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Sligo History
The Irish name of Sligo, ‘Sligeach’ means ‘place of shells’. It has been a place abundant in marine resources since the Stone Age. In the medieval period Sligo was an important strategical and commercial crossroad. More than thirty thousand people emigrated through the port of Sligo between 1847 and 1851. There is a memorial sculpture to those people on the quays overlooking the Garavogue River. This is one of the three sculptures specially constructed by the Sligo Famine Commemoration Committee to show respect to the victims of the Great Famine.
Much of the writings of the poet W. B. Yeats describes the area around the town of Sligo. For example, his opus “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is about a small, uninhabited island on Lough Gill, a lake next to the town. Yeats spent much of his youth in Sligo and its surrounding areas, and after his death in 1939, was buried in the graveyard in Drumcliffe, County Sligo.
Sligo town is bordered by two mountain ranges – the Dartry Mountains to the north, and the Ox Mountains to the south. The Dartry Mountains include the famous Benbulbin often mentioned in W. B. Yeats’s writings, and it is famous as the final resting place of Grainne and Diarmuid.
Travel guide to Sligo
Sligo History
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