Tourism in Sligo

Tourist Attractions

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Tourism in Sligo is based on many different attractions. Most famous are those associated with the poet W. B. Yeats. Drumcliffe Churchyard where he is buried attracts many visitors. His tombstone bears the epitaph which he wrote himself :

Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death.
Horseman pass by!

Yeats Grave

W.B. Yeats' tombstone in Drumcliffe Churchyard

Copyright Sligo County Library.

Yeats Grave
Copyright Sligo County Library.

Yeats Grave

W.B. Yeats' tombstone in Drumcliffe Churchyard

Copyright Sligo County Library.

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Lough Gill is famous nowadays because it contains Innisfree which Yeats celebrates in his poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree".
 

The Gore-Booth Estate.
Copyright Sligo County Library

Lissadell is another tourist site in County Sligo. It is famous as the home of Constance Gore-Booth who became Countess Markievicz and her sister, the poet Eva. Lissadell, from the Irish, Lios an Doill - Fort of the Blind Man, situated in north Co. Sligo was once a thriving demesne of 3,000 acres, part of the huge estate of 30,000 acres belonging to the Gore-Booth family.

Lissadell features in one of Yeat's poems called, In memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz. He writes about his memory of the two sisters:

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows, open to the South,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.