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…
Source credit: Jim McSharry via Sligo Photos and Postcards
Whiskey in the jar – A brief history of the original Sligo Distillery
Hazelwood House, an eighteenth-century Palladian house situated a few kilometres outside Sligo town, overlooks the shores of Lough Gill. The house was designed by the famous German architect Richard Cassells,…
The night a world-famous Irish tenor performed at the Gaiety Sligo
On the 15th January 1936, the world-famous Irish tenor Count John McCormack visited Sligo.McCormack was born in Athlone, Westmeath in 1884. His parents Hannah and Andrew McCormack were both born…
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…
Advertisement for Sequah's Oils and prarie Flower
When the Sequah came to Sligo
An advert for Sequah Remedies, the cure all. Source: The Graphic 11 July 1891 In 1891, a quack doctor arrived in Sligo with much fanfare. Sequah products were sold using…
Cholera and the Cure
The cholera epidemic remembered one hundred years after the event, as written by a schoolboy James Reynolds from Knockminna National School near Ballymote in Sligo from the Duchas school folklore…
Charlotte Thornley Stoker
As it's International Women's day, here is a short account of one Sligo lady who was considered ahead of her time for highlighting social issues and provided literary inspiration for…
Sligo and the Dracula connection
The author Bram Stoker's mother hailed from Sligo. Her name was Charlotte Thornley and she lived with her parents Captain Thomas Thornley, Matilda Blake Thornley along with her two younger…