County Sligo encompasses a total land surface of approximately 1,837.11 km2, bordered by Counties Leitrim, Roscommon and Mayo, and flanked to the west by almost 200 km of Atlantic coastline.
The County has a varied natural landscape with spectacular limestone mountains, such as Benbulben and Benwiskin, other interesting upland terrain (e.g. the Ox and Bricklieve Mountains), numerous picturesque lakes (Loughs Gill, Arrow, Glencar, Easkey, Gara and Talt), enclosed farmland and a diverse coastline comprising lowlying cliffs, indented shoreline and sandy beaches. These topographical attributes combine to give Sligo an outstanding landscape setting.
Sligo possesses unique archaeological and historical remains, with more than 5,000 recorded archaeological sites dating back over 6,000 years, including the prehistoric sites of Carrowmore, Carrowkeel and Creevykeel.
The beauty of the countryside coupled with a rich cultural and historical past has inspired musicians, artists and poets alike, including the Yeats family, St. Colmcille and Michael Coleman. This has provided Sligo with strong international recognition on which to base a thriving tourism industry.
In recent years, County Sligo has benefitted from the development of a range of cultural facilities such as the Coleman Music Centre, The Folk Museum, The James Morrison Teach Ceoil and Teach Laighne, Tobercurry Community Library, and the redevelopment of the Model Arts Gallery in Sligo. The character of the county has been enhanced through public art commissions, which have been integrated with village renewal schemes.
The Gateway City of Sligo has developed as an important industrial, commercial and residential centre supporting a regional airport, a railway terminus, a port, two thirdlevel colleges and a general hospital. Sligo serves as the administrative, commercial, service, health and educational centre for a large hinterland. It also acts as an important distribution centre in the North-West.
As in other Western counties, employment in Sligo tended to be in sectors that are lower-skilled, lower-value-added and more vulnerable in the recession (e.g. construction, retail), with lower shares in the higher-skilled and high-value-added sectors (e.g. information and communications technology, financial services). These factors will have implications for the County’s ability to respond and adapt to the decline.
According to the Western Development Commission (Work in the West: The Western Region’s Employment and Unemployment Challenge, December 2009), the current tendency for economic and regional policy to focus on the role and potential of the major cities may further exacerbate the difficulties, as the Western Region, particularly its northern part, is predominantly rural, with small towns and villages where the decline in construction had a profound impact in employment terms. In the context of this employment profile, the Western Development Commission has identified three key employment challenges facing the Western Region.
Taking account of recent policy developments, economic and demographic trends, the major implications for the formulation of a renewed development strategy for County Sligo to 2017 and beyond are as follows:
For balanced development to take place within County Sligo, the role of the Gateway needs to be partnered with a focus on specific development roles for other urban areas in the County, such as:
Rural areas in Sligo have experienced significant economic, demographic and physical changes:
The population of the Gateway is defined in this Plan as the total population living inside the SEDP boundary. This figure includes the population of the Borough and Environs as enumerated by the Census, plus the population living in the suburban fringes and in the rural areas within the Plan limit.
As detailed Census, figures for the entire Plan area are not available, the Gateway population is approximated by the total population of the Borough and the five adjoining Electoral Divisions (Calry, Drumcliff East, Drumcliff West, Kilmacowen and Knockaree) minus the population of Strandhill, Rosses Point, Ballincar, Rathcormac and Drumcliff (for the last two settlements, estimates were used). Thus, the population of the Gateway was estimated at 24,755 in 2006 (a fall of 492 persons compared to 2002).
As a significant regional centre for employment, retail, healthcare, education and recreation, Sligo serves a hinterland extending far beyond the County boundaries.
There is an important manufacturing base in Sligo City, particularly in IDA’s business park at Finisklin, with names such as Abbott, Fort Dodge and Stiefel Laboratories, all pharmaceutical companies. Indigenous firms like Loftus Automation, Avenue Mould solutions, Garmoore and Infacta are engaged in tool-making, precision engineering and information technology.
While the number of manufacturing jobs has been constantly falling, employment in retail and professional services has seen a rapid expansion. Public-sector jobs also continue to represent a sizeable proportion of the City’s employment, due to employers such as Sligo Regional Hospital, Sligo County Council, primary and secondary schools, third-level institutions, and several sections of central government departments.
Over the decade 1996 to 2006, there have been substantial changes not only in the local economy but also in the social fabric of Sligo City. The following two subsections outline the main features of these changes as reflected in statistical data collected by the Censuses of 1996, 2002 and 2006.
The Census reports of 1996, 2002 and 2006 provide figures for Sligo Borough and Sligo Environs, which is a smaller area than that covered by the Sligo and Environs Development Plan. However, the main trends for the Plan area can be discerned from examining the available Census figures.
Having grown by 6.62% (1226 persons) between 1996 and 2002, the population of (Census-defined) Sligo and Environs then fell by 1.69% (333 persons) between 2002 and 2006. It is not clear from the CSO statistics whether this “lost” population moved just outside the enumeration boundaries, yet remained in the SEDP area, or went further away.
Census data indicates an increasing mobility of Sligo’s population, in particular residential mobility. While in 2002 the Census counted 982 persons who moved to Sligo City from the County and 587 who came from the rest of Ireland during the year before the Census, in 2006 the number of people in the same situation was 1306 and 690 respectively.
It must be added that in 2002 there were 380 persons who had an address abroad one year before the Census, while in 2006 there were 858 such people. It appears that Sligo’s core population – i.e. those who were enumerated at the same address in successive censuses – consists of just over 15,800 residents, and there has been significant in- and out-migration between 1996 and 2002, in the range of 12-14% of the total number of residents. As a proportion, the number of Sligo-born residents has fallen slightly between 1996 and 2006, by 96 people (2.49%). At the same time, the number of Sligo residents who were not born in the city has grown constantly during the decade 1996-2006: 12.37% more residents born in Northern Ireland; 26.22% more people born in England, Scotland or Wales; 14.43% more persons born in the rest of the EU (excluding the UK); and almost three times more (+ 202.35% or 535) persons born in countries outside the EU.
A positive trend has been noticed in the field of education, with fewer people ceasing their education at primary or secondary level and more enrolling in third-level education. Between 1996 and 2006 the number of persons with primary education only has fallen by 836. In the same period, the number of those educated to degree level has grown from 1250 to 1949. The number of students aged over 15 and engaged in full-time education was 3315 in 2006 compared to 2156 in 1996 – a rise of over 50%.
Social classes, as defined by the Census, bring together people with similar levels of occupational skills. In determining social class, no account is taken of the differences between individuals on the basis of other characteristics such as education. Social class ranks occupations by the level of skill required.
In social class terms, upward social mobility has become apparent in Sligo and Environs. A fall of 43% (533) in the number of unskilled manual workers between 1996 and 2002 has been accompanied by significant rises in the numbers of semiskilled, technical and professional workers (419, 351 and 186 respectively). There was also a noticeable growth in the number of persons who cannot be precisely allocated to one of the six other classes. Those gainfully occupied but not readily categorised grew in numbers from 2647 in 1996 to 4290 in 2006 (increase of 62%).