| County Sligo Contae Shligigh
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| Motto: Land of Heart's Desire | |||
| Country | Ireland | ||
| Province | Connacht | ||
| Dáil Éireann | Sligo-North Leitrim | ||
| EU Parliament | North-West | ||
| County seat | Sligo | ||
| Government | |||
| • Type | County Council | ||
| Area | |||
| • Total | 1,837 km2 (709.3 sq mi) | ||
| Area rank | 22nd | ||
| Population (2011) | 65,270 | ||
| • Rank | 26th | ||
| Car plates | SO | ||
| Website | www.sligococo.ie | ||
County Sligo (Irish: Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the town of Sligo. Sligo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 65,270 according to the 2011 census. An archaeological recovery suggests the county may have been one of the earliest places of human settlement in Ireland.[1]
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Sligo is the 22nd largest of Ireland's 32 counties in area and 26th largest in terms of population.[2] It is the fourth largest of Connacht's 5 counties in size and third largest in terms of population.
Sligo County Council is the governing body for the county. It is divided into five Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) Ballymote, Dromore, Sligo-Drumcliffe, Sligo-Strandhill and Tubbercurry. There are 25 members elected to Sligo County Council.
Sligo is part of the Sligo-North Leitrim constituency and has three representatives (TD's) in Dáil Éireann, Tony McLoughlin (FG), John Perry (FG) and Michael Colreavy (SF). It also has two representatives to Seanad Éireann, Marc MacSharry and Geraldine Feeney.
The county was formed in 1585. Its boundaries broadly reflect the contemporary Ó Conchobhair Sligigh lordship of Irish: Íochtar Connacht (Lower Connacht). The megalithic cemetery of Carrowmore is located in County Sligo. It forms part of a huge complex of Stone Age remains connecting Carrowkeel in South Sligo to the Ox Mountains, to the Cuil Irra Peninsula, where Queen Maeve's tomb dominates the skyline from the crest of Knocknarea Mountain.
The poet and Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) spent much of his childhood in northern Sligo and the county's landscapes (particularly the Isle of Innisfree, in Lough Gill) were the inspiration for much of his poetry. Yeats said, "the place that has really influenced my life most is Sligo." He is buried in North County Sligo, "Under Ben Bulben", in Drumcliffe.
County Sligo has a long history of traditional music. The south of the county is particularly noted with such musical luminaries as James Morrison, Michael Coleman, Paddy Killoran, Fred Finn , Peter Horan, Joe O'Dowd, Jim Donoghue, Martin Wynne, Oisín Mac Diarmada (of Téada), tin-whistle player Carmel Gunning and the band Dervish. The county has many traditional music festivals and one of the most well known is the Queen Maeve International Summer School, a traditional Irish Music summer school of music and dance which is held annually in August in Sligo Town. On the more contemporary music scene there are Westlife, Tabby Callaghan and The Conway Sisters who are from Sligo. Strandhill, about 9 km west of Sligo, hosts the Strandhill Guitar Festival [1] each year, featuring a wide variety of guitar music and musicians.
| Historical populations | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
| 1659 | 6,877 | — |
| 1821 | 146,229 | +2026.3% |
| 1831 | 171,765 | +17.5% |
| 1841 | 180,886 | +5.3% |
| 1851 | 128,515 | −29.0% |
| 1861 | 124,845 | −2.9% |
| 1871 | 115,493 | −7.5% |
| 1881 | 111,578 | −3.4% |
| 1891 | 98,013 | −12.2% |
| 1901 | 84,083 | −14.2% |
| 1911 | 79,045 | −6.0% |
| 1926 | 71,388 | −9.7% |
| 1936 | 67,447 | −5.5% |
| 1946 | 62,375 | −7.5% |
| 1951 | 60,513 | −3.0% |
| 1956 | 56,850 | −6.1% |
| 1961 | 53,561 | −5.8% |
| 1966 | 51,263 | −4.3% |
| 1971 | 50,275 | −1.9% |
| 1979 | 54,610 | +8.6% |
| 1981 | 55,474 | +1.6% |
| 1986 | 56,046 | +1.0% |
| 1991 | 54,756 | −2.3% |
| 1996 | 55,821 | +1.9% |
| 2002 | 58,200 | +4.3% |
| 2006 | 60,894 | +4.6% |
| 2011 | 65,270 | +7.2% |
| [3][4][5][6][7][8] | ||
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