Sligo Town Hall

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Sligo Town Hall
Halla Baile Shligigh
Sligo City Hall - geograph.org.uk - 4966417.jpg
Sligo Town Hall
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Sligo Town Hall
Location within Ireland
General information
Architectural style Lombard Romanesque style
AddressQuay Street
Town or city Sligo
Country Ireland
Coordinates 54°16′22″N8°28′33″W / 54.2729°N 8.4759°W / 54.2729; -8.4759
Completed1874
Design and construction
Architect(s) William Hague

Sligo Town Hall (Irish : Halla Baile Shligigh) is a municipal building in Quay Street, Sligo, County Sligo, Ireland. The building accommodated the offices of Sligo Borough Council until 2014.

Contents

History

Design and construction

Sligo Corporation resolved to commission a town hall in 1825: however, that scheme collapsed and for many years the corporation continued to rent an office for its meetings. In 1860, the corporation asked the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle, to support an application an HM Treasury for a contribution to the cost, [1] with the balance being financed by public subscription. [2] The site the corporation selected was occupied by an old fort which dated back to 1646, [3] [4] although archaeologists have suggested that it may have originally been the site of Sligo Castle which dated back to 1245. [5]

The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the mayor, William Abbott Woods, on 12 October 1865. [6] It was designed by William Hague in the Lombard Romanesque style, built by Crowe Brothers in rubble masonry with ashlar stone dressings at a cost of £6,863, and was opened for business in time for the a meeting of the council in July 1872. [7] Because of the very high standard of workmanship and associated cost over-runs, the building was not entirely complete until 1874. [8]

The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto Quay Street. The central bay featured an entrance, which was slightly projected forward, involving a round headed doorway flanked by colonnettes supporting an architrave and a keystone. The other bays on the ground floor and all bays on the first floor were fenestrated by round headed windows with architraves and alternating sandstone and limestone voussoirs. [9] At roof level, there was a modillioned cornice and a central three-stage tower with a round headed window in the first stage, clock faces in the second stage, and a belfry in the third stage, all surmounted by a pyramid-shaped roof with louvre dormers and octagonal-shaped iron cresting. The clock tower was built by a local contractor, Patrick Morris, and paid for by the Harbour Commissioners, on the basis that it gave them a good view of shipping entering and leaving the port. [10] The clock was designed and manufactured by James and Francis Nelson and installed in 1877. [11] Internally, the principal room was the assembly hall on the first floor which was 75.5 feet (23.0 m) long and 33 feet (10 m) wide. [8]

Later history

A public library was established in the town hall in September 1880, [12] and a caretaker's lodge, designed by William Cochrane and built by Denis McLynn, was erected to the south of the town hall in 1896. [10]

The assembly hall was a regular public events venue: a meeting of the Irish Trades Union Congress, at which Alexander Bowman was elected president, was held on the town hall in May 1901. [13] The Roman Catholic Priest, Michael O'Flanagan, delivered Irish language teaching in the town hall; he was a founding member and secretary of the Sligo Feis, at which the Irish nationalist, Padraig Pearse, gave a lecture titled "The Saving of a Nation" in the town hall in 1903. [14] Another Irish nationalist, Constance Markievicz, also attended the town hall to receive the Freedom of Sligo in August 1917. [15]

In September 1948, a guard of honour was posted outside the town hall as the body of the Irish poet, W. B. Yeats, was moved to the churchyard of St Columba's Church, Drumcliff. [16] A fine mural painted by Bernard McDonagh depicting the Wanderings of Oisin , created as a memorial to Yeats, was unveiled in the town hall in 1958. However, it was later taken down and placed in storage in the basement. [17]

A statue to commemorate the life of the Irish nationalist politician, P. A. McHugh, sculpted by Hanrahan of Dublin, was re-located from outside the post office in O'Connell Street, [18] to the front of the town hall in the 1970s. [19] [20]

