page_title: Sligo
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Sligo / History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Original photograph taken by me in June 2006
context_page_description: Sligo is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of approximately 20,000 in 2016, it is the second largest urban centre in the West of Ireland, with only Galway being larger. The Sligo Borough District constitutes 61% of the county's population of 63,000.
  Sligo is a historic, cultural, commercial, industrial, retail and service centre of regional importance in the West of Ireland, and is served by rail, port and road links. Sligo is also a tourist destination, being situated on the Wild Atlantic Way, with many literary and cultural associations.
context_section_description: The town suffered badly from a cholera outbreak in 1832. Scholars speculate that Bram Stoker, whose mother Charlotte Blake Thornley was probably (there are no records and the family lived in both Sligo and Ballyshannon) born in Sligo in 1818 and experienced the epidemic first hand, was influenced by her stories when he wrote his famous novel, Dracula. The family lived on Correction Street in the town. After fleeing to Ballyshannon, Charlotte wrote
  At the end of that time, we were able to live in peace till the plague had abated and we could return to Sligo. There, we found the streets grass-grown and five-eighths of the population dead. We had great reason to thank God who had spared us.
  — Charlotte Thornley Stoker
  The Great Famine between 1847 and 1851 caused over 30,000 people to emigrate through the port of Sligo. On the Quays, overlooking the Garavogue River, is a cast bronze memorial to the emigrants. This is one of a suite of three sculptures commissioned by the Sligo Famine Commemoration Committee to honour the victims of the Great Famine.
  A plaque in the background tells one family's sad story:
  I am now, I may say, alone in the world. All my brothers and sisters are dead and children but yourself... We are all ejected out of Mr. Enright's ground... The times was so bad and all Ireland in such a state of poverty that no person could pay rent. My only hope now rests with you, as I am without one shilling and as I said before I must either beg or go to the poorhouse... I remain your affectionate father, Owen Larkin. Be sure answer this by return of post.
  — 'Letter to America, 2 January 1850'
caption: Sligo Famine Memorial on the quays
exif: {}