Sligo Abbey – 13th-century friary ruins

Overview

Sligo Abbey is the only medieval building left standing in the centre of Sligo: a roofless Dominican friary, founded in 1253 and now hemmed in by the streets that grew up around it. Maurice FitzGerald, then Justiciar of Ireland, built it to pray for the soul of Richard Marshal, and for three centuries a community of friars preached and taught here. What survives – the church, the slender tower, three sides of the cloister and a scatter of carved tombs – is in the care of the Office of Public Works and open seasonally.

If you only have ten minutes, go straight to the high altar and the cloister. Both are rarer than the abbey’s modest size lets on.

History

FitzGerald’s foundation had a hard run of it. Over three centuries the friary was burned, exempted, plundered and finally emptied:

• 1414 – an accidental fire gutted much of the buildings. Rebuilding began in 1416 under Prior Brian, who had the church and cloister back in use within two years.
• 1568 – Elizabeth I exempted the abbey from the Dissolution of the Monasteries, on the condition that the friars become secular priests.
• 1595 – during Tyrone’s Rebellion, Sir Richard Bingham stripped the abbey’s timber to build a siege tower against Sligo Castle, wrecking the rood screen in the process.
• 1642 – Sir Frederick Hamilton burned the convent during the Irish Confederate Wars, killing several of the friars.
• 1698 – the Banishment Act drove the last Dominicans out to Spain, leaving the abbey empty.

Friars drifted back in the 1700s, but the buildings were past saving. By the 1800s the grounds had become the town’s main burial ground, overwhelmed during the 1832 cholera epidemic and finally closed to interments in 1847. The Office of Public Works took on the ruins in the early 20th century, cleared the overgrowth and shored up what stood, which is why you can walk through them today.

What to see

The church and tower

The church walls rise to a broken parapet, and the 15th-century tower sits on tall pointed arches, so that it seems to hang over the join between nave and choir. The roof is long gone, which on a clear day is no loss: the open nave frames the cloister on one side and the rooftops of the town on the other.

The cloister

Three sides of the cloister still stand, each arcade carried on slender double-column pillars under low barrel vaults. The pointed arches show the later Gothic hand at work while keeping an older Romanesque rhythm. It is the most complete part of the abbey, and the best place to get a sense of how the friars actually lived.

The high altar

This is the one to seek out. The carved 15th-century high altar is one of very few sculpted altars surviving in situ in any Irish monastic church – most were smashed at the Reformation – and it still carries its cusped arches and foliage reliefs. Small, weathered, easy to walk past; also the single most unusual thing on the site.

The carved tombs

• O’Craian altar tomb – a late-Gothic tomb of 1506, set in a niche in the north wall of the nave, commemorating Cormac O’Craian and his wife Johanna.
• O’Connor monument – a Renaissance-style relief of 1624 showing Sir Donogh O’Connor and his wife kneeling in prayer. O’Connor was the man who secured the abbey’s exemption back in 1568.

The visitor centre

The small visitor centre holds a copy of Charlotte Thornley’s diary, a first-hand account of the 1832 cholera epidemic and the mass graves it filled – including her conviction that some victims were buried alive. Charlotte was the mother of Dracula author Bram Stoker, and she told him these stories as a child; the gothic dread in his novel started here, in a Sligo graveyard.

The abbey has a second literary thread. W.B. Yeats set his 1897 short story The Curse of the Fires and of the Shadows at the abbey, dramatising Sir Frederick Hamilton’s 1642 burning and the supernatural retribution that catches up with his soldiers. Yeats himself is buried a few miles north at Drumcliff, in the shadow of Benbulben.

Practical information

Opening hours

The abbey is closed outside these periods; check the official site for any seasonal updates.

Admission

Admission is free to holders of the OPW Heritage Card. Tickets are bought at the on-site desk, and card payment is accepted. If you plan to visit a few OPW sites around the north-west, the card pays for itself quickly.

Getting there

The abbey is on Abbey Street, a short walk from Sligo’s main bus station and the train station. There is on-street parking nearby and a larger paid car park directly opposite the entrance, with a bike rack by the visitor centre.

Accessibility

There is a wheelchair-accessible toilet and limited wheelchair access to the ground-level church and cloister walkways. Be aware that the stone surfaces are uneven and some steps are missing, so full access is restricted for anyone with mobility difficulties. Assistance dogs are welcome. The OPW publishes a downloadable social guide with detailed accessibility notes.

One practical caveat: the abbey has no roof, so a wet Sligo day means a wet visit – bring a coat rather than an umbrella for the open nave.

Contact

• Website: https://heritageireland.ie/visit/places-to-visit/sligo-abbey/
• Phone: +353 71 914 6406
• Email: sligoabbey@opw.ie

Nearby

The Yeats Building and the Sligo County Museum are both a short walk away in Sligo town. With more time, Lough Gill, the Benbulben Forest walk and Knocknarea are all within about 15 minutes by car.

One last note for trip-planning: the abbey shuts from the end of December until mid-March, so a deep-winter visit means viewing it through the railings from Abbey Street.