¹ R.T.É. Six One News, 18 Aug. 2018; Connacht Tribune, 18 Aug. 2018; Kelleher, Margaret, The Maamtrasna murders: language, life and death in nineteenth-century Ireland (Dublin, 2018), p. 193Google Scholar.

² Niamh Howlin, Report on the trial of Myles Joyce, November 1882 (July 2017) (http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Report_by_Dr_Niamh_Howlin_Maamtrasna_Murders.pdf/Files/Report_by_Dr_Niamh_Howlin_Maamtrasna_Murders.pdf) (25 June 2020); Irish Times, 4, 7 Apr. 2018; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 215–16, 227–8.

³ Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. xxi; Cuirreáin, Seán Ó, Éagóir: Maolra Seoighe agus dúnmharuithe Mhám Trasna (Baile Átha Cliath, 2016), pp 276–82Google Scholar.

⁴ Waldron, Jarlath, Maamtrasna: the murders and the mystery (Dublin, 1992)Google Scholar. See also Murphy, James H., Ireland's czar: Gladstonian government and the lord lieutenancies of the Red Earl Spencer, 1868–86 (Dublin, 2014), pp 230–37Google Scholar; Joyce, Patrick, The state of freedom: a history of the British state since 1800 (Cambridge, 2013), pp 303–07CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ó Cuirreáin, Éagóir; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. 217.

⁵ Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 133–54, 193–213; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 134–74.

⁶ Cherry, Deborah, ‘The afterlives of monuments’ in South Asian Studies, xxix, no. 1 (Mar. 2013), pp 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ See also James S. Donnelly, Jr., ‘Bishop Michael Browne of Galway (1937–76) and the regulation of public morality’ in New Hibernia Review, xvii, no. 1 (spring 2013), pp 16–39; Gerard Madden, ‘Bishop Michael Browne of Galway and anti-Communism’ in Saothar, xxxix (2014), pp 21–31; Richard J. Butler, ‘Catholic power and the Irish city: modernity, religion, and planning in Galway, 1944–49’ in Journal of British Studies, lix, no. 3 (July 2020), pp 521–54.

⁸ ‘An act for building a new gaol for the county of Galway’, 42 Geo. III, c. xviii; James Hardiman, The history of the town and county of the town of Galway (Dublin, 1820), pp 300-05; James Mitchell, ‘The prisons of Galway: background to the inspector general's reports, 1796–1818’ in Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, xlix (1997), pp 1–21; Richard J. Butler, Building the Irish courthouse and prison: a political history, 1750–1850 (Cork, 2020). The site comprised two jails – a county jail built 1804–10 and a smaller adjacent town gaol built 1807–10; they were merged around 1866 – see: Samuel Ussher Roberts, correspondence and drawings relating to work at Galway county gaol, 1858–66 (Galway County Archives (G.C.A.), GS–11–02).

⁹ Hardiman, History, p. 301.

¹⁰ Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 137–9; W. E. Vaughan, Murder trials in Ireland, 1836–1914 (Dublin, 2009), p. 328.

¹¹ Galway Express, 19 Aug. 1882; Freeman's Journal, 21 Aug. 1882.

¹² Howlin, Report on the trial of Myles Joyce, pp 31–2. Similar conclusions are reached in Noel McAree, Murderous justice: a study in depth of the infamous Connemara murders (Limerick, 1990), pp 91–117.

¹³ For the inquest held in the jail soon afterwards, see N.A.I., C.S.O.R.P. 1883/189, and Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 142-7. I am grateful to Margaret Kelleher for this reference.

¹⁴ Murphy, Ireland's czar, pp 230–37; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp xv–xvii, 134–48.

¹⁵ Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp xviii, xxi; Vaughan, Murder trials in Ireland, pp 143, 289–90, 294, 353.

¹⁶ Freida Kelly, A history of Kilmainham gaol: the dismal house of little ease (Cork, 1988); Pat Cooke, A history of Kilmainham gaol, 1796–1924 (Dublin, 1995); idem, ‘Kilmainham gaol: confronting change’ in Irish Arts Review, xxiii (2002), pp 42–5; Eric Zuelow, ‘Enshrining Ireland's nationalist history inside prison walls: the restoration of Kilmainham jail’ in Éire–Ireland, xxxix, nos 3–4 (fall/winter 2004), pp 180–201; Mark McCarthy, Ireland's 1916 Rising: explorations of history-making, commemoration & heritage in modern times (Farnham, 2012), pp 218–39, 305–28; Niamh O'Sullivan, Every dark hour: a history of Kilmainham jail (Dublin, 2007); Rory O'Dwyer, The Bastille of Ireland: Kilmainham gaol, from ruin to restoration (Dublin, 2010).

