Category: sligo

A Dawn Paddle in South Sligo

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Today I was up and about with the dawn chorus at 4am. I love exploring and when I heard that Wild Wet Adventures were doing a dawn kayak at Temple House Lake in South Sligo I booked my place.

The rain was gently falling when I arrived but this is Ireland so you expect rain at some stage. The best thing is that the weather can change in a few minutes and put a whole new perspective on things.

It was an amazing morning, just us and the swans on the lake, the sheep watching us from their neighbouring fields, fish jumping and the sounds of bird song and the gentle lapping of the water. If ever you want some time to just relax this is the perfect way to do it.

Heading into the blue, alone in my thoughts, just enjoying the moment. What a fantastic way to spend a Saturday morning – or in fact any morning.

Under Temple House bridge which I have driven over hundreds of times but seeing it from a completely new angle. John from Wild Wet Adventures told us some of the history of the place and pointed out places of interest along the way.

When we arrived back at base I was surprised to see a gorgeous breakfast laid out for us including croissants, fruit, biscuits and tea and coffee.

Thanks so much to Celine for such a lovely, unexpected touch.

Wild Wet Adventures have a Summer Solstice kayak planned for Thursday, June 21st. You’ll be finished in time for work and I can’t think of a nicer way to spend a morning.

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Sligo Hub is open for business

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We are delighted to announce that Sligo Hub is open for business. Since it launched quietly on March 12th it has had 7000 visitors.

We also have over 5000 likes on Facebook, 1200 on Twitter and over 700 on Instagram – which is our newest platform. For less than the cost of half a cup of coffee each week you could advertise your business for a year.

Sligo Hub is growing in popularity all the time and we have lots of ideas to progress the site. To find out more click here.

 

The Long Way Home

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I was in Tubbercurry on Friday and instead of taking the normal main road home I decided to take a bit of a detour. I headed up towards Lough Easkey – this is one of my favourite places in Sligo. If you haven’t been there yet it’s well worth a visit.

Take the road out of Tubbercurry heading to Ballina and you’ll see a sign for Lough Easkey on the right. It’s a bit of a long drive with narrow roads – not for the faint hearted in places but so worth it.

You will drive alongside the Owenaher River which has a stunning waterfall. I parked at the top and hopped over the wall, well I say hopped – I clambered….I won’t mention my wet backside – whoops I just did. I sat of the rocks and watched the water rushing. The smell of coconut from the gorse bushes made me feel like I was in an exotic country. I’m always blown away by the beauty we have here in Sligo. My photos really don’t do it justice.

Back in the car on the next stop was Masshill. This is an outdoor place of worship and well worth a visit. There’s also an old school house dating back to 1910. I met up with the farmer and he let me go and look at it as it’s on his land. He told me his mother used to go to the school and that it was only open for a short amount of time. It’s these stories I’d love to explore more of, finding out the local tales behind the places. I just found one of the Duchas site about treasure being at Masshill – I wonder if it’s still there….

As I carried on driving I saw chickens crossing the road – no idea why they crossed 😉

There were turf bogs and ruins as I drove into what felt like the wilderness but really is just around 8 miles from the nearest town.

I saw the Ox Mountain Adventure Camp which you can also stay in. Imagine being out in this part of the world? Talk about getting away from it all.

There were also sheep all over the place, one of them tried to hitch a lift!  When I got to Lough Easkey I made friends with one of the locals, it’s unusual for the sheep to come up to you but this one did. As I walked back to the car I was being followed….maybe I look like a sheep!

What a journey home – just magic. I might take the long way home more often.

Clarification about Sligo Hub

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On the back of the lovely interview on Up and Running with Claire Ronan on Ocean FM yesterday about Sligo Hub I seem to have opened up a can of worms so I’m putting the record straight.

I wasn’t going to address this issue but when the #sligohub is being used in a negative way I will defend it. If you have read the blog over the last 9 years you will know that I have always promoted Sligo in a positive way. You will also know that I’ve had mental health issues. It was getting to the stage where covering both on the same platform was messy. A Sligo website was always in my mind, in fact I had Sligo Secrets in 2014 but as I was paying for the domain, website  etc. I could no longer afford to do so.

The Sligo Facebook page stayed live and this need for a website continued to be there. Not just a tourist website but one for the people of Sligo to tell them what’s out there. I was chatting to my friend Kate over the last number of years, Kate is a website designer, so we have teamed up to produce Sligo Hub.

It has been suggested that there should have been nominations as to who runs Sligo Hub – I don’t understand this as it’s our idea. I’ve yet to see any business have nominations about who should run it.

We are not funded by any state body, nor have we approached any of them. I would welcome anyone to start their own website to promote the area they live in. In fact I’d encourage them to do so. It’s very interesting finding what is out there in your area but it’s a lot of hard work too. For me though it’s a labour of love. We have been lucky that five private business have come on board to sponsor Sligo Hub and with their help the website is paid for. Neither Kate or I take wages and although it would be lovely if, at some stage, it did provide a wage, at the moment we are happy to be volunteers.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope that this clears up any confusion that may be out there.

A Super Saturday

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Today was a lovely day – even though I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night. I was wired last night, what with the road traffic accident, we weren’t involved and everyone was fine, but it was quite worrying all the same seeing the lorry on its side.

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