Local Interest

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  • Waking Maeve

    Waking Maeve

    24.95

    A legend is stirring.

    Stories of Queen Maeve have lingered across Connacht and the Atlantic coast since her death two thousand years ago. A Sligo surfer has heard whispers on the tide that this ancient Irish warrior is waking from her slumber. From the mysterious passage tombs of Knocknarea and Carrowmore to the enormous swells that break at Mullaghmore, Waking Maeve carries readers on a rolling wave from Stone Age to the era of rock ’n’ roll, tracking the myths, landscapes and people that shaped Ireland’s northwest.

    Along the way, you’ll meet kings and queens, saints and Vikings, poets and rebels, shipwrecks, surfers and dreamers who left their mark on one of Ireland’s most extraordinary landscapes.

    Guided by the enduring spirit of the Neolithic people of the northwest, Queen Maeve and the poet WB Yeats, Seamus Mc Goldrick reveals the deep connections between past and present, inviting readers to discover why Sligo continues to captivate, inspire and surprise.

    “An evocative journey through myth, memory and marine identity, Waking Maeve reconnects us with the ancient relationship between people, place and sea. Seamus Mc Goldrick brings Ireland’s northwest vividly to life through story, landscape and the enduring power of the feminine. Here, Queen Maeve emerges as both wave-rider and warrior of the sea, stirring as if from an ancient slumber beneath the Atlantic tide.” Easkey Britton, author of Saltwater in the Blood

  • A Wall That Speaks

    A Wall That Speaks

    20.00
    Sligo Abbey, one of Ireland’s most important medieval monuments, has welcomed visitors for centuries. In A Wall That Speaks, former journalist Harry Keaney explores the stories, people and mysteries hidden within its ancient walls, combining historical research with engaging storytelling. Richly illustrated and featuring contributions from Maurice Fitzgerald, The O’Conor of Sligo, and Eleanor Butler, this book offers a fascinating insight into one of Sligo’s greatest treasures.
  • The Red Mouth

    The Red Mouth

    17.50
    Description
    ‘An absolute tour de force … One of the most powerful writers at work today’ COLIN WALSH’When the book burners knock on your door, this is one to hide in the flour barrel’ ANNIE PROULX’I’ll read almost anything in sentences so finely made’ SARAH MOSS’Songlike in its beauty … A work of uncanny power and great depth’ LOUISE KENNEDYFrom a rising star in literary fiction comes a story of two discoveries made deep in an Irish bogland, threading together four lives across time.

    When a dog finds a strange, alien antler in a restored bog, the owner’s first thought is to keep it for himself. But when he realises the value of his find, he is drawn back to the rich peat to keep searching. It is not one stag skeleton that is buried there, but dozens – an ancient dying ground of the Great Irish Elk.

  • FAMINE Voices of a lost generation

    FAMINE Voices of a lost generation

    25.00
    “In Famine: Voices of a Lost Generation, author, historian and story-teller Joe McGowan brings into focus one of the most poignant chapters in Irish history. Through eyewitness accounts, official records, family memory, and folklore, he reconstructs a vivid, deeply human story of hunger, eviction, disease, and exile, in a journey from the poorest cabin to the ‘big house’ and on to the ill-fated coffin ships.
    As chairman and founding member of the County Sligo Famine Commemoration Committee, McGowan is uniquely placed to write about the devastating impact of An Gorta Mór, The Great Hunger. Bringing together the authority of the historian and the sensitivity of the seanchaí, he traces its human consequences and enduring legacy, offering a compassionate account of loss, resilience, and remembrance.”
  • The Dodger

    The Dodger

    19.95

    There was a time when DJ Carey didn’t need a surname. The star player of a Kilkenny hurling team that dominated the sport for a decade, he had a rare, natural talent that led his county to five All Ireland titles and won him nine All Stars. DJ wasn’t just a hero on the pitch – his easy charm, generosity, and readiness to meet young fans made him a national treasure. Throughout his meteoric rise, strange rumours followed him. In 2003, shocking claims that DJ was dying of cancer swept the country. Who would spread such a story about one of Ireland’s most beloved sporting legends? And what could possibly be gained from it? Two decades later, the truth emerged. DJ Carey was arrested and charged with deception and forgery – accused of faking cancer to con money from those who trusted him most. For years, he had been telling the same lie to generous supporters who believed they were funding life-saving treatment in the U.S. In this riveting exposé, Eimear Ní Bhraonáin uncovers the extraordinary fall from grace of a national icon, and how he betrayed the fans that once loved him.

  • From Sligo to Stringybark

    From Sligo to Stringybark

    35.00

    The true story of the murder of three Irish-born Police Officers by the infamous Australian Bushranger, Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly, in Victoria, Australia, on the 26th October 1878.

  • Sligo and the Great Famine, 1845-52 Walking Skeletons and Shadows

    Sligo and the Great Famine, 1845-52 Walking Skeletons and Shadows

    50.00

    Sligo offers a unique setting for a study of the Great Famine and the book investigates the period from the first appearance of the blight to the immediate aftermath. The shifting, inept and often heartless government policies reflected different attitudes to famine relief and this impacted on the people in a very direct and often catastrophic way.

    Sligo experienced considerable death and emigration in the years from 1845 to 1852; the second worst affected county in the country after Mayo, losing a third of its population in just a few short years. The reaction of local landlords and landholders to the suffering was also varied and the study explored the lengths to which the Famine offered an opportunity to some landlords to impose long-term policies on their estates.

    Padraig Deignan has previously published ‘The Protestant Community in Sligo, 1914-49’ in 2010, ‘Land and People in Nineteenth Century Sligo: from Union to Local Government’ in 2015 and ‘Sligo in the Eighteenth Century’ in 2021.