¹⁷ Siobhán Ryan, ‘Sligo gaol’, National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (N.I.A.H.) ‘Building of the month’, Oct. 2018 (http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/Surveys/Buildings/BuildingoftheMonth/Archive/Name,3439,en.html) (25 June 2020); Gillian O'Brien, ‘Doing time: dark tourism in Ireland’, R.T.É. Brainstorm, 25 July 2018 (https://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2017/1031/916396-doing-time-dark-tourism-in-ireland) (25 June 2020); Philip R. Stone, ‘A dark tourism spectrum: towards a typology of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions’ in Tourism: An Interdisciplinary International Journal, liv, no. 2 (2006), pp 145–60.

¹⁸ Yvonne Whelan, ‘The construction and destruction of a colonial landscape: monuments to British monarchs in Dublin before and after independence’ in Journal of Historical Geography, xxviii, no. 4 (Oct. 2002), pp 508–33; eadem, Reinventing modern Dublin: streetscape, iconography and the politics of identity (Dublin, 2003); Robert Bevan, The destruction of memory (London, 2006), p. 70; Terence Dooley, The decline of the big house in Ireland: a study of Irish landed families, 1860–1960 (Dublin, 2001); idem, ‘The fate of country houses in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ in Andrew Carpenter, Rolf Loeber, Hugh Campbell, Livia Hurley, and Ellen Rowley (eds), Art and architecture of Ireland, iv: architecture, 1600–2000 (Dublin, 2014), pp 384–7.

¹⁹ Sara McDowell, ‘Negotiating places of pain in post-conflict Northern Ireland: debating the future of the Maze/Long Kesh’ in William Logan and Keir Reeves (eds), Places of pain and shame: dealing with ‘difficult heritage’ (Abingdon, 2009), pp 215–30. For ‘difficult’ heritage in Belfast, see Peter Shirlow, ‘Belfast: the “post-conflict” city’ in Space and Polity, x, no. 2 (Aug. 2006), pp 99–107; Johnny Byrne and Cathy Gormley-Heenan, ‘Beyond the walls: dismantling Belfast's conflict architecture’ in City, xviii, no. 4 (2014), pp 447–54. The site of Bloody Sunday in the Bogside in Derry is yet one more example.

²⁰ Guy Beiner, Remembering the year of the French: Irish folk history and social memory (Madison, WI, 2006); Guy Beiner, ‘Between trauma and triumphalism: the Easter Rising, the Somme, and the crux of deep memory in modern Ireland’ in Journal of British Studies, xlvi, no. 2 (Apr. 2007), pp 366–89; idem, Forgetful remembrance: social forgetting and vernacular historiography of a rebellion in Ulster (Oxford, 2018); idem, ‘A short history of Irish memory in the long twentieth century’ in Thomas Bartlett (ed.), The Cambridge history of Ireland, iv: 1880 to the present (Cambridge, 2018), pp 708–25.

²¹ Beiner, ‘Between trauma and triumphalism’, pp 375–9.

²² Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 151–74.

²³ Beiner, Remembering the year of the French, pp 156–67, 208–75; idem, ‘Disremembering 1798? An archaeology of social forgetting and remembrance in Ulster’ in History and Memory, xxv, no. 1 (spring/summer 2013), pp 16–21.

²⁴ Pierre Nora, ‘Between memory and history: les lieux de mémoire’ in Representations, no. 26 (spring 1989), pp 7–24; M. Christine Boyer, The city of collective memory: its historical imagery and architectural entertainments (Cambridge, MA, 2001), pp 322, 343. Other studies that have influenced this piece are: Dolores Hayden, The power of place: urban landscape as public history (London, 1995); Brian Graham, In search of Ireland: a cultural geography (London, 1997); Katharina Schramm, ‘Landscapes of violence: memory and sacred space’ in History and Memory, xxiii, no. 1 (spring/summer 2011), pp 5–22; Gary A. Boyd and David Linehan (eds), Ordnance: war + architecture & space (Farnham, 2013); Quentin Stevens, ‘Cities and memory: a history of the role of memorials in urban design from the Renaissance to Canberra’ in Planning Perspectives, xxxv, no. 3 (2020), pp 401–31.

²⁵ Carsten Paluden-Müller, ‘When memory takes place’ in Marie Louise Stig-Sørensen and Dacia Viejo-Rose (eds), War and cultural heritage: biographies of place (Cambridge, 2015), pp 261–7.

²⁶ Simon Gunn, ‘The spatial turn: changing histories of space and place’ in Simon Gunn and Robert J. Morris (eds), Identities in space: contested terrains in the western city since 1850 (Aldershot, 2001), p. 3; Leif Jerram, ‘Space: a useless category for historical analysis?’ in History and Theory, lii, no. 3 (Oct. 2013), pp 400–19.

