Yeats in Sligo

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WB Yeats is widely celebrated in Sligo. He always acknowledged the inspiration he drew from his beloved Sligo landscape across five decades of his writing.

In 2019 Yeats Society Sligo produced a short film ‘To Paradise’ that celebrates some of Nobel Poet WB Yeats’ most beautiful poems and their links with Sligo – his spiritual home.

Yeats Unwrapped in Sligo

Use our app to explore the majesty of Sligo landscape, which inspired the poet WB Yeats all his life.

The app includes photos, video and poetry recitals, all of which will enhance your journey. Trails can be walked, cycled or driven and take you around all of county Sligo to places that Yeats knew and loved. The trails include walks through forests, by the sea and up mountains.

This app makes use of GPS to show you places of interest close to your current location.

Download via the App Store or Google Play.

Yeats sites in Sligo Town

Rowan Gillespie’s statue of WB Yeats stands outside the Ulster Bank at Hyde Bridge in the centre of town.

Pollexfen House – on the corner of Wine Street was the headquarters of the Sligo Steamship Company, owned by William Pollexfen, WB’s grandfather.

Sligo Abbey, Abbey Street, is a 13th century abbey, now in ruins. One of WB Yeats most famous short stories, The Curse of the Fire and the Shadows, was based on a true event that took place in Sligo Abbey in 1642, when the Abbey was destroyed.

St John’s Cathedral, John Street, is the burial place of WB Yeats’ brother Robert, who died in Sligo, aged 3. It also houses the graves of Yeats’ maternal grandparents, William and Elizabeth Pollexfen. His parents, John and Susan were married in the Cathedral in 1863.

The Model houses contemporary art, including a collection of Jack B Yeats work. Jack was WB Yeats younger brother and a very well established artist.

Try Sligo Food Trail for cafés, bars and restaurants in Sligo.