Theatre in Sligo

“When a trip to Dublin was a rare event it naturally required more attention to provide local amusements, and Sligo, from, if not before, the year 1750, contained a theatre. The original building was near the quay; it was subsequently moved to the vicinity of the Linen-Hall. ‘His majesty’s servants from the Theatre Royal, Crow Street’, occasionally visited Sligo, even during the Dublin season, showing that in those days the townsfolk appreciated the drama, for in some instances the company remained during several months.

Mr. Owenson, father of the afterwards well-known Lady Morgan, was frequently before the Sligo public, and was, in his day, celebrated for his personification of Irish characters, and (says Sir Jonah Barrington) never did an actor exist so perfectly calculated to personify that singular class of people. ‘In what might be termed the middle class of Paddies, no man ever combined the look and the manner with such feeling as Owenson ….. he sang well …. but he was, like most of his profession, careless about his concerns, and he grew old without growing rich’.

The Sligo theatre was (for the time) well lighted and fairly decorated. In the year 1826 there was a fracas in the building between Dr. Carter and a Mr. M’Donogh, which terminated in the prosecution and conviction of the latter. At the trial the cross-examining counsel said that evidently the Doctor, on that night at least, had lost all his patience!”

from History of Sligo, W. G. Wood-Martin, Vol. III