Sligo is one of Ireland’s most popular tourist destinations and a cultural hotbed to boot. It’s renowned for its music, its literature and its artistic legacy. And, of course, it’s famed for its beautiful sights and historic connections with the great poet WB Yeats. Just like Yeats, contemporary visitors are drawn by the magnificence of the countryside, the lakes, the sea with its excellent surfing, the charming villages, and Sligo’s rich arts heritage.
Billed as Ireland’s “folk, roots and indie” festival, Sligo Live offers a superb mix of international and local talent. Highlights of this year’s line up include Midlake, releasing their fourth studio album, Antiphon, in November. The Pete Molinari Band plays at midnight on Friday, October 25. Molinari has been gaining critical acclaim both in the UK and the US, and Bruce Springsteen is a fan. If he’s good enough for the Boss... Irish standouts include Villagers, Imelda May and Planxty legends Liam Og O Flynn, Andy Irvine, Paddy Glackin and Donal Lunny who are trading these days as LAPD. There are six days of music so name-checking all the acts is impossible. Have a look at sligolive.ie for details.
There are gigs all year around at respected venue 5th on Teeling, which hosts well- known local and national bands as well as DJ sets and a monthly comedy club. Must-sees over the autumn and winter include Le Galaxie on October 12. Having honed their show on the festival circuit, the Dubliners perform blistering live sets. If you haven’t caught them yet, now is the time to do so. Also not to be missed are electronica faves The Japanese Popstars, delivering a DJ performance on October 27; funny man PJ Gallagher headlines the Comedy Club on November 8, and trad legends Kíla play a full show on December 14. There are live gigs every Friday and Saturday night, many of them free.
There are many music pubs around Sligo. Garavogue on Stephen Street, has live music all week. Just recently, Sharon Shannon and Ryan Sheridan performed here, and Snow Patrol did a DJ set at the Garavogue on Arthur’s Day. Upcoming events include Big Generator, an X Factor night featuring Joseph Whelan and the 90s retro band Smash Hits! Elsewhere you’ll find live music upstairs at McHugh’s on Grattan Street, and The Venue in Strandhill has music Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Party people head to the Velvet Room on the banks of the River Garavogue and Toffs on John F. Kennedy Parade.
Toffs has something for everyone with four bars and two floors of music. On the main floor, the DJs spin chart hits, pop, hip hop and rock. Upstairs the Penthouse is a separate club and sophisticated lounge. The music here is R’nB, house and classic dance tunes. There’s a full cocktail menu and special “champagne tables” that can be reserved. See toffs.eu for more information.
One of the reasons there;s music all year around is because Sligo is a college town, with students from across Ireland studying at the Institute of Technology and St. Angela’s College. St. Angela’s offers degrees accredited under NUI standards. For many years its focus was on education and nursing. The college has expanded its programme in recent years and offers new courses in areas such as food and business management; textiles, fashion and design, and disability studies. St. Angela’s offers small classes in a close community environment. On the shore of Lough Gill, it’s one of Ireland’s most beautiful campuses. Holidaymakers should make time to try Sligo’s great local produce. The Só Sligo Food Festival takes place in May, and as you’ve missed that, you’ll have to make do with some of the town’s best eateries. Not exactly a hardship! Eala Bhan on Rockwood Parade is an award winning restaurant specialising in fresh seafood and steak.
Montmatre, meanwhile, isn’t exactly traditionally Irish. As the name indicates this is a French restaurant and a superb one too. It nabbed a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence this year. Tra Ban in Standhill is another 2013 Certificate of Excellence winner, which specialises in seafood and steak. The Limoncello Sardinian Restaurant is a local favourite and those on tighter budgets should head to Street Cart on Teeling Street for gourmet street food. Unsurprisingly, seafood features heavily in Sligo’s cuisine.
The area from the Garavogue estuary in Sligo Town, around the coast to the river at Ballysadare Bay is great seafood spot. As well as poetry, Sligo has a long musical tradition and the town’s Feis Ceoil has taken place for more than a hundred years. While trad is in the blood of the county, in recent years many other styles of music have also been embraced, such as jazz and samba. Most music events and festivals are scheduled over the summer, but all is not lost if you’re planning a trip this autumn. The Coleman Traditional Irish Music Centre in Gurteen holds regular concerts, workshops and events. Best of all, the Sligo Live Festival takes place from October 23 – 28.
This part of Ireland has been populated for millennia. Archaeological findings suggest Sligo was an important Neolithic or New Stone Age settlement – that’s 5000 to 4000 BC – and there’s evidence that people lived here even earlier too.
The Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery in County Sligo is among the largest and most important Stone Age sites in Europe. The oldest tomb is around 700-years older than Newgrange, which as every Irish person knows, predates the pyramids by around a thousand years. Carrowmore is ancient! Sligo is also home to another important tomb. Legend has it that Queen Medb is buried under the cairn on Knocknarea Mountain. This cairn is enormous – tenmetres high and 55-five metres in diameter – and visible for miles around. Archaeologists believe the cairn dates back to 3000BC and that a passage tomb lies under the stones, which would make it older than Medb by thousands of years, if she ever existed.
However, it’s entirely possible that a person of high rank could have been placed in an existing tomb as a mark of their status.
Nobody is really sure, because the cairn has never been excavated, and local superstition warns that it’s bad luck to remove a stone and good luck to add one.
Keeping things posthumous, Sligo Abbey contains Gothic and Renaissance tomb sculpture. The abbey was originally built in the 13th century but burnt down in 1414 and damaged again during the 1641 rebellion. Despite this rough and tumble existence, it has some wonderful architectural features and the only existent 15th century sculpted high altar to survive in an Irish monastic church. You can’t spend your entire trip to Sligo looking at the resting places of the ancient dear departed. You, like Yeats, can arise and go to Innisfree, although you probably shouldn’t attempt building a cottage of clay and wattles. Innisfree is one of about twenty small islands on Lough Gill. One of the largest islands on the lake, Church Island, has a ruin of an early Christian church. With all due respect to Yeats, it’s really the lake itself that’s the main attraction as it’s one of the most picturesque in Ireland. Lough Gill is surrounded by woods and on the Leitrim side of the lake, you can see Parke’s Castle, a fortification dating back to 1610.
Yeats fans make a pilgrimage to Drumcliffe Churchyard where the poet is buried, ‘Under Ben Bulben’ as he wished. Benbulben is Ireland’s most distinctive mountain. Because a hard limestone forms the upper cliffs, it has a distinctive shape, similar to Table Mountain in South Africa. Benbulbin is popular with climbers, and if you ascend the mountain from the south side it’s a relatively easy climb up gentle slopes. If you can manage, the climb is well worth it, because the view of the surrounding countryside will take your breath away.