Lissadell House & Gardens

Lissadell House is a neo-classical Greek revivalist style country house. Lissadell House and Gardens are located 7km north of Sligo Town on the Bundoran Road. Home of the Gore Booth family from 1834 -2003. 

The house was the childhood home of Irish revolutionary, Constance Gore-Booth, her sister the poet and suffragist, Eva Gore-Booth, and their siblings, Mabel Gore-Booth, Mordaunt Gore-Booth and Josslyn Gore-Booth. It was also the sometime holiday retreat of the world-renowned poet, William Butler Yeats. He made the house famous with the opening lines of his poem,

    "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markiewicz"

           The light of evening, Lissadell,

           Great windows open to the south,

           Two girls in silk kimonos, both

           Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Since it was purchased by Edward Walsh and his wife Constance Cassidy in 2003, the House and Gardens have undergone extensive restoration. The House itself has a large collection of paintings and literature by George ‘AE’ Russell, Jack Yeats, WB Yeats, Eva Gore Booth, and contemporary Artists and authors, all on view. Public access to the House is expanded with new Garden and China Rooms, and a new Yeats’ Room now also open to the public.

The restored hidden Gardens are also now open to the public, with daily access to the 2.5 acre Walled Victorian Kitchen Garden, and the 2 acre Seashore Alpine Rockery Garden. The servants quarters in the basement have also been restored. Large Tearooms, and Garden Shop, where garden produce is sold directly to visitors, are also open in the newly restored Coachhouse complex, which also houses the Lissadell Exhibition Hall, presently showing the Countess Markievicz exhibition, with rarely seen memorabilia.