Sligo: the landscapes that inspired the poet Yeats

Beloved by Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats, Sligo remains surrounded by mountains and coasts that inspired much of his poetry.

A car remains useful for exploring the surrounding county.

The Benbulbin Mountain, a mountain with a flat top shaped like a table, dominates the landscape around Sligo and is cited in several of Yeats's poems.

A few minutes away, the tomb of William Butler Yeats, in the small cemetery of Drumcliffe at the foot of Benbulbin, attracts literary pilgrims from around the world every year.

Continuing toward the coast, one visits the Knocknarea Cairn, a megalithic tumulus that according to legend houses the tomb of the warrior queen Maeve.

Toward evening, Sligo's center comes alive with traditional pubs featuring live Irish music.

William Butler Yeats, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, spent his childhood summers in Sligo, a connection that profoundly influenced his poetry and which the writer himself called his true spiritual homeland.

The Knocknarea Cairn, never excavated archaeologically out of respect for local beliefs, remains one of Ireland's largest megalithic monuments, still substantially intact after thousands of years.