What is recorded here

Three life-sized limestone panels from the mid-seventeenth century still stand above the altar in the chapel of St Nicholas. They show God the Father, God the Son, and the Blessed Virgin, while a modern carving completes the Holy Trinity. Richard Pococke saw them embedded in a vestry wall in 1752, describing figures as big as human life dug up near the church. The unfinished dove and angel once carved beside God the Father were removed during later reconstruction, leaving the ancient stone both complete and marked by forgotten changes.

In the chapel of St Nicholas in the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas. The reredos above the altar consists of four limestone panels arranged so as to represent the coronation of Our Lady by the Holy Trinity. Three of these date to the mid-seventeenth century (God the Father, God the Son, Blessed Virgin) and the fourth (Holy Ghost) is a modern carving. The older panels came from the Pro-Cathedral in Middle Street where they had been transferred from St Nicholas' church some time in the early 19th century. Richard Pococke, who visited Galway in 1752, records these as follows: ‘In the vestry on three large stones are cut as big as human life, Our Saviour, the Virgin Mary to the right, and to the right of that God the Father and over his head the Dove, they were dug up some where about the church’ (Pococke 1752, 105). Originally they probably were intended to form part of an altar or tomb-surround that was never completed. The panel depicting God the Father formerly contained to the right of the figure the unfinished carvings of a dove and an angel with a censor. These were removed when the panels were re-erected in this chapel. Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of upload: 18 July 2014

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