Sligo is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of approximately 20,000 in 2016, it is the second largest urban centre in the West of Ireland, with only Galway being larger. The Sligo Borough District constitutes 61% (38,581) of the county’s population of 63,000.

Sligo is a historic, cultural, commercial, industrial, retail and service centre of regional importance in the West of Ireland, and is served by rail, port and road links. Sligo is also a tourist destination, being situated on the Wild Atlantic Way, with many literary and cultural associations.

Culture

Sligo culture was an inspiration on both poet and Nobel laureate W. B. Yeats and his brother the artist and illustrator Jack Butler Yeats. A collection of Jack B Yeats art is held in the Niland Gallery on the Mall in Sligo. The Yeats Summer School takes place every year in the town.

Sligo town has connections with Goon Show star and writer Spike Milligan, whose father was from Sligo, and a plaque was unveiled at the former Milligan family home on Sligo’s Holborn Street.

Traditional Irish music

In the early 13th century, the poet and crusader Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh kept a school of poetry at Lissadell north of Sligo town. He was Ollamh Fileadh (High Poet) to the Ó Domhnaill kings of Tír Chonaill. The school appears to have been dissolved after the Norman invasion. In the 16th century, the poet Tadhg Dall Ó hÚigínn wrote many praise poems in strict Dán Díreach metre for local chiefs and patrons such as the O’Conor Sligo. He was killed for a satire he wrote on the O’Haras. The annals record the death in 1561 of Naisse mac Cithruadh, the “most eminent musician that was in Éireann”, by drowning on Lough Gill.

In the 17th century, two brothers from County Sligo, Thomas and William Connellan from Cloonamahon, were among the last of the great Irish bards and harpists. Thomas is the author of the tune Molly MacAlpin, now known as Carolan’s Dream, and William may have written Love is a Tormenting Pain and Killiecrankie.

Traditional musicians from Sligo, active in the earlu 20th century, include Michael Coleman, James Morrison and Paddy Killoran.

Festivals

Sligo hosts several festivals throughout the year including Sligo Live occurring every October, The Sligo Summer Festival which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Sligo town and the Fleadh Cheoil which the town hosted in three consecutive years (1989, 1990 & 1991) and again in 2014 and 2015. Approximately 400,000 people attended the 2014 and 2015 festivals. During the festival, much of the music was played by musicians on the streets of Sligo.

The Sligo Jazz Project is held every July. Another annual festival, the Sligo Festival of Baroque Music, was started in 1995 and takes place on the last weekend of September.

Theatre

Sligo also has a tradition of theatre, both professional and amateur. Sligo has had a theatre at least as far back as 1750, according to Wood-Martins’ History of Sligo, and often “her Majesty’s servants from the Theatre Royal, Crow Street …. visited Sligo, even during the Dublin season, showing that in those days the townsfolk appreciated the Drama, for in some instances the company remained during several months”.

There are now two full-time theatres in the town, including the Blue Raincoat Theatre Company, was founded in 1990 and based in Quay street. Sligo is also home to Hawk’s Well Theatre, a 340-seat theatre founded in 1982.

In media

Sligo is the setting for author Declan Burke’s series of hard boiled detective novels, featuring detective Harry Rigby.

Sebastian Barry‘s novels The Secret Scripture and The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty are also set in Sligo town.

Sligo is the setting for John Michael McDonagh‘s 2014 darkly comedic drama film Calvary, in which a priest continues to serve his parishioners despite their increased hostility towards him and the Catholic Church.

Together with Dublin, County Sligo is one of the two main settings for Sally Rooney‘s 2018 novel, Normal People. A 2020 adaptation made by BBC Three and Hulu was partially filmed in Sligo.