Rosses Point

Rosses Point
An Ros
Town
Rosses Point

Location in Ireland

Coordinates: 54°18′33″N 8°33′58″W / 54.3092°N 8.5661°W / 54.3092; -8.5661Coordinates: 54°18′33″N 8°33′58″W / 54.3092°N 8.5661°W / 54.3092; -8.5661
Country Ireland
Province Connacht
County County Sligo
Elevation 1 m (3 ft)
Population (2006)
 • Urban 872
Time zone WET (UTC+0)
 • Summer (DST) IST (WEST) (UTC-1)
Irish Grid Reference G631401

Rosses Point (Irish: Ros Cheide, meaning "promontary of the hill/assembly (trans. Cheide uncertain).") [1] is a village in County Sligo, Ireland and also the name of the surrounding peninsula. The point guards Sligo Harbour and is marked by the Metal Man lighthouse, a 3.7 metre (12 ft) high guardian statue placed offshore by local seafarers in 1821 and maintained by the Commissioners of Irish Lights.

Rosses Point Church of Ireland.
A view from Rosses Point.

Rosses Point is home to the Sligo Yacht Club and the County Sligo Golf Club, which hosts the annual West of Ireland Championship.

In 1985 at Streedagh Strand, north of Rosses Point, marine archeologists uncovered the wrecks of three ships of the Spanish Armada, La Lavia, La Juliana, and Santa Maria de Vison, which a storm drove onto this coast in September 1588.[2][3]

The poet William Butler Yeats and his brother, the artist Jack Butler Yeats, spent their summer holidays at Elsinore House, in Rosses Point.

Waiting On Shore monument

The "Waiting on Shore" monument, appropriately situated near the RNLI lifeboat station, depicts a woman holding her arms out to sea. A plate at the base includes the following:

Lost at sea, lost at sea
Or in the evening tide
We loved you, we miss you
May God with you abide.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution Sligo Bay Lifeboat Station is built next to the pier which harbours a number of fishing vessels. Ewing's Sea Angling and Boat Charters also operate from here and offer a variety of services including deep sea angling, reef fishing, shark fishing (August–October), island services to Coney Island and Inishmurray, and ecotourism cruises.

Elsinore house was the seat of the Middleton Family where the Yeats brothers spent many a summer with their cousins. The house was built by the smuggler John Black or Black Jack. It is said to be still haunted by the ghosts of smugglers tapping on the windows at night. The house has fallen into disrepair and, even though restoration plans have been proposed, it remains derelict.[4][5]

Plastic Bullet, a punk rock band from Milan (Italy) have dedicated a song to Rosses Point.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rosses Point.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/G100001B.html
  2. ↑ "The Spanish Armada in Sligo". Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  3. ↑ "La Lavia, La Juliana and the Santa Maria de Vison: three Spanish Armada transports lost off Streedagh Strand, Co Sligo: an interim report". Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  4. ↑ "Condition of Yeats's holiday home a 'scandal'". The Irish Times. 2 August 2012. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  5. ↑ "Stories behind the book: haunted houses and pirate smugglers in Sligo". Royal Dublin Society. 28 January 2010. Retrieved 21 November 2012.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, May 02, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.