"Sligeach: Land of my Ancestors!" a Sligo Travel Page by Lyndra

Hello all, welcome to my Sligo Homepage.

Sligo is the land of my ancestors as far back as records go and then some!

It is a wonderful county in the West of Ireland, framed by the Atlantic Ocean and watched over by the magnificent Ben Bulben Mountain. I spend as much time as possible here.

I am very interested in the Neolithic history of Ireland and this part of Ireland in particular. The county is a haven of burial chambers and stone circles, and if you are adventurous (and athletic enough - some are on the side of mountains after all) there is plenty to do in this unspoilt and tranquil place. Did you know that some of Bram Stoker's relations came from Co Sligo (a relative is buried in St John's Cathedral in the City)? WB Yeats is buried in a churchyard in Drumcliffe, a village just to the North of Sligo Town. Yeats' parents are buried in Sligo too.

Sligo is becoming more interesting as the years pass. New hotels and restaurants are emerging with scary regularity and the quaint Sligo of my childhood will eventually give way to a more sophisticated place - like Cork or Galway. There is a way to go yet however so I shall enjoy the peace while it lasts.

Oh and there is always the beer...guinness... (any one notice a recurring theme in my pages??)

Sligo is/was home to a number of famous people including:
*Neil Jordan (film director)
*3 members of Westlife (Kian Egan, Shane Filan and Mark Feehily)
*Bernardo O'Higgins was the first leader of Chile in South America, after it's independence from Spain (his father was from Sligo)
*Constance Markieviicz (First female MP in the UK government)
*Pauline McLynn (Mrs Doyle in Father Ted)
*Bram Stoker's mother (Charlotte Thornley) was born in Sligo making the author od Dracula, half Sligonian! Apparently Dracula was inspired by stories that Charlotte told Bram about the 1832 Cholera epidemic in Sligo...

Under bare Ben Bulben's head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

The epitaph on Yeats' grave was of his own writing in one of his poems (copied above). Yeats wanted to be buried in the churchyard at Drumcliffe so after his death in France he was brought here. A Dub by birth but part Sligo by ancestry, Yeats moved from Dublin to Sligo and then to London but it was stories of Sligo that he heard as he grew up.
Yeats once said, "...the place that has really influenced my life most is Sligo."

"Where nobody gets old and godly and grave,
Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise,
Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue."

Yeats was writing about Co Sligo when he descibed this amazing place ans Sligo has adopted this as part of their promotional material. I'm too biased to comment on whether Sligo has this effect on everyone!

Sligo was an embarkation point for many thousands of people who definately felt this was not the case during the Potato Famine (around 1845 - 50), a time of heavy crop failure from a disease that could not be stopped, evictions by landlords of tenent farmers, mass taxation and oppression of Irish Catholics. The Famine Ships or Coffin Ships as they were sometimes known took nearly 25000 people to America and Canada. People also walked from Sligo to Dublin to use the Ships leaving from the Quays of the River Liffey. 52000 Sligo people died of disease or starvation as a result of the blight.