Iria Flavia

Iria Flavia is a parish in the municipality of Padrón, in the province of A Coruña, Galicia. It was the Roman administrative and later episcopal centre of this part of Galicia before the emergence of Santiago de Compostela as the dominant religious site. The bishopric of Iria Flavia, one of the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula, was eventually transferred to Compostela following the discovery of the supposed tomb of Saint James.

The parish church of Santa María de Iria Flavia, a Romanesque and later Gothic structure, stands on the site of the early Christian basilica. The cemetery surrounding it is also the burial place of Rosalía de Castro, Galicia’s most celebrated poet.

For pilgrims, Iria Flavia carries enormous symbolic weight as the predecessor of Santiago de Compostela and the site where the Jacobean tradition has its earliest documented ecclesiastical roots.