CLONFERT, DIOCESE of. - In Eire (Ireland), suffragan of Tuam. The name derives from the Gaelic Cluain Fearta Breanaina (= meadow of Brandan’s grass). The origins of the diocese go back to about 550, when St. Brendano, known as the Navigator, founded a monastery and a school, whose renown may
be gauged from the fact that its pupils numbered 3,000. Brendano was not a bishop, but had as his assistant the bishop St. Moinenn, who succeeded him later. The legend of St. Brendano’s seven-year voyage in search of a promised land was widely known in medieval Europe. In Giovanni, who was bishop around the years 1266-96, there is the rare example of an Italian prelate occupying an Irish see. He was later transferred to Italy, to Benevento.
The old cathedral of C., a fine example of Irish Romanesque, was occupied during the Reformation by the Protestants, who still retain II.
In the diocese there are 24 parishes, 48 churches, 56 diocesan priests and 27 regulars, Discalced Carmelites and Redemptorists, 8 houses of nuns, and a seminary. Catholics number 38,434 out of 38,869 inhabitants (1948).