Sligo (; ; ) is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20,608 in 2022, it is the county's largest urban centre (constituting 29.5% of the county's population) and the 24th largest in the Republic of Ireland.
Sligo is a commercial and cultural centre situated on the west coast of Ireland. Its surrounding coast and countryside, as well as its connections to the poet W. B. Yeats, have made it a tourist destination.
History
Etymology
Sligo is the anglicisation of the Irish name Sligeach, meaning "abounding in shells" or "shelly place". It refers to the abundance of shellfish found in the river and its estuary, and from the extensive shell middens in the vicinity. The river now known as the Garavogue (), perhaps meaning "little torrent", was originally called the Sligeach. It is listed as one of the seven "royal rivers" of Ireland in the ninth century AD tale The Destruction of Da Dergas Hostel. The river Slicech is also referenced in the Annals of Ulster in 1188. This is an outlier of the large group of monuments at Carrowmore on the Coolera Peninsula on the western outskirts of the town. The area around Sligo town has one of the highest densities of prehistoric archaeological sites in Ireland, and is the only place in which all classes of Irish megalithic monuments are to be found together. Knocknarea mountain, capped by the great cairn of Miosgan Maeve, dominates the skyline to the west of the town. Cairns Hill on the southern edge of the town also has two very large stone cairns.
Excavations for the National Roads Authority (NRA) for the N4 Sligo Inner Relief Road in 2002 revealed an early Neolithic causewayed enclosure. Built around 4000 B.C., the Magheraboy causewayed enclosure is located on high ground overlooking the town from the south. This is the oldest causewayed enclosure so far discovered in Britain or Ireland. It consists of a large area enclosed by a segmented ditch and palisade, and was perhaps an area of commerce and ritual. These monuments are associated with the coming of agriculture and hence the first farmers in Ireland. According to archaeologist Edward Danagher, who excavated the site, "Magheraboy indicates a stable and successful population during the final centuries of the fifth millennium and the first centuries of the fourth millennium BC".
Danagher's work also documented a Bronze Age Henge at Tonafortes (beside the Carraroe roundabout) on the southern outskirts of Sligo town.
Sligo Bay is an ancient natural harbour, being known to Greek, Phoenician and Roman traders as the area is thought by some to be the location marked as the city of Nagnata on Claudius Ptolemy's second century A.D. co-ordinate map of the world. During the early medieval period, the site of Sligo was eclipsed by the importance of the great monastery founded by Columcille 5 miles to the north at Drumcliff. By the 12th century, there was a bridge and a small settlement in existence at the site of the present town.
Medieval history
The Norman knight Maurice Fitzgerald, the Justiciar of Ireland, is generally credited with the establishment of the medieval European-style town and port of Sligo, building Sligo Castle in 1245. The annalists refer to the town as a sraidbhaile ('street settlement') which seems to have consisted of the castle and an attached defensive bawn in the vicinity of Quay street. A Dominican Friary (Blackfriars) was also founded by Maurice Fitzgerald and the King of Connacht, Felim mac Cathal Crobderg Ua Conchobair, in 1253. This was accidentally destroyed by fire in 1414, and was subsequently rebuilt in its present form by Tighernan O’Rourke. Norman hegemony was, however, not destined to last long in Sligo. The Norman advance was halted in Sligo after the battle of Credran Cille in 1257 at Ros Ceite (Rosses Point) between Godfrey O'Donnell, Lord of Tirconnell, and Maurice Fitzgerald. Both commanders were mortally wounded in single combat. The Norman invasion of Tír Chonaill was abandoned after this. In 1289 a survey indicates there were 180 burgesses in the town. The Normans had laid a foundation that was to last.
The town is unique in Ireland in that it is the only Norman-founded Irish town to have been under almost continuous native Irish control throughout the Medieval period. Despite Anglo-Norman attempts to retake it, it became the administrative centre of the O'Conor Sligo (O'Conchobar Sligigh) confederation of Iochtar Connacht (Lower Connacht) by 1315 AD. Also called Clan Aindrias, the O 'Conors were a branch of the O'Conchobar dynasty of Kings of Connacht. It continued to develop within the túath (Irish territory) of Cairbre Drom Cliabh becoming the effective centre of the confederation of túatha. The other Irish túatha subject to here were Tír Fhíacrach Múaidhe, Luighne Connacht, Tir Olliol and Corann. Throughout this time Sligo was under the system of Fénechus (Brehon) law and was ruled by the Gaelic system of an elected Rí túath (territory king/lord), and an assembly known as an oireacht.
Through competition between Gaelic dynasties for the lucrative port duties of Sligo, the town was burned, sacked or besieged approximately 49 times during the medieval period, according to the annals of Ireland. These raids seem to have had little effect on the development of the town, as by the mid-15th century the town and port had grown in importance. It traded with Galway, Bristol, France and Spain. Amongst the earliest preserved specimens of written English in Connacht is a receipt for 20 marks, dated August 1430, paid by Saunder Lynche and Davy Botyller, to Henry Blake and Walter Blake, customers of "ye King and John Rede, controller of ye porte of Galvy and of Slego".
Sligo continued under Gaelic control until the late 16th century when, during the Elizabethan conquest, it was selected as the county town for the newly shired County of Sligo. An order was sent by the Elizabethan Government to Sir Nicholas Malby, Knight, wanting him to establish "apt and safe" places for the keeping of the Assizes & Sessions, with walls of lime & stone, in each county of Connacht, "judging that the aptest place be in Sligo, for the County of Sligo…" The walls were never built.
17th and 18th centuries
Sligo Abbey, actually a Dominican Friary, although a ruin, is the only medieval building left standing in the town. Much of the structure, including the choir, carved altar (the only one in situ in Ireland) and cloisters, remains. When Sir Frederick Hamilton's Parliamentarian soldiers partially sacked Sligo in 1642, the Friary was burned and many friars killed.
During the Williamite War (1689–91) the town was fought over between the Jacobite Irish Army loyal to James II and Williamite forces. Patrick Sarsfield was able to capture the town and repulsed a Williamite attack to retake it; however, Sligo was later surrendered to forces under the command of Arthur Forbes, 1st Earl of Granard.
In 1798, a mixed force of the Limerick Militia, Essex Fencibles and local yeomanry under a Colonel Vereker were defeated at the battle of Carricknagat at Collooney by the combined Irish and French forces under General Humbert. A street in the town is named after the hero of this battle Bartholomew Teeling. The Lady Erin monument at Market Cross was erected in 1899 to mark the centenary of the 1798 Rebellion.
19th century
The town suffered badly from a cholera outbreak in 1832. Scholars speculate that Bram Stoker, whose mother Charlotte Blake Thornley was probably (there are no records and the family lived in both Sligo and Ballyshannon) born in Sligo in 1818 and experienced the epidemic first hand, was influenced by her stories when he wrote his famous novel, Dracula. The family lived on Correction Street in the town. After fleeing to Ballyshannon, Charlotte wrote: