St Muredach's Cathedral is located on the east bank of the River Moy in Ballina, County Mayo. It is a detached six-bay double-height building on a cruciform plan comprising a four-bay double-height nave which opens into single-bay double-height transepts all centred on a single-bay double-height chancel.
The cathedral's construction was initiated by Bishop John MacHale (1791–1881) who served as the Bishop of Killala from 1825 to 1834 and the completion of the cathedral in 1834 coincided with his translation to the Archdiocese of Tuam.
The spire was completed in 1855 to the designs of the celebrated architect James Joseph McCarthy and further embellishment continued throughout the nineteenth century.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.