]

I am cynical about these old stories that supposedly go back into the mists of time, often the truth is that they cannot be traced back beyond the beginnings of the Victorian tourist era. I would be interested to know how far back this one about Saint Nicholas can really be charted in the historical record, if this is a genuine medieval tradition, one would expect to find some mention of it somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it cannot be traced back any further than the 19th century. I wouldn't be surprised either if it receives a new lease of life in our own time when yarns about secret lore, knights, crusaders and relics have topped the bestseller lists.