As Sligo recently celebrated 400 years of being a borough, we have delved into the archives and produced a list of 400 Years of the provosts and mayor’s of Sligo Town and mayors of Sligo Municipal Council from 1612 to 2013.

By Royal Letters Patent passed 30th March, in the eleventh year of his reign, the king ordained that the town, with all appertaining to it, should be one entire and free Borough of itself, by the name of the Borough of Sligo, and that within this Borough there should be one body corporate and politic, consisting of one Provost, twelve free Burgesses, and the Commonalty, with powers for all future time to purchase, receive, and possess lands, tenements, and other goods, as well as to dispose of the same; there was a sweeping clause enabling them to do and execute all and singular other deeds and things, also that this body so constituted could sue at law and be sued, and that they should have power to elect two discreet and fit men to serve in every Parliament.

As Wood-Martin‘s synopsis of the King James 1st Charter indicates, the Charter provided for the creation of the office of Provost which was later replaced under the Municipal Reform Act, 1842, by the position of Mayor, an office which exists to this day.

Incomplete records were kept until 1709, it wasn’t until that year that records commenced and are endorsed.

The final entry in the list of Sligo Mayors above, shows the 2013 Mayor as being Marcella McGarry, who was the last Mayor Sligo Borough Council. Since the abolition of Sligo Borough Council in 2014, Sligo County Council have continued the appointment of mayor under the name of Sligo Municipal Council.