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Photo: TuamRCCathedral.jpg: JohnArmagh derivative work: Rabanus Flavus, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Under Queen Elizabeth I, the Roman Catholics were ejected from St Mary's and their other places of worship, and forbidden to assemble for mass or build new churches. Only with the 19th-century overturn of the Penal Laws could they build this, their own cathedral, completed in 1837 in Decorated Gothic style.
The Cathedral Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Tuam, commonly called Tuam Cathedral, is the cathedral for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tuam in Ireland. The geographic remit of the Archdiocese includes half of County Galway, half of County Mayo and part of County Roscommon. Prior to the English Reformation, the diocesan cathedral was St Mary's, which was constructed in the 14th century, on the site of an earlier building. Upon the appointment of William Mullaly by Queen Elizabeth I of England as Archbishop of Tuam for the Established church, the Roman Catholic clergy were dispossessed of the cathedral. Almost three centuries were to elapse before a relaxation of the Penal Laws permitted the building of a replacement – the current edifice.
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This Church of Ireland (Protestant) cathedral is mostly from the 1870s, but the Romanesque chancel arch is from the short-lived 12th-century first cathedral, while the Synod Hall, Library and Registry are from the 14th-century second cathedral. The stalls of the Synod Hall are believed to come from a Piedmont monastery. The 20th-century stain glass windows are very fine. The High Cross of Tuam was erected here on completion of the first cathedral. It was broken up when that cathedral fell, but re-assembled for display in Dublin in 1852. The Roman Catholic and C-of-I cathedrals then feuded over where the restored cross should be returned to. As a compromise it was set up midway in the town square, where it endured weather, pollution and thundering trucks for a century, before being cleaned and returned to St Mary's.