Fr. Kieran Waldron, Parish Priest of Killererin, Tuam, will give a lecture on Dr. Thomas P. Gilmartin, Archbishop of Tuam in the Castlebar Library, on Wednesday, January 23^rd at 8 pm.

Dr. Gilmartin was born at Rinshinna, Moneen, Castlebar, on 18^th May 1861, son of Michael Gilmartin and Mary McHale. He was reared, however, by an aunt and uncle, Martin and Mary McHale on a ten acre farm at Killeen, Ballyvary, and was educated at Killeen NS., Errew Monastery, and later at St. Jarlath’s College, Tuam.

He was appointed Archbishop of Tuam in 1918 and had previously been Bishop of Clonfert. Though he sought to be a low-profile pastoral archbishop he did much valuable work in the diocese and, inevitably, he became deeply involved in the stirring controversies of the time, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the dispute in relation to the appointment of Letitia Dunbar to the Mayo Librarianship in 1931.

The speaker, Fr. Waldron, is the author of two books, Out of the Shadows : Emerging Secondary Schools in the Archdiocese of Tuam, 1940-69, published in 2002, and The Archdiocese of Tuam: An Illustrated History, published in 2005.

His forthcoming book, Pastors In Their Time, Tuam’s Catholic Archbishops, 1700-2000, covers the lives of sixteen archbishops who have served from the days before Catholic Emancipation down to the present time of Archbishop Michael Neary.

The January lecture promises to be an interesting insight into the life of Dr Gilmartin and his sometimes controversial career. The lecture is open to the public and all are welcome.