📍Sligo, Co. Sligo, Ireland
1872 – 1874“I was born in Dublin and spent much of my boyhood in London, where my father painted portraits and money was always short; but the place I belonged to was Sligo, the western seaport home of my mother's family, the Pollexfens, who were merchants and ship-owners. When money ran out we took refuge with my grandparents at Merville, a big house on sixty acres at the edge of the town, full of aunts, uncles and servants; the longest stay ran from July 1872 to November 1874, and I came every year until I was about twenty. From the drawing-room window I could see the great flat-topped mountain of Ben Bulben. The servants and country people told me tales of fairies and ghosts, and I roamed the shores of Lough Gill, with its little islands such as Innisfree. My great-grandfather had been rector of Drumcliff, at the foot of Ben Bulben. Sligo became the landscape of my poetry, and four months before I died I wrote Under Ben Bulben, choosing Drumcliff churchyard for my grave. I rest there now, beneath the mountain.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today