Sligo (Sligeach in Irish) is the County town of County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland. Sligo is not a City although there is a campaign to make it one and it is occasionally mistakenly and purposely promoted as a city. The town is a Borough and has a Charter and Mayor. It is the second biggest urban centre in Connacht, after Galway.
| Sligo Sligeach | |
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| Town population: | 18,473 (2002) |
| Rural population: | 1262 (2002) |
| Elevation: | 13 m |
| County: | Sligo |
| Province: | Connacht |
The Institute of Technology, Sligo is located in the town. Intercity train services to and from Dublin are provided by Iarnród Éireann, Ireland's national railway operator.
Sligo's Irish name - meaning "the place of shells" - comes from the fact that there was an abundance of shellfish in the river and its estuary. The river (now known as the Garavogue) was originally also called the Sligeach. 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". At that time shells were constantly being dug up during the construction of foundations for buildings. This whole area, from the river estuary of the "Shelly River", around the coast to the river at Ballysadare Bay was rich in marine resources and was a prime reason for large settlement of the region during the prehistoric period.
It is said that the picturesque Coney Island (coinín meaning rabbits in Irish) in Sligo bay gives its name to Coney Island in New York City. It was a Sligoman, Captain Peter O'Connor, who named New York's Coney Island after the island that lay one mile from his Sligo home. Captain O'Connor was master of the schooner Arethusa, which plied between Sligo and New York 200 years ago.
The poet W.B.Yeats is associated with Sligo.Much of his writing is descriptive of the area around Sligo town. In particular "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" is a reference to a small, uninhabited island on Lough Gill, which is a lake adjacent to the town. Yeats who spent much of his youth in Sligo and its environs, died in 1939 and is buried in the graveyard in Drumcliffe, County Sligo.