²⁷ Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney, ‘Introduction: cultural memory and its dynamics’ in Astrid Erll and Ann Rigney (eds), Meditation, remeditation and the dynamics of cultural memory (Berlin, 2012), p. 2.

²⁸ Sharon MacDonald, Difficult heritage: negotiating the Nazi past in Nuremberg and beyond (Abingdon, 2009), pp 2–5, 52–79; Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, ‘Architecture and the memory of Nazism in postwar Munich’ in German Politics & Society, xvi, no. 4 (winter 1998), pp 143–8; Inge Manka, ‘A (trans) national site of remembrance: the former Nazi Party rally grounds in Nuremberg’ in German Politics & Society, xxvi, no. 4 (winter 2008), pp 113–33.

²⁹ Chapters on former prisons in William Logan and Keir Reeves (eds), Places of pain and shame: dealing with “difficult heritage” (Abingdon, 2009), pp 163–230.

³⁰ Jhennifer A. Amundson, ‘Demolition’ in R. Stephen Sennott (ed.), Encyclopedia of 20th-century architecture (3 vols, London, 2004), i, 668.

³¹ Joan Beaumont, ‘Contested trans-national heritage: the demolition of Changi Prison, Singapore’ in International Journal of Heritage Studies, xv, no. 4 (2009), pp 300, 306. Other studies that have been influential here are: Jean Baudrillard, ‘Requiem for the Twin Towers’ in idem, The spirit of terrorism and other essays, trans. Chris Turner (London, 2003), pp 35–48; Adam Sharr and Stephen Thornton, Demolishing Whitehall: Leslie Martin, Harold Wilson and the architecture of White Heat (Farnham, 2013), pp 35–62.

³² Daniela Sandler, Counterpreservation: architectural decay in Berlin since 1989 (London, 2016), pp 197–230; Andreas Schönle, ‘Ruins and history: observations on Russian approaches to destruction and decay’ Slavic Review, lxv, no. 4 (winter 2006), pp 649–69; Andrew Herscher, ‘In ruins: architecture, memory, countermemory’ in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, lxxiii, no. 4 (Dec. 2014), pp 464–9.

³³ Susana Draper, Afterlives of confinement: spatial transitions in postdictatorship Latin America (Pittsburgh, PA, 2012); and the special issue on the afterlives of monuments in south Asia in South Asian Studies, xxix, no. 1 (Mar. 2013), pp 1–167, including Cherry, ‘The afterlives of monuments’, pp 1–14.

³⁴ Henry Lefebvre, The production of space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, 1991), p. 33.

³⁵ Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 52; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 61, 65–6.

³⁶ Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 108–23; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 117–28.

³⁷ Freeman's Journal, 27 Nov. 1882; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. 134.

³⁸ Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 134.

³⁹ Evening Telegraph, 15 Dec. 1882; Galway Express, 16 Dec. 1882; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 137–42. The journalists included Andrew Dunlop and Frederick J. Higginbottom, both of whom published autobiographical accounts of the hangings afterwards. The private nature of the events contrasts with the vivid description of a public hanging at Galway jail in the 1830s. See: anon., The sportsman in Ireland, with his summer route through the highlands of Scotland, by a cosmopolite (2 vols, London, 1840), ii, 24–6. See also Breandán Mac Suibhne, The end of outrage: post-Famine adjustment in rural Ireland (Oxford 2017), pp 56–7.

⁴⁰ Freeman's Journal, 11 Jan. 1883.

⁴¹ Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 45 (illus.), 149–54.

⁴² Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 168–70 and plate xiii; Margaret Kelleher, ‘“Tá mé ag imeacht”: the execution of Myles Joyce and its afterlives’ in Fionnuala Dillane, Naomi McAreavey and Emilie Pine (eds), The body in pain in Irish literature and culture (New York, 2016), pp 110–12.

⁴³ Anon., Full report on the appearance of the ghost of Myles Joyce in Galway jail (Dublin, 1883), p. 1. This text is taken almost entirely from Freeman's Journal, 11 Jan. 1883.

⁴⁴ Illustrated Police News, 27 Jan. 1883; United Ireland, 16 Aug. 1884; Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 213 (illus.); Kelleher, “Tá mé ag imeacht”, p. 112; eadem, Maamtrasna, pp 168–70.

⁴⁵ Timothy Harrington, The Maamtrasna massacre: impeachment of the trials (Dublin, 1884), pp v–vi; Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 193–213; Murphy, Ireland's czar, pp 231–7ff; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 151–74.

⁴⁶ James Mitchell, ‘The imprisonment of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in Galway: cause and consequence’ in Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, xlvi (1994), pp 68–72, 78–9, 85.

⁴⁷ Ibid., pp 73–83, 90–5.