An extensive programme of refurbishment works, which involved the creation of a five-bay extension to the rear, was completed in 2000. [10] The football managers, Sir Alex Ferguson and Jack Charlton, visited the town hall as part of a tribute to the Irish footballer, Sean Fallon in 2002. [21] [22] The assembly room continued to serve as the council chamber of Sligo Borough Council, [23] until the council was dissolved and administration of the town was amalgamated with Sligo County Council in 2014. [24] [25]

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References

  1. ↑ Wood-Martin, William Gregory (1892). History of Sligo, County and Town, From the close of the revolution of 1688 to the present time. Dublin: Hodges, Figgis and Company. p. 151.
  2. ↑ The Sligo Town Hall. The Dublin Builder. 1 December 1860. p. 375.
  3. ↑ Waters, Ross (1 October 2020). "Archaeological assessment of the proposed Sligo City Centre Public Realm Scheme, County Sligo" (PDF). Sligo County Council. p. 7. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  4. ↑ Archaeology in County Sligo. Highwood Community Resource Centre. 1998. p. 38. In 1646, money was allocated to construct the Stone Fort in the town, the site of which is now occupied by the Town Hall.
  5. ↑ Ulster Journal of Archaeology. Ulster Archaeological Society. 2003. p. 182. Sligo Castle – the footing of a wall is plausibly identified by Eoin Halpin in a report on excavations near the Town Hall in 2002
  6. ↑ Wood-Martin (1892). p. 154.
  7. ↑ "An introduction to the architectural heritage of County Sligo" (PDF). Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht. p. 58. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  8. 1 2 "1874: Town Hall, Sligo, County Sligo". Archiseek. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  9. ↑ "Sligo Town Hall, Quay Street, Rathedmond, Sligo, County Sligo". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 "Sligo Town Hall". Sligo Town. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  11. ↑ Duffy, Owen M. (2021). "Sligo Watch and Clockmakers". The Corran Herald. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  12. ↑ "Positive update given on plans for new library in Sligo". The Irish Independent. 22 May 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  13. ↑ Bowman, Terence (1997). People's Champion The Life of Alexander Bowman, Pioneer of Labour Politics in Ireland. Ulster Historical Foundation. p. 154. ISBN   978-0901905826.
  14. ↑ Carroll, Denis (2016). They Have Fooled You Again: Michael O'Flanagan (1876–1942) Priest, Republican, Social Critic. The Columba Press. ISBN   978-1782183006.
  15. ↑ "Constance Markievicz". Sligo Town. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
  16. ↑ Dawe, Gerald (2018). The Wrong Country Essays on Modern Irish Writing. Irish Academic Press. ISBN   978-1788550284.
  17. ↑ "Wandering Oisin goes missing!". The Irish Independent. 2 June 2004. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  18. ↑ Doughan, Christopher (2019). The Voice of the Provinces The Regional Press in Revolutionary Ireland, 1914–1921. Liverpool University Press. p. 115. ISBN   978-1786942258.
  19. ↑ "Bid to restore PA to his rightful place runs into a stone wall". Irish Independent . 11 November 2007. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  20. ↑ "McHugh Monument, Quay Street, Rathedmond, Sligo, County Sligo". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 23 October 2023.
  21. ↑ Sullivan, Stephen (2013). Sean Fallon: Celtic's Iron Man. Back Page Press. ISBN   978-1909430129.
  22. ↑ "When Ferguson and Big Jack flew in to Sligo for Sean". The Irish Independent. 22 January 2013. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  23. ↑ "What is to become of Sligo Town Hall?". Sligo Town. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  24. ↑ Local Government Reform Act 2014 , s. 24: Dissolution of town councils and transfer date ( No. 1 of 2014, s. 24 ). Enacted on 27 January 2014. Act of the Oireachtas .Retrieved from Irish Statute Book on 23 October 2023.
  25. ↑ Local Government Reform Act 2014 (Commencement of Certain Provisions) (No. 3) Order 2014 ( S.I. No. 214 of 2014 ). Signed on 22 May 2014by Phil Hogan , Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government . Statutory Instrument of the Government of Ireland .Retrieved from Irish Statute Book on 23 October 2023.
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