Drumcliffe

Columba founded a monastery at Drumcliffe around 574, and what survives from it is the stump of a round tower on the far side of the road, struck by lightning in 1396, and a high cross of the tenth or eleventh century with scriptural panels including Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel and the Crucifixion - the only complete high cross in County Sligo. The churchyard beside the nineteenth-century Church of Ireland building holds W B Yeats's grave. He died in France in 1939 and asked to be brought here, where his great-grandfather had been rector; the war intervened and the reburial took place in 1948, though whether the remains transferred were entirely his has been questioned by historians working from French records. The headstone carries the last lines of Under Ben Bulben: cast a cold eye on life, on death, horseman, pass by. Benbulbin stands directly behind.

Highlights

• The Yeats grave - with the epitaph from Under Ben Bulben.
• The high cross - tenth or eleventh century, the only complete one in Sligo.
• The round tower stump - across the road, struck by lightning in 1396.
• Benbulbin - the flat-topped mountain rising directly behind.

When to go

April to October for the light on Benbulbin, which is the setting the poem depends on. The churchyard is open at any hour; the visitor centre and cafe keep their own hours.

Before you go

The grave is a simple headstone and the site is small - an hour covers it. Coach tours arrive in clusters. Whether the remains are Yeats's has been genuinely disputed, and nothing on site addresses that.

Nearby

Lissadell House is west; Sligo town is south and Mullaghmore north.