  • Kitty- Finding Love In War

    Kitty- Finding Love In War

    17.00

    Growing up in 1930’s rural Ireland, Kitty had a hard start to life. Never knowing her father meant that she always had a longing to know what he was like. aFter moving to London to start a new life for herself, Kitty had not planned on World War 2 starting and making life very difficult. Little did she know that meeting an English soldier at an Irish dance would change her life forever.

  • LeafLight Moon

    LeafLight Moon

    20.00

    PRE -ORDER

    This book will be shipped once available on release (Approx 25th August)

     

    LeafLight Moon – a novel of prehistoric Ireland

    Sligo, 4000 BC: Closely researched and set in the rich prehistoric landscapes of Sligo and the north-west, LeafLight Moon tells the story of the fateful encounter between Ireland’s first farmers and the hunter-gatherers of the Hearth of MotherMountain – the mountain we call Knocknarea.

    For thousands of years, the hunter-gatherers of MotherMountain lived close to the earth, moving through the landscape with the seasons, following her rhythms and keeping her ways. They heard stories of a people who chopped down the greenwood and trapped animals behind fences, but these were only rumours, shiver-tales to share around the fire on long summer nights – until the day when two strangers arrived in a small boat, their skin as pale as downy-birch,

    their eyes as dark as the eyes of seals…

  • Hiding From The Heart

    Hiding From The Heart

    15.95

    She left to find freedom, only to discover everything she needed was waiting at home.

    At seventeen, Colette Keogh wants nothing more than to escape. Escape the family farm in the west of Ireland. Escape her mother’s criticism. Escape a future that feels like it’s already been written. But when her father suffers a stroke, her plans turn to dust. School is over. The city must wait. The farm – and her family – need her now.

    Then Robbie enters her life. Kind, steady and nothing like the boys she’s known before, Robbie makes Colette feels seen for the first time. But one tragic decision and a wave of grief upend everything. Robbie is gone, and Colette is left to navigate a life she no longer recognises.

    A move to Dublin promises the glamour Colette longs for, but the reality is far from what she imagined. And when a new friendship reignites her connection to the land, Colette begins to wonder if the life she ran from was the one she was meant to build all along.

    Hiding from the Heart is a tender, emotionally rich story of first love, family duty and the quiet power of coming home.

     

  • Water In The Desert, Fire In The Night

    Water In The Desert, Fire In The Night

    16.00
    Description

    Because the thing about the end of the world is that it happens all the time. Someone leaves and it’s the end of the world. Someone comes back and it’s the end of the world.

    Somebody puts their cock in you and it’s the end of the world. Somebody stops putting their cock in you and it’s the end of the world. Here is a novel about mothering, wolves, bicycles, midwifery, post-apocalyptic feminism, gold, hunger and hope.

    It’s about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and an Irishman who set out from London after the end of the world to cycle to a sanctuary in the southern Alps. It’s about the porousness of the female bodily experience, the challenges of being an empiricist with a sample size of one, what’s worth knowing, what’s worth living, and the necessity of irrationality. It’s about the fact that the world ends all the time, and it’s about what to try to do next.

  • Sligo Field Club Journal Vol 10

    Sligo Field Club Journal Vol 10

    25.00

    An Ongoing Mission: this Journal will continue the ambition of Sligo Field Club, formerly Sligo Antiquarian Society, and now in its eightieth year, to protect Sligo’s rich archaeological and historical heritage. The Journal provides a platform for authors to record and analyse the rich heritage of Sligo and the greater North Connacht region across a wide range of topics.

     

     

  • Random Chance Another Intelligent Life Form Emerges on Earth

    Random Chance Another Intelligent Life Form Emerges on Earth

    15.00

    Sometime in the future a new intelligent life form, the Ungula, has evolved. They discover aliens buried in the Arctic who turn out to be Humans. After a miraculous revival following a visit to the Lours Shrine, the Ungula and Humans embark on an integration project. Barbara emerges as an Ungula spokesperson and Father Myles as the Human spokesperson.

    Can Humans and Ungula live in harmony? They live together in peace for several months, due mainly to the fact that the Ungula are a mild species and Humans are a small group of just over 100. Most of the humans are content to try and adapt. But as we all know well, there is always one.

  • Bringing Them Home

    Bringing Them Home

    24.00

    HICKEY, SIMONE

  • Leaning On Gates

    Leaning On Gates

    18.00

    O’ROURKE, SEAMUS

  • Sparks From The Flagstones

    Sparks From The Flagstones

    24.00

    Description

    Dancer Edwina Guckian celebrates the folk traditions and calendar customs of the Ireland in which she grew up in rural County Leitrim.

    As a child Edwina’s Grandfather brought her to House Dances where he played the fiddle and she watched dancers in hobnail boots ‘knock sparks from the flagstones’ on traditional cottage stone floors. Half-doors were taken down from their hinges to dance on when the floors were rough or uneven.

    Edwina too became ‘a great one for knocking sparks’ from the flagstones with her own dancing. Here she brings to life for readers of all ages the lovely colourful customs, fun and enchantments of her childhood. Dressing up for Halloween, Wren Day and  Brigid’s Day, going to communal bonfires at the crossroads, remembering the harvest ‘meitheal’ and hilltop berry picking on Bilberry Sunday.

    Edwina vividly brings to life a world of Strawboys, Mummers and Biddy Boys, Crossroads Dances, Cake Dances, Nollaig na mBan feasts, Easter treats and many more year round Irish folk traditions.

    Join Edwina as she dances through the Celtic Calendar Year and the importance of ancient Quarter Day customs and old-world Fire Festival traditions at Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa. Every page of Sparks from the Flagstones is joyfully illustrated by Connemara-based artist Andrea Rossi.