We spent a day and a half in Sligo on our drive north towards Donegal. The town seemed a bit of a mish-mash to me: small, congested and mostly un-renovated. The River Garavogue that runs through the middle of the town from Lough Gill is only 2 miles long, yet is definitely a river, not a stream.
The Glass House is massively out of place in Sligo but served a good dinner
Sligo is home to lots of swans with their fluffy cygnets
Grandmother Una would have loved this writing table from the Yates family. And probably have enjoyed Maeve's Bar as well.
After visiting some Sligo museums, especially at the Yates Society, we toured the Sligo Abbey where the ruins impressed us greatly. The grounds have been thoughtfully arranged to make the remaining walls seem far removed from the busy town outside. The stone high altar and the cloister arcade are highlights.
Leaving Sligo and driving northeast, we found the highest waterfall in Ireland in full flow. The Devil's Chimney tumbles from an impressive scarp on the south side of Benbulben.
After our scramble up the hillside to approach the waterfall, we drove to the shores of Lough Gill, the source of the Garavogue, where we toured Parke's Castle, a fairly large and well-restored fortification on the lakeshore.
The next morning at the start of our drive north to Donegal, we attempted to climb Benbulben, one of our goals for this trip to Ireland. Wind-driven clouds hung over the mountain for our start at Luke's Bridge. Still, it looked favorable and we climbed up beside the rushing burn to where we could see it cascading down the back of Benbulben, a twin to the Devil's Chimney falls. But we were thwarted by wind and wet squelching bog before we could reach the foot of the falls so we turned back with a final look at the turf works and the wind-lashed grasses and oncoming rain.
Full photo album for Sligo 2026
2026 Overview | Speyside Walk | ← Previous | Next -> |