GALWAY and KILMACDUAGH, DIOCESES OF
City in Ireland. The bishop is titular of G. and K. and perpetual administrator of the diocese of KILFENORA. G. and K. cover an area of 260 sq. km. with 59,742 inhabitants, of whom 59,373 are Catholics with 30 parishes; 12 of these are in the diocese of G., all in the same county except Shrule, which is in the county of Mayo; 10 are in the diocese of K., all in the county of G., and 8 in the diocese of Kilfenora, all in the county of Clare in the province of Cashel.
The parishes are served by 74 diocesan priests and 73 regular clergy; there is one seminary and 11 religious houses (1946), for men and women.
K. had as its first bishop St COLMAN, who founded a monastery there and died in 632; the diocese became a suffragan of Tuam. From 1653 to 1740 K. was governed only by vicars; then the episcopal succession resumed until 1750, when it was united to the small diocese of Kilfenora; the bishop of K. was apostolic administrator of Kilfenora; subsequently the alternation continued.
In the second half of the 6th century St BRANDAN founded the monastery of Annaghdown, whose abbot later became bishop. In its territory is found a fishing village called G., sacked in the 9th century by the Danes and in the 12th-13th. Because of its position and its reformed trade, when in the 13th century the diocese of Annaghdown was united to that of Tuam, the inhabitants of G. were restless until in 1484 they obtained from the archbishop of Tuam to be exempt from his jurisdiction. Pope Innocent VIII granted that their church of St NICHOLAS become collegiate, with a rector assisted by 8 vicars. All were deposed in 1551 and replaced with Protestants; then the Catholics prevailed, until on 26 April 1831 Pope Gregory XVI created the diocese of G. In 1866 the bishop of G. was appointed by Pope Pius IX apostolic administrator of K. and Kilfenora “during the pleasure of the Holy See.” In 1883 Pope Leo XIII permanently united the three dioceses; the bishop is at the same time bishop of G. and K. and apostolic administrator of Kilfenora.