⁴⁸ Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, In vinculis (London, 1889), p. 15; idem, The Land War in Ireland (London, 1912), pp 368–97; Mitchell, ‘The imprisonment of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’, pp 89–90, 99–100, 103, 107–08; idem, ‘Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: a prisoner in Galway Gaol, 1888’ in The Mantle, viii, nos 3–4 (autumn/winter 1965), pp 88–97; Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 52. Blunt appears not to have commented on the Maamtrasna incident.

⁴⁹ Plaque on O'Brien's Bridge, Galway; Joseph V. O'Brien, William O'Brien and the course of Irish politics, 1881–1918 (London, 1976), pp 70–72; James H. Murphy, ‘William O'Brien's When we were boys: a new voice from old conventions’ in Irish University Review, xxii, no. 2 (autumn/winter 1992), pp 298–304. O'Brien also wrote about Maamtrasna – see United Ireland, 23 Dec. 1882; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. 171.

⁵⁰ For a study of female prisoners in Galway jail, see Geraldine Curtin, The women of Galway jail: female criminality in nineteenth-century Ireland (Galway, 2001).

⁵¹ Lady Gregory, ‘The gaol gate’ in Seven short plays (London, n.d. [1909?]), pp 173–85, 201–02; Mitchell, ‘The imprisonment of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in Galway’, pp 91–2.

⁵² Gregory, Seven short plays, pp 173–85; Anna Pilz, ‘Lady Gregory's The gaol gate, Terence MacSwiney and the Abbey Theatre’ in Irish Studies Review, xxiii, no. 3 (2015), p. 285; Dawn Duncan, ‘Lady Gregory and the feminine journey: The gaol gate, Grania, and The story taught by Brigit’ in Irish University Review, xxxiv, no. 1 (spring/summer 2004), pp 133–43.

⁵³ Gregory, Seven short plays, pp 201–02; Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 145, 155; Joyce, State of freedom, p. 306; and an important note by Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 170–73. Oral histories from the 1970s also recall that several women gathered to pray outside the jail the day before Joyce's execution (interview with Mrs. Lynskey, Bridge Street, Galway by Mr. Tom Kenny, Galway: personal communication to the author).

⁵⁴ Pilz, ‘Lady Gregory's The gaol gate’, pp 282–7.

⁵⁵ Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 155–6; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp xx–xxi, 195–214.

⁵⁶ James Joyce, ‘Ireland at the bar’ in Occasional, critical, and political writing, ed. Kevin Barry (Oxford, 2000), pp 145–6; Jeanne A. Flood, ‘Joyce and the Maamtrasna murders’ in James Joyce Quarterly, xxviii, no. 4 (summer 1991), pp 879–88; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 199, 201–02.

⁵⁷ Adrian Hardiman, Joyce in court: James Joyce and the law (London, 2017), pp 51–90.

⁵⁸ Christine O'Neill-Bernhard, ‘Symbol of the Irish nation, or of a foulfamed potheen district: James Joyce on Myles Joyce’ in James Joyce Quarterly, xxxii, nos 3–4 (spring/summer 1995), pp 719–21; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 209–13.

⁵⁹ P. H. Pearse, The mother (An máthair) and other tales (Dundalk, 1916), pp 81–2, 85; Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 155.

⁶⁰ Conor McNamara, ‘Connacht’ in John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo (eds), Atlas of the Irish revolution (Cork, 2017), p. 603.

⁶¹ Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 7; Robert Kee, Trial and error: the Maguires, the Guildford pub bombings, and British justice (London, 1986); Irish Independent, 18 Oct. 1989.

⁶² Waldron, Maamtrasna, pp 52, 318. See also: McAree, Murderous justice, pp 199–200.

⁶³ Joyce, State of freedom, p. 307; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 170–73.

⁶⁴ Ó Cuirreáin, Éagóir; Fin Dwyer, ‘The Maamtrasna murders’ (3 parts, Irish History Podcast, released 1–14 Nov. 2016) (https://irishhistorypodcast.ie/category/podcast/the-maamtrasna-murders/) (25 June 2020); Colm Bairéad and Seán Ó Cuirreáin, ‘Murdair Mhám Trasna’ (TG4 documentary, first broadcast 4 Apr. 2018).

⁶⁵ G.D.A., Bishop Browne papers, B/11/15–139. See in particular: unsigned manuscript notes made by Browne detailing events in his life which let up to his consecration, n.d. [c.1920–37] (G.D.A., B/11/15); newspaper cuttings of important events in Browne's life (G.D.A., B/11/27); notes on local history (G.D.A., B/11/109, 125). It is unclear if Browne was aware of Higginbottom's 1934 memoir which included a vivid account of Joyce's execution – see: The vivid life: a journalist's career (London, 1934), pp 38–44; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. 172.

