Page 3 - Sligo X North West

3 Contents
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15 Sligo stories
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Culture: Second coming of The Hawk’s Well theatre
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Visiting: Lissadell House gears up for a big 2015
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Working: Job creators in Sligo
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IT Sligo charts a new path
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Yeats2015:Thestoryofour greatest poet goes global
Anna’s wasn’t very ‘socially minded’ but he had the best ice cream. Off again pass-
ing the Cafe Cairo, left again down Quay street, past McManus’ hairdresser where Mum got her hair done and on to the next junction, left again passing Denny’s, on for one more left, followed by a right, then a last left passed the ‘bold boys’ on the corner and home. That’s one lap.
Sligo town was included in the English charter in London about 750 years ago. Its
local authority was established in the early 17th century, a mechanism used by James I to control the unruly Irish after the Nine Year War and part of the wider strategy for the plantation of Ulster. This history can been seen throughout the town, be it the ruins of the Dominican Abbey burned down by Cromwellian reprisals or the remains of Charlemount house, the prop- erty at one stage of the Pollexfen family, shipowners that were the financial engine of the area in more recent times.
Interesting to note that the neighbour- ing realm of Breifne, ruled by the O’Rourk- es up until the 17th century, is supposedly where our history with the Normans and Tudors all began. O’Rourke’s wife, Dervor- gilla, was kidnapped by the then King of Leinster, Dermot McMorrough. This led
to a lot of warring between both factions and fifteen years later, in 1168, Strongbow invaded on the side of McMorrow. The rest is history as they say. Moving further back in time and five miles west of Sligo town there is a Cairn, reputedly Queen Maeve’s, on top of Knocknarea that dates 2,000 years before the ancient Egyptians built their Pyramids. And a few miles south east of that Cairn the tombs found in Carrow- more date further back still, making the North West a place that people have lived in some form of community for a very long time.
I’m mentioning all this because life seems long when you’re young...well... because you are young. A year when you’re five is a fifth of your life, and that’s an eternity. I’ve lived in Sligo most of my fifty years now and I’ve dipped a bit into the historyoftheplaceI’mfrom. IsupposeI
Photo by Donal Hackett
am more alert to my brief bit of space in time, to the brevity of history, walking the same streets I cycled as a child. Rather than the town being familiar and taken for granted, the fact I’ve been here a long time for me personally, helps me to keep alert to the bit of history I’m living in.
Sligo is a place whose stories reach further back into the past than any history books we have to hand. It really is no won- der that the place inspired Yeats so much.
But for me Sligo’s great attraction are not my memories of my time in here,
its history or the great beauty that is all pervasive, for me is the sea. My grandfa- ther sailed you see, and my father sailed, and as soon as I could ride my tricycle I sailed, we had no choice. It is difficult to describe the feeling of sailing small boats out into Sligo bay in windy weather on top of big waves looking back at the coast, or more frighteningly still, looking further out to sea. You can go out so far, and then you sense something of the vastness of the sea ahead and beneath you and if you are wise that’s when you turn for home. But that moment just before you do (turn for home) is an instant of transcendence that I am sure has been felt by countless people down through the ages, here in this place Sligo.
To end these words on my home a quote would be good! I am torn between Ratty and ‘there is nothing quite like messing about in boats’ and Mr Yeats ‘When I dream it is always of Ships’.
The author is Artistic Director of the Blue RaincoatTheatreCompany.HelivesinSligo.
26 November 2014
Irish Independent
Love Sligo: Niall Henry
Published by
Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Limited
27-32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1
Editor: Ciaran Byrne
Photographic contributors:
Donal Hackett, Christian McCleod, James Connolly, Suzy McCanny
Design: Susan McClean INM Design Studio, Belfast
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