Sligo Champion - Sligo Poets

Founded 1836, still being published.

P.A. McHugh acquired ownership of the paper in 1885 and under his guidance the Champion became one of the most influential of the provincial papers. When McHugh died in 1909 he was succeeded as editor by his son Alfred.

The Sligo Champion had the largest circulation of any Sligo newspaper and adopted a strong political stance. It was a staunchly nationalist Catholic newspaper, a strong supporter of Home Rule and the Irish Parliamentary Party. It published extensive coverage of local political meetings and organisations and frequent editorials on the political situation.

During 1912 as the Unionists of Sligo organised against Home Rule it continually goaded the Sligo unionist newspapers, reminding them of discrimination against Catholics in Ulster and challenging them to confirm that Protestants in Sligo were not discriminated against.

Poems included in the Sligo Champion 1912.

The Sligo Champion published fewer poems than its contemporaries. They are however much the same mixture as elsewhere. There are no pro-Home Rule poems included during 1912 but the paper did published pro-Unionist verses it found elsewhere and ridiculed their sentiments and quality. It also found a poem commemorating a Sligo Unionists' visit to Portadown and Belfast and made fun of it.

There are in memoriam poems, advertising verses, some personal poems and an exile's lament. At least three are by non-Sligo authors. Two of these are seasonal, one for November and one for Christmas.