⁶⁶ Anon. [Michael Browne], ‘Maamtrasna murders’, n.d. [c.1941] (G.D.A., B/4/2).

⁶⁷ Anon. [Michael Browne], ‘The proposed town plan for Galway: by a citizen’, n.d. [May 1945] (G.D.A., B/12/32); Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. 26.

⁶⁸ Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 27; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, pp 26, 72–6. The initial press coverage of the murders was universally hostile, with the Freeman's Journal describing Myles Joyce and the other nine men as ‘the biggest devils in the city’ (23 Aug. 1882).

⁶⁹ Butler, ‘Catholic power and the Irish city’; Richard J. Butler, ‘Building and rebuilding Galway since 1820’ in John Cunningham and Ciaran McDonough (eds), Hardiman and after: Galway culture and society, 1820–2020 (forthcoming 2020); G.D.A., B/6/1, B/6/2, B/6/22.

⁷⁰ Chairman, General Prisons Board, to secretary, Department of Justice, 30 Jan. 1925 (N.A.I., H248/2); Mary Rogan, Prison policy in Ireland: politics, penal-welfarism and political imprisonment (London, 2011), pp 20–53; Mark Finnane and Ian O'Donnell, ‘Crime and punishment’ in Eugenio F. Biagini and Mary E. Daly (eds), The Cambridge social history of modern Ireland, 1740 to the present (Cambridge, 2017), pp 376–8.

⁷¹ N.A.I., H248; ibid., JUS/90/16/183. The figures for April are generally representative for any given year and replicate the trends in Finnane and O'Donnell, ‘Crime and punishment’, p. 378.

⁷² Memo, General Prisons Board, 16 June 1925 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/262).

⁷³ Secretary, Department of Justice, to vice chairman, General Prisons Board, 22 Aug. 1925; secretary, Galway Urban District Council, to minister for justice, 13 Aug. 1925 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/262); Connacht Tribune, 11 July 1925.

⁷⁴ Secretary, General Prisons Board, to secretary, Department of Justice, 25. Jan. 1928 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/262).

⁷⁵ ‘Saorstát Éireann: annual report on prisons for the year 1934’, p. 17 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/161).

⁷⁶ Chief warder, Galway Prison, to secretary, Department of Justice, 11 Mar. 1935 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/5). Browne was keenly aware of the number of recently-closed provincial prisons and sought information from friends regarding valuations and sales – see Browne to Monsignor Joyce, 30 Mar. 1940 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

⁷⁷ Connacht Tribune, 15 Aug. 1931.

⁷⁸ Chief warder, Galway Prison, to secretary, Department of Justice, 1 Sept. 1934; secretary, Department of Justice, to secretary, Office of Public Works, 28 Sept. 1934 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/262); secretary, Department of Defence, to secretary, Department of Justice, 9 July 1937 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁷⁹ S. de Bhilmot to secretary, Department of Justice, 30 Apr. 1936, 24 May 1937; S. de Bhilmot to private secretary, minister for justice, 9 June 1937 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁸⁰ Seán McEntee to Patrick J. Ruttledge, 16 Dec. 1938 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁸¹ Ruttledge to McEntee, 30 Dec. 1938 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁸² Connacht Tribune, 14 Jan. 1939.

⁸³ Browne to Ruttledge, 13 Feb. 1939 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁸⁴ George P. Fagan to secretary, Department of Finance, 18 Feb. 1939 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁸⁵ Galway Prison Closing Order, 1939 (87/1939) (28 Mar. 1939); Irish Press, 1 May 1939.

⁸⁶ Connacht Tribune, 8 Apr. 1939.

⁸⁷ William H. Byrne & Son to Browne, 17 Nov. 1938 (G.D.A., B/6/3); Patrick Davis et al., memo, 1 Dec. 1938 (ibid.); Browne to Ruttledge, 13 Jan. 1939 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/263).

⁸⁸ ‘A devout Roman Catholic’ to Browne, 9 Jan. 1939 (G.D.A., B/6/3).

⁸⁹ Galway County Council minutes, 1932–48, for 13 Apr. 1940 (G.C.A., GC1–05(d), pp 481–2).

⁹⁰ Browne, letter addressed to all priests in the Galway diocese, 30 Mar. 1940 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

⁹¹ The parish priest, Oughterard, to Browne, 5 Apr. 1940 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

⁹² Browne, draft copy of letter to Galway County Council, n.d. [Apr. 1940] (G.D.A., B/6/4); Browne to Galway County Council, 9 Apr. 1940 (ibid.). Browne's use of the phrase ‘in their day of trial’ was likely a deliberate pun here and was an alteration from his draft letter.

⁹³ Galway County Council minutes, 1932–48, for 13 Apr. 1940 (G.C.A., GC1–05(d), pp 481–2).

