Saint Mary's Priory - Dominican's Church Claddagh

Begin at the Claddagh, one of Galway’s oldest Gaelic settlements. Here you’ll learn about its origins, traditions, language, and unique customs — standing across the river from the old Norman walls that once excluded them.

Limestone statue of father Thomas Nicholas Burke

Here we stand before the statue of Father Thomas Nicholas Burke, Galway’s famed 19th-century Dominican preacher. Burke became a national figure for defending Irish Catholicism against English critics like John Thomas Froude in 1872, and for giving voice to the poor and oppressed under British rule. He was the voice of Catholic resistance in the 19th century. Half a century later, Father Michael Griffin would become its martyr — murdered by Crown forces during the War of Independence in 1920. Together, Burke and Griffin show how Galway’s priests embodied faith, defiance, and the struggle for Ireland’s identity across generations.