4 Best Sights in Sligo Town, The Northwest

The main attraction at the Model, housed in a school built in 1862, is one of Ireland's largest collections of works by 20th-century artists from home and abroad, as well as a stunning collection of artwork acquired by the gallery in 2018. Each year, the Model displays six curated exhibitions from its collection, frequently featuring work by famed Irish painter Jack B. Yeats, who once said, "I never did a painting without putting a thought of Sligo in it." At the heart of the collection is the work amassed by the woman whose name the gallery now bears, Nora Niland, who was the Sligo librarian from 1945 until the late 1970s, and who recognized the importance of Jack B.'s work. Only a small selection of this work is on display at any time, but you can view the whole collection on the Model's website. Paintings such as The Funeral of Harry Boland and A Political Meeting (In the West of Ireland) by John Yeats (father of Jack B. and W. B.), who had a considerable reputation as a portraitist, also hang here on a rotating basis, as does work by Sean Keating and Paul Henry. In 2018, a mystery donor, who bought items from a Yeats family collection auction in London, donated eight artworks—six paintings and two sketches—to the gallery. It includes what is regarded as John Yeats's masterpiece, his oil on canvas, Self-Portrait, New York, which at £87,500 was the most valuable item in the auction. The donation also included drawings and portraits by the artist of his children; William, Susan, Elizabeth, and Jack.

Paintings from the Niland collection are cherry-picked and previously unseen work turns up occasionally from elsewhere; visitors should phone to confirm any work in particular that they want to view. In 2019, the Model received The Race Card Seller, a characterful early work by Jack B. from the Office of the Taoiseach in Dublin. It is due to remain on loan to the gallery for several years and is expected to be on display until 2022 or beyond. The Model also has a 180-seat cinema with a program run in conjunction with the Sligo Film Society, and a good café. The Yeats Secret Garden, an enclosed wildflower area behind the gallery, is open to the public. It represents W. B. Yeats's vision in his poem Lake Isle of Innisfree of a secret hideaway and comes complete with a clay-plastered cabin, representing his dream of building a small cabin "of clay and wattles made".  

A massive stone complex famed for its medieval tomb sculptures, Sligo Abbey is the town's only existing relic of the Middle Ages. Maurice FitzGerald erected the structure for the Dominicans in 1253. After a fire in 1414, it was extensively rebuilt, only to be destroyed again by Cromwell's Puritans under the command of Sir Frederick Hamilton, in 1642. Today the abbey consists of a ruined nave, aisle, transept, and tower. Some fine stonework remains, especially in the 15th-century cloisters. In the cloister east ambulatory, you'll find a love knot, which is said to represent the bond between earthly and spiritual love. Local custom holds that it is a wishing stone so be sure to touch it and make a wish as you pass. The visitor center is the base for 30-minute guided tours, which are included with admission.

The showpiece of this museum is its Yeats Room, which houses a collection of W. B. Yeats's writings from 1889 to 1936, various editions of his plays and prose (make an appointment in advance to view these), and the Irish tricolor (flag) that draped his coffin when he was buried at nearby Drumcliff. Letters from his muse, the writer Ethel Manning, and from his brother Jack B. to his mother are on display. Three framed pieces of needlework by his sister Lily Yeats, who was an embroiderer associated with the Celtic Revival, can also be viewed. After Sligo Borough Council was dissolved in 2014, two solid silver maces, which were used to accompany the mayor during public ceremonies, were presented to the museum. Now on display in a glass cabinet, they bear the Irish hallmark for the years 1702–03 and depict the emblems of Ireland (harp), England (rose), Scotland (thistle), and France (fleur-de-lis).

The Yeats Society made major updates to its imposing building on Hyde Bridge in 2018, reinventing the displays for a fresh new experience all carried out in time for the 60th-anniversary celebrations the following year. A stylish permanent exhibition, Yeats and the Western World, honors the poet, providing an insight into the influence that both the Irish West and North America played in W. B. Yeats's life and work. The poet visited Canada and the United States on five occasions, lunching with President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington and speaking to members of the Press Club, Authors' Club, and the Arts Club. The exhibition also features a mock-up of an Edwardian drawing room, including the desk owned by the Yeatses' sister Lily.

In 2019, the Society was gifted a significant acquisition of a previously unseen color film of Yeats's funeral in Sligo in 1948. Although the poet died in France in January 1939, his remains were repatriated nearly a decade later to their final resting place in Drumcliff churchyard. The amateur footage, filmed by musician Jimmy Garvey, who never published it, was discovered in a box and passed to his nephew who donated it to the Society. The three-minute film shows local dignitaries, clergymen, and members of the Yeats family (including W. B.'s brother Jack) at Drumcliff and is now a permanent and treasured part of the exhibition.

The society appointed Dan Mulhall, Irish ambassador to the United States, as its new honorary president in 2019. He has had a lifelong love of Yeats's poetry and has spoken at the summer school on several occasions. The building remains an active hub for lectures, poetry readings, discussion, and literary events, and is home to the Yeats International Summer School conducted here every August since 1959. On the first floor, a gallery hosts a rotating exhibition of contemporary art. Research scholars can explore the Yeats Reference Library, which has more than 3,000 titles. While the ground floor café is currently shut, the Yeats Building is within walking distance of cafés, pubs, and restaurants.