⁹⁴ Browne to Clement O'Flynn, 3 Sept. 1940 (G.D.A., B/6/4); O'Flynn to Fr. O'Dea, copied to Browne, 17 Jan. 1941 (ibid.).

⁹⁵ Browne to O'Flynn, 2 May 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

⁹⁶ O'Flynn to Browne, 13 May 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

⁹⁷ Browne to John C. Conroy & Son, 10 May 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/4). Browne also purchased several jail warder's cottages for the same purpose. See: Browne to MacDermot & Allen, 10 May 1941 (ibid.).

⁹⁸ Contract between Michael Browne and Malachy Burke of Fairhill, Galway, for the demolition of Galway jail, 11 July 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/7).

⁹⁹ G.D.A., B/6/8.

¹⁰⁰ Connacht Tribune, 21 Mar. 1942.

¹⁰¹ Browne to O'Dea Solicitors, 10 Feb. 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/14); Browne to O'Flynn, 3 May 1941 (ibid.). Browne was also asked if the jail buildings could be kept as a tourist attraction to raise money for the Society of St Vincent de Paul during the Galway Races. See: William Glennon to Browne, 16 June 1941 (G.D.A., B/4/2).

¹⁰² Photographs of the demolition of Galway jail, n.d. [c.1941–3] (G.D.A., B/6/8); M. Burke, ‘Galway Gaol demolition: summary of account, 1942–1943’, n.d. (G.D.A., B/6/4); The Mantle, ii, no. 2 (spring 1959), p. 36; Mitchell, ‘The prisons of Galway’, p. 18.

¹⁰³ Ennis Urban District Council papers for the lease and sale of portions of Ennis gaol, c.1932–7 and c.1951–2 (N.A.I., ENV/3, 2013/94/41, 469); Clare Champion, 28 May 1960.

¹⁰⁴ Photograph of Monaghan gaol and hospital, c.1938 (Monaghan County Museum); Michael Byrne, ‘The county courthouse at Tullamore and the making of a county town’ in Journal of the Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society, i (2003), p. 123; Irish Independent, 5, 26 Mar. 1943.

¹⁰⁵ Agreement between Michael Browne and Malachy Burke, 11 July 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/7); anon., ‘Diagramatic [sic] plan of Galway jail’, n.d. (ibid.).

¹⁰⁶ Browne to O'Flynn, 14 June 1941 (G.C.A., 109/38/72 (CC/CC/13/3/0001)).

¹⁰⁷ O'Flynn to Browne, 3 July 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

¹⁰⁸ Waldron, Maamtrasna, p. 318; Kelleher, Maamtrasna, p. 193.

¹⁰⁹ Miceál Gibbons to Micheál Ó Móráin, 21 Aug. 1943 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/408).

¹¹⁰ Gerald Boland to Micheál Ó Móráin, 2 Sept. 1943 (N.A.I., JUS/90/16/408).

¹¹¹ Browne to O'Flynn, 2 May 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/4); O'Dea Solicitors to Browne, 19 May 1941 (ibid.).

¹¹² Browne to Thomas MacEnri, 23 May 1941 (G.D.A., B/6/4).

¹¹³ Thomas McEnri, ‘Galway prison grounds: certificate of market value’, n.d. [May–June 1941] (G.D.A., B/6/4).

¹¹⁴ Curtin, Women of Galway jail, p. 104.

¹¹⁵ Galway Observer, 20 Dec. 1952.

¹¹⁶ Michael Browne, The new cathedral of Galway: its origin, purpose and description (Galway, c.1957), pp 10–12. For the cathedral fundraising effort, see the regular updates in The Mantle from 1958 onwards. Average annual salary of £300 in the 1950s taken from Edward Nevin, Wages in Ireland, 1946–62 (Dublin, 1963), p. 18.

¹¹⁷ G.D.A., B/6/50, B/6/55, B/6/56; Irish Press, 16 Dec. 1960; The Mantle, iv, no. 1 (spring 1961), pp 24–7.

¹¹⁸ Browne, letter concerning fundraising for distribution, n.d. [probably 1958] (G.D.A., B/6/50).

¹¹⁹ Text of speech given by Éamon de Valera, Galway, 27 Oct. 1957 (N.A.I., TSCH/3/S16327A); de Valera to Browne, 27 Nov. 1957 (G.D.A., B/6/60).

¹²⁰ Browne to de Valera, 21 Nov. 1957 (N.A.I., TSCH/3/S16327A).

¹²¹ Browne, New cathedral of Galway, pp 5–7.

¹²² Some of the building materials were offered for sale in the mid 1940s but much remained discarded inside the jail walls. See: Connacht Tribune, 2 Mar. 1946.

