The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Sligo was developed by Bishop Laurence Gillooly who had been appointed Bishop of Elphin in 1858. He decided that the diocese was now of a size and wealth that the time had come to replace St. John's Parish Chapel, which had been recognised as the diocesan pro-cathedral.
He engaged George Goldie, one of the foremost Catholic architects in England in the nineteenth century. The cathedral was opened for divine worship on 26 July 1874 by Cardinal Paul Cullen of Dublin.
Modelled on a Normano–Romano–Byzantine style, it is the only example of a Romanesque style cathedral built during the 19th century. Designed in the shape of a basilica, the church has a square, pyramid-capped tower, which reaches a height of 70 metres, and supporting turrets at the west end. The circular baptistery incorporated in the apse with its five lancet windows behind the high altar, was originally designed as a mortuary chapel.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).