Sligo Folk Tales

Joe McGowan gathers Sligo’s traditional stories from the Curlew Mountains and Benbulben to Kesh Corann, Lough Gill and Enniscrone. The collection includes myths of Balor and the Battles of Moyturra, Diarmuid and Gráinne, St Patrick in Sligo, and the Lost Bell of Lough Gill, linking each account to the county’s landscape and remembered past.

Alongside heroic deeds and epic battles are anecdotes about rural customs, superstitions and everyday traditions. McGowan also records reported encounters with faeries, witches, ghosts, mermaids and water monsters, preserving the darker and more fanciful corners of Sligo’s oral heritage. The tales range from ancient mythology to local stories of caution, belief and unexplained happenings.