Sligo! - Sligo Poets

   Sligo Independent 5 July, 1913
       Sligo Times 12 July, 1913

                        SLIGO!

To be sung to the air of "Killarney".

The following verses have been sent to us by the Right Hon. M. F. Cox, P.C, Dublin:—

Erin hath full many a scene,
   Gilt by beauty’s golden glow,
All are lov’d, yet none, I ween,
   Is dear to me as Sligo!
Rich the treasures round us spread,
   Seaward gaze! lo mountains grand,
Starting from their ocean bed,
   Like twin giants guard the land.
             There the sun aye loves to rest,
              Ere it sinks into the West,
              Gate of Evening—Sligo!
              Star of Erin—Sligo!

Killarney hitherward hath fled;
   Behold its reflex in Lough Gill:
Wicklow hath its glory shed
   On ev’ry valley, stream, and hill
Sweet Lough Gill, sad Dromahair,
   Lissadell—Tireragh blue,
Hazlewood, and Glencar fair,
   Scenes of splendour fling to view.
             Here methinks, do fairies dwell,
             Haunting lake and mount and dell,
             Spirit land is Sligo!
             Land of glory—Sligo!

Abbey of a princely line,
   Drumcliffe’s Cross and Tower lone,
Tobernault, of Faith the sign,
   Rock-sprung—tell of days long gone,
Cromwell’s Fort still lords the town,
   Sentinel of land and main,
Carn—Doon—what prospect own,
   Druids rising o’er the plain.
             Glory still doth haunt each vale,
             Night winds sing thy mournful tale,
             Land of Beauty—Sligo!
             Land of Glory—Sligo!

                             FELMAC
                             Michael F. Cox

THE RIGHT HON. MICHAEL FRANCIS COX, M.D., F.R.C.P.I.,

Dr. Michael Francis Cox was one of the leading members of the medical profession in Dublin in the last years of the nineteenth century and first two decades of the following century.

Born at Kilmore, Co. Roscommon, in the year 1852, he was educated at St. Mel's College, Longford, the Catlholic University, Dublin, and London University.

He served as President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and for a while was a member of the Privy Council. Dr. Cox was senior physician to St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin; consulting physician to the Children's Hospital, Temple Street, to the Linden Convalescent Home, and to Our Lady's Hospice.

He was also a member of the Royal Irish Academy, Vice-President of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language and vice-president of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland; and a member of the senate of the National University.

He was keenly interested in science and literature, lectured on historical and archaeological subjects and was the author of The Country and Kindred of Oliver Goldsmith and Notes on the History of the Irish Horse.

In The Country and Kindred of Oliver Goldsmith, he claimed that Oliver Goldsmith’s real birth-place
was the residence of Mrs. Goldsmith's parents, Smith-Hill House, Elphin, Roscommon, to which she was in the habit of paying frequent visits.

He died in 1926.

The non-de-plume used here, Felmac, refers to the fact that in medieval time in Irish schools a mentor called a foster father tutored a pupil known as a felmac.

The poem read like a translation of an ancient topographical praise poem with lists of the historic sites and beauty spots with a standard stanza ending of an two-line exclamation of praise.

Most, if not all, of the places mentioned are in or close to Sligo town. Carn may be Cairns Hill south of the town. There are a number of places in the county Doon may refer to.