Sligo

Sligo stopped me in my tracks the first time I drove north through Drumcliff and Benbulben appeared above the treeline. That flat summit and its sheer limestone face looked like something dropped from another continent. I pulled over and just stared.

I've returned many times since, drawn back by the drama of the coastline around Mullaghmore and the way Classiebawn Castle sits so defiantly against the Atlantic. Knocknarea dominates the skyline from almost every angle, Queen Maeve's cairn visible on its summit like a full stop at the end of a long sentence. And Rosses Point, with its views across to the Ox Mountains, is a place I find genuinely hard to leave!

This is Yeats country, of course, and you feel that everywhere. The landscape carries a weight of myth and poetry that few places in Ireland can match.