Augustinian Church, Galway, Ireland.
Work began on the Augustinian foundation in Galway in 1500. It was located outside the city walls, on the same site as the present Forthill Cemetery. About the year 1546, outlawed by an edict of Henry VIII, the friars were deprived of their lands. From there the Augustinians moved to a site in Market Street. They were to spent the next one hundred years wandering between Forthill and various "safe havens" in the city. Not until 1760, according to the renowned historian James Hardiman, were they able to establish a public church near the site of the present one in Middle Street. Mass was celebrated continuously there -except for one single Sunday in Penal Times- until the 1850s. The foundation stone of the present Gothic Church was laid on August 28th, 1855. James Hardiman was himself deeply involved in the project; indeed it was he who laid the foundation stone. Galway limestone, quarried from Angliham and Menlo quarries about two miles outside the city, was used in its construction. The church took four years to complete and its doors were first opened for public worship on September 4th, 1859.