¹²³ T. Canavan to Fr. Spelman, 25 Apr. 1950 (G.D.A., B/6/9); Canavan to Browne, 26 Apr. 1950 (ibid.).

¹²⁴ Connacht Sentinel, 16 Feb. 1957.

¹²⁵ For another example at Middle St. in Galway, see Connacht Tribune, 14 Sept. 1940. The demolition of the old workhouse and its replacement by Galway Regional Hospital in these years was yet another large urban construction site; see Irish Builder and Engineer, xcii, no. 1 (7 Jan. 1950), p. 18; Paul Larmour, Free State architecture: Modern Movement architecture in Ireland, 1922–1949 (Kinsale, 2009), pp 94–5.

¹²⁶ Irish Independent, 28 Oct. 1957; Browne, text of speech, n.d. (G.D.A., B/6/60).

¹²⁷ John J. Robinson, architectural plan showing arrangement for the laying of the foundation stone (G.D.A., B/6/60); Browne to Robinson, 3 Aug. 1957 (ibid.).

¹²⁸ Madeleine Lyons (ed.), Building a business: 150 years of the Sisk Group (Dublin, 2009), p. 67.

¹²⁹ Browne to Robinson, 31 July 1957 (G.D.A., B/6/60).

¹³⁰ Browne, text of speech, n.d. (G.D.A., B/6/60); Connacht Sentinel, 29 Oct. 1957.

¹³¹ Irish Builder and Engineer, xcix, no. 20 (5 Oct. 1957), p. 787; The Observer, 24 Apr. 1966; Galway Advertiser, 13 Aug. 2015. The design also received praise – see John T. Murray to Browne, 10 Sept. 1966 (G.D.A., B/4/42).

¹³² Ellen Rowley, ‘Hidden histories: Galway cathedral: the bishop as architect’ in Architecture Ireland, no. 298 (Mar./Apr. 2018), pp 37–9; Butler, ‘Building and rebuilding Galway since 1820’ (forthcoming).

¹³³ Martin McDonough to Michael Browne, 24 Oct. 1951 (G.D.A., B/6/13(1)); correspondence regarding the cathedral's design (G.D.A., B/6/5, B/6/13(1)).

¹³⁴ Browne to Robinson, 17 Nov. 1951 (G.D.A., B/6/13(2)).

¹³⁵ Robinson to Browne, 2 Nov. 1951 (G.D.A., B/6/13(2)); Robinson, drawings for Galway cathedral, 1957–8 (Irish Architectural Archive (I.A.A.), Acc. 2006/45).

¹³⁶ Galway Observer, 6 Mar. 1958. For articles in this series, see, for example: Galway Observer, 7, 21 Jan., 11 Feb. 1950.

¹³⁷ The Mantle, vi, no. 1 (spring 1963), p. 13; ibid., viii, nos 3–4 (autumn/winter 1965), pp 88–97. See also ibid. iii, no. 1 (spring 1960), pp 7–9; ibid., v, no. 1 (spring 1962), pp 14–18.

¹³⁸ Connacht Sentinel, 15 Jan. 1963; Connacht Tribune, 14 Aug. 1965; various newspaper clippings (G.D.A., B/6/62, B/6/119); Lyons, Building a business, p. 42.

¹³⁹ Quoted in Browne, New cathedral of Galway, p. 6.

¹⁴⁰ Photographs by Donal Taheny (d. 2014), n.d. (Galway Public Libraries); Irish Press, 12 Jan. 1965. See also newspaper clippings (G.D.A., B/6/62).

¹⁴¹ Cushing was hardly enthusiastic about the visit, as he rather candidly told ‘Irish hour’ on Boston's WBOS radio station – see N.A.I., DFA/6/434, 2011/39/781.

¹⁴² Niamh NicGhabhann, ‘“A development of practical Catholic emancipation”: laying the foundations for the Roman Catholic urban landscape, 1850–1900’ in Urban History, xlvi, no. 1 (Feb. 2019), pp 44–61; Terence M. Dunne, ‘The law of Captain Rock’ in Kyle Hughes and Donald M. MacRaild (eds), Crime, violence and the Irish in the nineteenth century (Liverpool, 2017), p. 48; Katie Barclay, Men on trial: performing emotion, embodiment and identity in Ireland, 1800–45 (Manchester, 2019), pp 70–71.

¹⁴³ Connacht Tribune, 21 Aug. 1965; memo, draft itinerary for Cushing's visit, 5 Aug. 1965 (N.A.I., DFA/6/434 2011/39/781).

