Local bishop to take up new role in Tuam archdiocese this weekend

Francis Duffy, who has been the bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois for the last eight years, will be formally installed as the new Archbishop of Tuam this weekend.

His appointment to the role was announced in November, and will be completed at a ceremony in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Tuam, on Sunday (January 9) at 2.30pm.

His move will leave a leadership vacancy in the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois and it's speculated that it could take a number of months - or longer - before his successor is appointed.

Catholic Communications Office spokesperson Martin Long explained that a priest would be elected next week as Diocesan Administrator to run the diocese of Ardagh & Clonmacnois in the interim.

"The Diocesan Administrator will be elected by the senior group of priests of the diocese called the College of Consultors. The Diocesan Administrator will pastorally lead and administer the diocese until Pope Francis appoints a new bishop of Ardagh & Clonmacnois," he stated.

The ceremony in which Francis Duffy will be installed as Archbishop of Tuam on Sunday will take place in front of a much-reduced gathering due to the current public health situation.

In a statement this week, the Catholic Communications Office said the congregation in the Cathedral would be limited to members of Archbishop Francis' immediate family and a number of close friends, the Papal Nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, the outgoing Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary, and a small number of bishops and priests.

"The laity and religious living in the Archdiocese will be represented," the statement said, but it encouraged many of those who would otherwise have attended to watch the service online on the Cathedral's website instead.

A native of Cavan, Archbishop Duffy spent more than twenty years as a teacher and school principal in counties Cavan and Leitrim, followed by some years as diocesan secretary in his native diocese of Kilmore and as assistant priest in the parish of Laragh.

He was appointed to the diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois by Pope Francis in July of 2013, three years after his predecessor, Colm O'Reilly, had offered to retire.

In an address after his appointment as Archbishop of Tuam was announced in November, Archbishop Duffy said he was "certainly surprised and humbled" to be given the new role but that he was "naturally a little sad at leaving my own diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois."

The local diocese incorporates 41 parishes across the counties of Leitrim, Cavan, Longford, Westmeath and Offaly.