OVER the next fortnight Sligo will host the Cairde Arts Festival (July 6-13) with a wide array of events including visual art, photography, music, theatre, literature, poetry, circus, and dance — indeed, all the nooks and crannies of Irish culture. Following on from that, the Yeats Summer School, now celebrating its 65th iteration, runs July 11-19. Talks by noted authors such as Fergal Keane (BBC) are interspersed with boat trips on The Lake Isle of Innisfree and a guided tour up Knocknaree.
In autumn there’s the Sligo International Music Festival, featuring the likes of the Paul Brady Trio, The Felice Brothers and many more. But you don’t need to be a festival-goer to appreciate Sligo. Situated at the mouth of the Garavogue River, Sligo town is the handsome hilly capital of the county, nowadays with a reputation of being a place where the traditional and the bohemian have combined into an attractive mix.
The newly redeveloped Queen Maeve Square, right on the banks of the Garavogue, is a lovely place to watch Connacht life dander by. The south of the county is a paradise for walkers, climbers and general view-addicts — in this corner of the county a largely rural way of life manages to hang on despite the encroachments of the modern world. And of course there is a well-trodden tourist trail dedicated to William Butler Yeats — whose name even sounds like a line of poetry.
Benbulben (sometimes Ben Bulben), Lough Gill (aka the Lake Isle of Innisfree), and of course Dru.
