• The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception dominates the Sligo skyline.
• It opened on the 26th July, 1874 by Cardinal Paul Cullen of Dublin, the Cathedral was consecrated on the 1st July, 1897 and dedicated in honour of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
• The Diocese of Elphin again had a Cathedral after a three hundred-year lapse in the wake of the Elizabethan Reformation.
• The man responsible for the building of the Cathedral was Bishop Laurence Gillooly. Born near Roscommon he studied in Paris before ordination as a Vincentian Priest in 1847.
• The three-faced clock tower, designed by Gillet & Bland of London in 1877, is one of the finest examples of a nineteenth-century turret clock, and the carillon, comprising nine bells, has few comparable to it in Ireland.
• The largest weighs 1,456 kg, and is dedicated to Our Lady. All the bells are beautifully decorated with the harp and shamrock and the chimes are a familiar sound to all Sligo natives.
  
  

• Sligo Abbey (Irish: Mainistir Shligigh), a ruined abbey in Sligo, Ireland.
• Officially called the Dominican Friary of Sligo
• Originally built in 1253 by the order of Maurice Fitzgerald, Baron of Offaly.
• It was destroyed in 1414 by a fire, ravaged during the Nine Years' War in 1595 and once more in 1641 during the Ulster Uprising.
• The friars moved out in the 18th century, but Lord Palmerston restored the Abbey in the 1850s. Currently, it is open to the public.
   

Francisco de Cuellar was a sea captain who sailed with the Spanish Armada in 1588. After being ship-wrecked on the coast of Ireland he was given refuge at O'Rourke's Castle. De Cuellar eventually returned to Spain and wrote about O'Rourke's hospitality. In 1590 the English heard of this and sent forces to destroy the tower house, O'Rourke fled but was eventually captured tried for treason and executed in 1591. In 1628 the 15th century tower house built here by O'Rourke was demolished down to it's foundation by English settler Captain Robert Parke, he used the stones to build a fortified 3-storey manor house on the eastern side of the bawn.

The Plantation castle forms the eastern side of the defensive walls that were once surrounded by a moat - a portion of which is still visible. The castle has been carefully restored by the OPW to include window glazing and a mortise and tenon Irish oak roof using techniques and craftsmanship of the 17th Century.

Distance from St Angela’s: 5km
Link: http://www.sligotown.net/parkes-castle.shtml
 

• A monument in memory of the late P. A. McHugh (1859-1909), owner of the Sligo Champion, Mayor of Sligo and MP for North Sligo, was erected in a prominent position outside the Post Office in Sligo town in 1916.
• The monument was officially dedicated on Sunday 29 October.John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party attended and spoke but the statue was actually unveiled by John Jinks, Mayor of Sligo, who had been the prime mover in having it erected.
• The life-size figure of McHugh, in Cararra marble, is the work of sculptor, Joseph Hanrahan, North Strand, Dublin. The lower base is of Newry granite and the upper base is of Ballisodare limestone. Anthony Scott, Dublin, architect, designed the monument. The grotesque carving at the top of the pedestal is the work of Shortall, Dublin, possibly Michael J. Shortall.
• The foundation stone had been laid on St Patrick's Day 1912.
• To the right of Sligo Town Hall stands a statue of Mr P.A. McHugh who was Mayor of Sligo in 1888, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898 and 1900 and also a Member of Parliament for North Leitrim in 1892.
  
  

Distance from St Angela’s: 7.3 km
Link: http://www.sligotown.net/p-a-mchugh.shtml

• Mass Rock at Masshill approx 10 Kms from Tubbercurry.
• The Mass Rock was the local site for gatherings to say mass during penal times when the practice of Roman Catholicism was outlawed, there is a statue of Saint Patrick here and mass is still said here towards the end of June and at Easter time each year.
• The statue was placed there to commemorate the 100 anniversary of Catholic emancipation, when the Penal laws were lifted.
• A Cycle way from Tubbercurry town to Mass Rock is now available.
  
  

• Markievicz House, originally called Charlemont House, was built in 1885 at a cost of £3,000 by Sligo merchant and brewer Charles Anderson.
• After Charles Anderson’s death in 1886 William and Elizabeth Pollexfen, the maternal grandparents of William and Jack Butler Yeats leased the residence which has commanding views of Sligo Bay
• The house afforded William Pollexfen, a merchant and owner of the Sligo Steam Navigation Company, a perfect vantage for viewing his fleet.
• Both WB and Jack B spent summer holidays at the house. Several of the poet's extant letters carry this address while Jack B painted his many scenes of Sligo harbour from there.
• In 1912 the property, renamed Ardmore House, was bought on behalf of the Incorporated Society and converted into a Girls High School.
• It was later used as a TB sanatorium having been bought by Sligo County Council for £6,000 in 1948.
  