¹⁴⁴ Connacht Tribune, 21 Aug. 1965. The event received blanket coverage in the local and national newspapers. See for example: Irish Catholic, 19 Aug. 1965; Catholic Standard, 20 Aug. 1965; Galway Observer, 21 Aug. 1965; Clare Champion, 21 Aug. 1965. For international coverage, see Catholic Herald (U.K.), 20 Aug. 1965; Florida Catholic, 20 Aug. 1965; Weekly Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs, no. 711 (7 Sept. 1965). Browne kept copies of these articles in his archive. See: G.D.A., B/6/106; Michael Browne, Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and Saint Nicholas, Galway: a history and description ([Galway, c.1967]), pp 12–14.

¹⁴⁵ Connacht Tribune, 21 Aug. 1965.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid., 14 Aug. 1965; Higginbottom, The vivid life, p. 40.

¹⁴⁷ The Sun (U.K.), 13 Aug. 1965.

¹⁴⁸ Peter Barnicle, ‘A cathedral for Galway’, Boston Sunday Herald Magazine, 15 Aug. 1965, pp 37–8.

¹⁴⁹ Connacht Sentinel, 17 Aug. 1965; The Mantle, viii, nos 3–4 (autumn/winter 1965), pp 1–97, later reprinted as Galway Cathedral: 15th August, 1965: souvenir of dedication (Galway, 1966); Browne, Cathedral of Our Lady, pp 7–8; G.D.A., B/6/115.

¹⁵⁰ The Mantle, ix, no. 1 (spring 1966), pp 3–6; Pearse, ‘The keening woman’, p. 219.

¹⁵¹ The cathedral also has an entirely separate memorial to John F. Kennedy, who visited Galway before his assassination. See: Galway Tribune, 25 Jan. 1964; G.D.A., B/6/119.

¹⁵² Galway cathedral building minutes, 12 Feb. 1965 (G.D.A., B/6/95).

¹⁵³ Unidentified publication by Robert O'Neill, O.F.M., ‘Our new neighbour’, p. 260 (copy in G.D.A., B/6/106).

¹⁵⁴ Quinn, George (ed.), The opening and blessing of Galway cathedral, 15th August 1965 (Galway, 1966)Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁵ Browne, Cathedral of Our Lady, pp 8, 15.

¹⁵⁶ City Tribune, 20 Aug. 1993.

¹⁵⁷ Anon., Galway cathedral: a visitor's guide (Galway, 2002) (photograph by Martin Hanley).

¹⁵⁸ ‘Galway Cathedral, 1965–2015’, souvenir special pull-out, Connacht Tribune, 14 Aug. 2015.

¹⁵⁹ Colm Bairéad and Seán Ó Cuirreáin, ‘Murdair Mhám Trasna’ (TG4 documentary, first broadcast 4 Apr. 2018); Irish Times, 31 Mar. 2018; Irish Independent, 5 Apr. 2018.

¹⁶⁰ Beaumont, ‘Contested trans-national heritage’, p. 300.

¹⁶¹ Butler, Richard and Hanna, Erika, ‘Irish urban history: an agenda’ in Urban History, xlvi, no. 1 (Feb. 2019), pp 5–6Google Scholar; Hanna, Erika, Modern Dublin: urban change and the Irish past, 1957-73 (Oxford, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the nineteenth century, see: Cunningham, John, ‘“Compelled to their bad acts by hunger”: three Irish urban crowds, 1817-45’ in Éire-Ireland, xlv, nos 1-2 (spring/summer 2010), pp 128–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laragy, Georgina, Purdue, Olwen, and Wright, Jonathan Jeffrey (eds), Urban spaces in nineteenth-century Ireland (Liverpool, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶² Anon. [Eoin Smith], ‘Galway's new cathedral’ (poem), 10 May 1969 (G.D.A., B/6/113, B/6/120). Fr. Michael Griffin (1892–1920), a Galway priest murdered by British forces on 14 Nov. 1920 during the War of Independence. This research has been generously funded by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, the British Academy, and the Moore Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway. My deepest thanks to the Catholic diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, and in particular Bishop Emeritus Martin Drennan, diocesan secretary Fr. Martin Whelan, archivist Tom Hansberry, and former archivist Tom Kilgariff. I would also like to thank: Simon Gunn, Tom Hulme, Keith Snell, Jim Donnelly, David Dickson, Margaret Kelleher, Pat Joyce, Niall Ó Ciosáin, Daniel Carey, Ian d'Alton, John Cunningham, Geraldine Curtin, Tom Kenny, Sean O'Reilly, Peter Hession, Sarah Goldsmith, Eamon Duffy, Erika Hanna, Peter Butler, Michael Browne, Fintan Lyons, David Reynolds, and Eileen Donaldson. I am also grateful to the Centre for Urban Studies at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, for a visiting fellowship in 2019, during which time I wrote this article. Thanks also to the peer reviewers for their constructive comments.