Rosses Point

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Rosses Point
An Ros
Location
Location of Rosses Point
centerMap highlighting Rosses Point
Irish grid reference
G631401
Statistics
Province: Connacht
County: County Sligo
Elevation: <1 m
Population (2006) 872 

Rosses Point (Irish: An Ros) is a village in County Sligo, Ireland and also the name of the surrounding peninsula. The point guards Sligo Harbour and is marked by the Metal Man lighthouse, a 12 foot (3.7 m) high guardian statue placed offshore by local seafarers in 1821 and maintained by the Commissioners of Irish Lights.

Benbulben From Co. Sligo Golf Club
Benbulben From Co. Sligo Golf Club

Rosses Point is home to Co. Sligo Golf Club, which hosts the annual West of Ireland Championship and Sligo Yacht Club.

North of Rosses Point marine archeologists have recently uncovered a wreck of the Spanish Armada which was storm-driven upon this coast in September of 1588.

The poet William Butler Yeats and his brother, the artist Jack Butler Yeats, spent their summer holidays at Elsinore House, in Rosses Point.

Waiting On Shore monument
Waiting On Shore monument

The "Waiting on Shore" monument, appropriately situated near the RNLI lifeboat station, depicts a woman holding her arms out to sea. This sculpture reflects the age-old anguish of a seafaring people who watched and waited for the safe return of loved ones.
It is to honour the memory of those who sailed, or were lost at sea, that this woman, cast in bronze, stands:

"Lost at sea, lost at sea
Or in the evening tide
We loved you, we miss you
May God be with you abide".

Elsinore Lodge was the seat of the Middleton Family where the Yeats brothers spent many a summer with their cousins. The house was built by the pirate captain John Black (Black Jack), and it is still said to be haunted by him (he supposedly knocks at the window pane three times, which should prove quite difficult at this stage). The house has fallen into disrepair, and even though plans to restore it emerge in the press every now and then, nothing has been done so far.

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