page_title: Iar Connacht
section_title: Diocese of Annaghdown
hierarchical_section_title: Iar Connacht / Diocese of Annaghdown
caption_attribution_description: Abbey of St. Mary de Portu Patrum, Annaghdown, County Galway, Ireland English: View from the cloister to the western end of the nave.
context_page_description: West Connacht was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Galway, particularly the area known more commonly today as Connemara. The kingdom represented the core homeland of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Seóla kindred and although they ruled, there were smaller groups of other Gaels in the area, such as the Delbhna Tir Dha Locha and the Conmhaícne Mara. It existed from 1051 onwards, after the Ó Conchobhair, Kings of Connacht, pushed the Ó Flaithbheartaigh to the West of Lough Corrib, from their original territory of Maigh Seóla. Iar Connacht remained a subordinate túath of Connacht, until the 13th century, after which it was more independent.
  Galway upon its founding was originally governed by the Ó Flaithbheartaigh of Iar Connacht, but with the rise of the Clanricarde Burkes, a Norman family, it was captured in 1232. Around this time much of Connacht in general fell to the Burkes. Galway's Norman oligarchy later achieved a quasi-independent status to carry out its trade, but there always lingered the threat of it being reconquered by the Gaelic Ó Flaithbheartaigh, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries.
context_section_description: The religion which predominated at an official level in Iar Connacht was Catholic Christianity. The territory of Iar Connacht was associated with the Diocese of Annaghdown under the Bishop of Annaghdown, which had been formed in 1179. It was not mentioned at the Synod of Ráth Breasail of almost seventy years earlier, where the short-lived and firmly Ó Conchobhair influenced Diocese of Cong, based on the Augustinian Cong Abbey was mentioned instead (famously associated with the Cross of Cong).
caption: The ruins of Annaghdown Abbey, the religious center of Iar Connacht.
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