area of Sligo,
while the longevity of the activity on the site indicates a stable and
successful population during the final centuries of the fifth millennium and
the first centuries of the fourth millennium BC'.
Sligo town's first roundabout was
constructed around a megalithic tomb (Abbeyquarter North, in GaravogueVillas
).
Maurice
Fitzgerald, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, is generally credited with the
establishment of the mediaeval town of Sligo, building the Castle of Sligo in
1245. Sligo was burned several times during the mediaeval period. In 1257,
Geoffry O'Donnell, chief of
Tirconnell,
marched on Sligo and burned the town. The
annalists
refer to this Sligo as a
sradbhaile ('street settlement'): a village or
town not defended by an enclosure or wall, and consisting of one street. By the
mid 15th century the town and port had grown in importance. Amongst the
earliest preserved specimens of written English in Connacht is a receipt for 20
marks, dated August 1430, paid by SaunderLynche and Davy Botyller, to Henry
Blake and Walter Blake, customers of "ye King and John Rede, controller of
ye porte of Galvy and of Slego". Over a century later an order was sent by
the Elizabethan Government to
Sir
Nicholas Malby, Knight, willing him to establish "apt and safe"
places for the keeping of the Assizes & Sessions, with walls of lime &
stone, in each county of Connacht, "judging that the aptest place be in
Sligo, for the County of Sligo…"
