Sligo

Sligo is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of 20608 in 2022, it is the county’s largest urban centre (constituting 29.5% of the county’s population) and the 24th largest in the Republic of Ireland.

Sligo is a commercial and cultural centre situated on the west coast of Ireland. Its surrounding coast and countryside, as well as its connections to the poet W. B. Yeats, have made it a tourist destination.

Sligo is the anglicisation of the Irish name Sligeach, meaning “abounding in shells” or “shelly place”. It refers to the abundance of shellfish found in the river and its estuary, and from the extensive shell middens in the vicinity. The river now known as the Garavogue (Irish: An Gharbhóg), perhaps meaning “little torrent”, was originally called the Sligeach. It is listed as one of the seven “royal rivers” of Ireland in the ninth century AD tale The Destruction of Da Dergas Hostel. The river Slicech is also referenced in the Annals of Ulster in 1188.

The Ordnance Survey letters of 1836 state that “cart loads of shells were found underground in many places within the town where houses now stand”. The whole area, from the river estuary at Sligo, around the coast to the river at Ballysadare Bay, is rich in marine resources which were utilised as far back as the Mesolithic period.