The church of St Nicholas of Myra was first built c1320, making it 700 years old this year. It is the largest medieval church in Ireland and there has been constant Christian worship there since it was built. The chancel with its three windows in the south wall dates from the beginning, the nave, and the transept date from about a century later. In 1477 Christopher Columbus is believed to have worshipped here. In 1484, the church was granted Collegiate jurisdiction by which it was to be governed by a warden and vicars who would be appointed by the mayor and burghers of the town.
From 1537 for about 150 years, the church alternated a number of times between Catholic and Anglican. Since 1691, Anglican worship has continued there uninterrupted, though today the church is very ecumenical. When Cromwell’s troops took the town, they stabled their horses in the church, generally wrecked the interior, defaced many monuments, destroyed all the stained glass windows including the east window which Mayor James Lynch had filled with ‘coloured glass’ in 1493.
In the past 200 years, there have been a number of renovations and alterations to the church including the replacement of some of the stained glass windows. In 1881, Henry Sadleir Persse, a son of Burton Persse, put up the east window over the altar in memory of his daughter Matilda Theodora who died aged 15 that year. In our photograph, the five lancets in that window show, from the left, Christ as the Good Shepherd, Christ raising Jairus’ daughter, Christ in Gethsemane, Christ blessing children, and (out of picture ) Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene.
Persse lived at Glenarde and his distillery was one of the largest employers in Galway. He was for a long time identified with the public life in the town and after he died it was said that there were many families in Galway much the poorer because Henry Persse was gone. Not long before his death, he purchased and presented a site at the bottom of Taylor’s Hill for the building of a rectory for the residence of the rector of the parish. On March 8 1899, he died and his family decided, in his memory, to erect the window which is over the west door. This one portrays the Ascension in the centre and the Acts of Mercy in the lower left panel with the Parable of the Good Samaritan in the lower right.
Both the east and west windows came from the German studio of Mayer and Company, Munich, which provided many stained glass windows for Irish churches in the Victorian era. There are three windows on the south wall of the chancel all by Heaton, Butler, and Byrne who were stained glass manufacturers in London-- ‘The Angel at the Tomb’; ‘Mary, Martha and Jesus’; ‘Christ as the Light of the World’. These were done in the early 20th century to commemorate Reverend Fleetwood Berry. There is a Transfiguration Window designed by John Francis Hogan in the transept which was erected in 1948 in memory of Charles Walpole Crofts of Renville and his wife Pauline.
Our sincere thanks to Catherine Moore-Temple for her help in compiling this brief history of the stained glass in Galway’s oldest and most loved building. The windows are among the most colourful artefacts in this church but there are many more fascinations - check out the Crusader’s Tomb, The Leper’s Gallery, or find the legend behind the empty stone picture frame. The place reeks of Galway history and is well worth a visit and you can say a prayer too.
In light of the current pandemic restrictions the St Nicholas’ traditional Christmas Fayre is going online this year. Order your cakes, chutneys, cards, calendars, crafts, and Christmas decorations here via www.stnicholas.ie/downloads/christmas-fayre-2020 pdf .
Enter the Christmas raffle at www.idonate.ie/raffle/stnicholas , where €5 buys three entries to the draw which will take place on December 5 (permit granted ). Help maintain Galway’s Medieval Heritage by supporting St Nicholas’.
