Sligo City Walking Tour

Sligo is the largest urban area in the North West with a population of 17,000. It's located on the Garavogue River and is surrounded by Knocknarea Mountain, The Ox Mountains, The Dartry Mountains and the striking Benbulben, affording the viewer beautiful horizons an all sides from Sligo 'the place of the shells'

The Tourist Office is our starting point for the city walk. We stroll past the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and along by St John's Cathedral, the oldest building in Sligo in daily use. Through the shopping streets and up Harmony hill find out how it changed its name from 'Waste Water Lane' and on Church Street is the Presbyterian church built in 1828.

'The Friary' on High Street, Sligo, is the modern Church of the Dominican Order. Old Market Street was the place of business of Peter O'Connor whose ships departed from Sligo to Quebec and New York in 1846. 13,000 people emigrated from Sligo in the following year.

The Old Courthouse built in 1878 and recently refurbished is a most spectacular building in the sunlight. Nearby is the firm of solicitors 'Argue and Phibbs'.

'The Abbey' is Sligo's only surviving medieval building and was not an Abbey at all but it was the Dominican Friary founded by Maurice Fitzgerald in 1252.

The Niland Model Centre is the principal cultural arts centre for Sligo and houses a large collection of Jack B. Yeats as well as other major Irish artists.

The gentle ascent to the Green Fort constructed in 1646 gives us an incline of the commanding position of the Jacobite forces under attack from the Williamite army. On Stephen's Street are some of the architectural gems of the city as well as the Yeats Memorial Building and the Hyde Bridge. Each building has a unique story to tell.

The name Wine Street tells its own story but there is much more than the name would suggest. Past City Hall and the Famine Monument by the Western Wholesale Building we meander back to the Tourist Office.