  

Distance from St Angela’s: 7.2 km

• The house was built between 1830 and 1835.
• Lissadell house is a Greek Revival style detached nine-bay, two-storey over basement mansion, the last one in this style to be built in Ireland.
• Constructed of Ballysadare limestone with finely jointed ashlar walling. An entrance front is on the north with a three-bay pedimented central projection, originally open to east and west to form porte-cochere.
• Lissadell was the first country house in Ireland to have an independent gas supply piped into the property.
• The estate was formed from land granted in the early 17th century to the Elizabethan soldier Sir Paul Gore for his services to the English crown during the Nine Years' War.
• The land was confiscated from ecclesiastical lands belonging to the monastery of Drumcliff and the Lords of Ó Conchobhair Sligigh and the Ó hAirt chiefs of the territory.
• Lissadell is famous as the childhood home of Constance Markievicz, her sister Eva Gore-Booth and her brother Josslyn Gore-Booth.
• Constance was one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, and was the first woman to be elected to Dáil Eireann, where she served as Minister for Labour (thus becoming the first woman minister in a modern Western European democracy)
  
  

• Overlooking the Market Cross, one of Sligo Town's busier shopping areas, is the Lady Erin Monument, which was erected in 1899 to honour the centenary celebrations for the lost Sligo heroes who had fought in the Insurrection of 1798.
• Designed by the Dublin sculptor Herbert G. Barnes, the memorial, which is over sixteen feet high, was unveiled on September 3rd 1898 in front of a crowd of several thousand people.
• The Lady Erin Monument also serves as a marker to signify the centric 1 mile maker to distinguish between the areas of Sligo Borough Council and Sligo County Council. A circle, with the statue at it's centre and stretching out 1 mile (1.6k) encompasses an area of 3,143 acres, the official responsibility land mass of Sligo Borough Council.
• Should this official marker ever be moved, it would undoubtedly result in numerous claims costing several millions of euros in land boundary disputes.
  
  

Distance from St Angela’s: 7.5 km
Link: http://www.sligotown.net/lady-erin.shtml

• Killaspugbrone is the ruins of an ancient church with an adjoining cemetery that rests on the extremity of the headland behind the airport at Strandhill.
• This church is the oldest church of the Barony of Carbury: which stretches from Sligo to Mullaghmore.
• It is said the chapel was originally enclosed in a cashel.
• It is likely the present ruin dates from the eleventh or twelfth centuries rather than being the ruins of the original church erected in the fifth century.
• The place name Killaspugbrone is based on three Irish words; Kill from cill meaning church, aspug from easbog meaning bishop, and Brón was the name of St Patrick’s disciple.
• This important Christian settlement was founded in the fifth century by St Patrick who gave the church to his disciple Bishop Bronus.
• Bishop Brón was a native of the Coolera area and held a special place in the affections of St Patrick because he helped propagate the new Christian faith.
  
  

Distance from St Angela’s: 17km
Link: http://gostrandhill.com/explore/history/killaspugbrone/

• Inishmurray (Irish: Inis Muireadheach, meaning "Muireadheach's island") is an uninhabited island situated 7 km (4 mi) off the coast of County Sligo, Ireland.
• The island covers .9 square kilometres
• There are remains of an early Irish monastic settlement. Laisrén (Saint Molaise) Mac Decláin reputedly founded a monastery here in the 6th century. He was confessor of Saint Columba (Colmcille) after the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne on the mainland nearby. His feast day is the 12 August.
• The island's ecclesiastical settlement was attacked in 807 by the Vikings
• The enclosure wall is impressive - reaching 4.5 metres (15 ft) in height at its highest point and up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) thick.
• The site contains various ecclesiastical buildings including enclosures, a stone-roofed oratory, two churches, a clochan, a large beehive-shaped cell, a holy well and other remains including cross slabs suggesting foreign influences.
• The whole complex is composed of what is probably local sandstone rubble.
  
  

Distance from St Angela’s: 31.3 km (to ferry)
Link: http://www.inishmurrayislandtrips.com/