Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tuam

TUAM, a market town and episcopal city of Galway, Ireland, is the terminus of the Athenry and Tuam Railway, and lies 20 miles north-east of Galway and 129 west of Dublin. An abbey was founded here towards the end of the 5th century, and in the beginning of the 6th an episcopal see by St Jarlath. The new Protestant cathedral of St Mary occupies the site of the original cathedral, built in 1130, and includes the chancel arch of the ancient building, now forming the great doorway,—a very fine specimen of the old Romanesque. The Roman Catholic cathedral in the later Early English style is one of the finest modern Catholic churches in Ireland. Adjoining it is the Roman Catholic college of St Jarlath, usually called the "New College," founded in 1814 for the education of candidates for the priesthood. To the west are the archbishop's palace and a convent of Presentation nuns. The other public buildings are the workhouse, the dispensary, and the market-house. The town has a considerable retail trade, and is a centre for the disposal of agricultural produce. From 4223 in 1871 the population decreased to 3567 in 1881.

The see of Tuam was raised to an archbishopric about 1152. Under the Church Temporalities Act of 1839 it was reduced to a bishopric, but is still the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop. It received its first charter in the llth year of James I. It formerly returned two members to parliament, but was disfranchised at the Union.