Tales from Sligo

Claire, storyteller
Claire, storyteller

Sligo – The shelly place

Claire and I returned from Sligo full of beautiful stories from the wonderful landscape of Sligo. We roamed among the lakes, woods and beaches of Sligo with Maura and Florrie, Loretto’s sisters, chasing stories from the land of Loretto’s youth. The weather was beautiful and Maura recited Yeats at the foot of the Glen Car waterfall.

Sligo scenery
Sligo scenery

We stood in the shadow of Ben Bulben and gathered shells, wood and stones from the shore to help create our wonderful multi-sensory story resource in memory of Loretto. The Sligo landscape is amazing and as we wandered along the shores, through the woods and streets of Sligo and heard stories about the Lambe family childhood, we had a sense of this land, it’s people and it’s stories and I could see how growing up in Sligo would nurture the storyteller within.

More scenery of Sligo
More scenery of Sligo

Our visit to Sligo will enrich the resource by including the poems of Yeats read by her sister and music recorded by other family members and this will ensure the story resource is a wonderful memory of a remarkable woman.  Watch out for Claire’s Sligo story map, coming soon.

Loretto's sisters on the beaches of Sligo
Loretto’s sisters on the beaches of Sligo

“Where the wandering water gushes
From the hillside above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes,
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout,
And whispering in their ears;
We give them evil dream,
leaning softly out
from ferns that drop their tears
of dew on the young streams
Come! O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild,
With a fairy hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than
You can understand.”
W.B. Yeats.