Spire spires were an astounding architectural innovation, beginning with the early fourteenth-century spire at Freiburg Minster, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire, according to Robert Bork, represents a "radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency towards skeletal structure." The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's phenomenal spires at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona represent an outgrowth of this Gothic tendency. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they were not completed until the 20th century. In England, "spire" immediately brings to mind Salisbury Cathedral. Its 403-foot (123-m) spire, built between 1320 and 1380,
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Sligo needed replaced. He engaged George Goldie, one of the foremost Catholic architects in England in the nineteenth century, and the Cathedral was opened for divine worship on 26 July 1874 by Cardinal Paul Cullen of Dublin. The cathedral was built in a Norman style, and it is the only Norman styled cathedral in Ireland. It can seat 1400 people. It has an impressive spire at the front and large apse in the Sanctuary. Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Sligo "This article refers to the Roman Catholic cathedral. For the Church of Ireland cathedral, see St John the Baptist Cathedral, Sligo."