Sligo Port
A Marriage Proposal at the Fairy Bridges
In 1862, John Butler Yeats came to Sligo to visit his friend from boarding school George Pollexfen. He met George's sister Susan Mary and within a few days, he proposed…
Lower Quay Street
Storm surge floods Sligo 1884
The morning of the 26th January 1884 started fine and sunny, and the streets of the town were thronged with shoppers as it was a Saturday and Market day. By…
Market Street/Market Cross in Sligo town before the Lady Erin statue was erected.
The Great Liberator’s visit to Sligo
On the 24th January 1837, Daniel O'Connell, visited Sligo with much fanfare. The road from Ballina to Sligo was crowded with thousands of people who had travelled for miles to…
The Glen
A visit to the Glen in the nineteenth century
The Glen I first heard of Asenath Nicholson's travel account during my college course in Heritage and Folklore. I was writing an assignment on visitors observations of Ireland. Nicholson's travels took…
Hobart Town - Van Diemens Land
Landed in Van Diemen’s Land
Van Diemen’s Land was set up as a penal colony in 1803 by the British Empire. It is estimated that some 75,000 convicts were shipped there up until 1853 when…
Knox Street Sligo late nineteenth-century
Merchants of Sligo – Higgins & Keighron
Higgins & Keighron flagon - Source - B. Higgins Irish Antique Bottle Collectors Club Facebook group A whiskey flagon from Higgins & Keighron Ltd, Wholesale Merchants, Sligo. Higgins & Keighron…
Irish Cabin
Irish Harvesters
In nineteenth-century, it was the practice of many poor tenant labourers to go to England and Scotland each year for the purpose of harvest work. They arrived in large groups…
Hill of bodies
In April 1964, two young men from Cork were working on the building of a new church in the seaside resort of Enniscrone, Sligo. On their day off, they went…
Dun Maeve Hotel and Ballysadare bridge 1959 - Douglas Campbell
Ballysadare to Strandhill in 1947
Dun Maeve Hotel and Ballysadare bridge 1959 - Douglas Campbell Traveller writer John Woods visited Ireland in 1947 and wrote a travel guide with insightful observations which provide a vivid…
Valentine Blake Dillon
Source: National Portraits Gallery
Valentine Blake Dillon
Valentine Blake Dillon (1845 – 1904) was an Irish solicitor and politician. Dillon worked as a Land League solicitor and defended Charles Stuart Parnell. In 1880, the Land War had intensified…