Sligo Information
We have separated the information into town, country, and general information sections
A Brief History of Sligo Town
| Sligo History | |
|---|---|
| 8000 - 6000 BC | Mesolithic peoples arrive in Ireland. |
| 4370 BC | earliest dating Carrowmore Megalithic cemetery |
| 3930 - 3520 BC | dating of Rathdooney Beg Neolithic site. Neolithic settlers arrive in Ireland around 3500BC, and bring ideas of pastoral farming |
| 400 BC - 400 AD | Iron age sees the development and use of ring forts, through the Bronze age 200BC |
| 250 BC | thought to be the time that the Celts start to arrive |
| 400 - 600 AD | Christianity comes to Ireland…St Patrick |
| C6th | St Molaise founds the monastic settlement of Inishmurray |
| C7th | St Fechins church founded. Defensive hill forts are constructed in the C7th and C8th. |
| C9th | Vikings attack and sack coastal areas and gradually settle areas |
| 814 AD | Dublin founded by Viking settlers |
| 1190AD | Normans arrive in Ireland. They will bring with them new ideas, laws, business and soon start to establish towns. The old Celtic world is about to change. |
| C13th | Sligo Town is mentioned as a settlement. It starts its development as a port of consequence for agricultural goods to Britain and the Europe. Fortresses and castles appear throughout Ireland. |
| 1235 AD | Anglo Norman invasions of Connacht. Local chieftains are overcome. |
| 1245 AD | Maurice Fitzgerald (chief justice of Ireland) is granted lands in Sligo and Builds the castle at Sligo. In 1252 he builds the Dominican Friary, later to become Sligo Abbey. |
| C14th | Ballindoon Abbey founded and the Friary in Sligo burns down. |
| 1310 AD | Richard de Burgo, Red Earl of Ulster, builds a new castle and stars to plan the layout of the town. |
| 1315 AD | The O’Donnells destroy the castle. |
| 1540 AD | Irish Inheritance laws are replaced by English. |
| C16th | Wars against Queen Elizabeth I destroy most of Sligo Town. |
| 1588 AD | Spanish Armada founders off the Sligo coast at Streedagh Point. |
| 1596 AD | Irish rebellion led by Red Hugh O’Donnell. |
| 1609 AD | Plantation Laws followed by the arrival in Sligo of English and Scottish settlers. |
| C17th | Sligo is given the right to hold markets and fairs, indicating its growth as a port and as a fishing centre. 1612 proclaimed a town. |
| 1641 AD | Parliamentary forces under Sir Frederick Hamilton attack town and destroy amongst other things the Friary. |
| 1642 AD | Sligo jail is stormed and many are killed.Most British decide to leave. |
| 1645 AD | Cromwellian forces capture the town. By the 1650s almost all land had been confiscated from Catholic landowners, only in Connacht was some left for the displaced who had not fled ’…to hell or to Connacht’. The Cromwellian Plantations begin. |
| 1689 AD | Williamite forces seize the town but it is retaken by supporters of King James. 1690 Battle of the Boyne William of Orange defeats James II. Flight of the Wild Geese. |
| 1695 - 1727 AD | Penal Laws enforced. |
| 1730 AD | St Johns (Protestant) Cathedral built. |
| 1798 AD | French force under General de Humbert lands at Killala Bay, Mayo, to support the Rising of the United Irishmen under the leadership of Wolf Tone. Defeated at the Battle of Longford.The force winds its way throughout the west and northwest of Ireland. |
| 1800 AD | Act of Union |
| 1826 AD | Catholic Emancipation |
| 1829 AD | Roman Catholics are allowed to sit in parliament. |
| 1831 AD | National school system introduced |
| 1832 AD | Cholera epidemic. Amongst the witnesses was Charlotte Thonley, mother of Bram Stoker. |
| 1845 - 49 AD | Great Famine. There were various famine times over the years, but this is regarded as the last great subsistence food crisis in Western Europe. It is estimated that in these years alone about one million died and the same amount emigrated. In Sligo alone the population was reduced by about one third through death and emigration. There were about 30,000 victims of the Great Famine. In a twenty year period around the time of the Famine some 60,000 people emigrated through Sligo Port, mainly to the USA. |
| 1862 onwards | Development of the railways and the expansion of towns such as Sligo. WB Yeats born Dublin. Foundation of National Land League by Micheal Davitt. |
| 1879 - 82 | The Land Wars and time of Boycott. |
| 1884 | GAA founded. |
| By the end of the C19 Sligo Town is a centre for economic activity in the north west. | |
| 1903 | Land Purchase Act for tenants |
| 1916 | Easter Rising, Constance Makievicz arrested and tried. Death sentence commuted. |
| 1918 | Countess Markievicz wins a seat in parliament as the Sinn Fein candidate for Dublin. She is the first woman to be elected to Parliament. |
| 1919 - 21 | War of Independence |
| 1921 | Anglo-Irish Treaty |
| 1923 | Yeats wins Nobel Prize for Literature |
| 1928 | Sligo Rovers founded. |
| 1939 | Yeats dies in France. In 1948 he is reburied at Drumcliff. |
| 1957 | Last residents of Inishmurray leave |
| 1973 | Ireland joins EU |
| 1979 | Pope John Paul II visits Ireland |
| 1986 | Knock Airport opens |
| 1988 | Archaeological surveys reveal extent of Knocknashee ‘hill of the fairies’. |
| 2001 - 2 | Excavations reveal and identify wrecks of the Spanish Armada. |
| 2007 | In county football Sligo’s mens team win the provincial championship for the first time in thirty eight years. |
