Loughrea ( lokh-RAY; Irish: Baile Locha Riach, meaning 'town of the grey/speckled lake'), is a town in County Galway, Ireland. It lies to the north of a range of wooded hills, the Slieve Aughty Mountains and Lough Rea, the lake from which it takes its name. The town's cathedral, St Brendan's, dominates the urban skyline. The town is in a townland and civil parish of the same name.
Lough Rea (Irish: Loch Riach, lit. 'speckled lake'), also Loughrea Lake, is a lake in Ireland, located south of Loughrea, County Galway.
The Cathedral of St. Brendan, Loughrea, is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clonfert. The cathedral was designed in Neo-Gothic style and houses one of the most extensive collections of arts and crafts and Celtic Revival artefacts of any single building in Ireland. Its most noteworthy feature is the extensive collection of stained glass windows by the Dublin-based An Túr Gloine studio. There are also twenty-four embroidered banners, mostly depicting Irish saints as well as vestments by the Dun Emer Guild. Sculptors represented are John Hughes and Michael Shortall, and the architect William Alphonsus Scott also contributed designs for metalwork and woodwork. The foundation stone was laid on 10 October 1897 and the structure was completed in 1902; most of the interior features date from the first decade on the twentieth century with the exception of the stained glass windows which continued to be commissioned up until the 1950s.
The Diocese of Clonfert (Irish: Deoise Chluain Fearta) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in the western part of Ireland. It is in the Metropolitan Province of Tuam.