(McNeil) Sligo

My first impression as we pulled up on our decked out (wifi included) charted bus was I've been here before.  Sligo reminded me quite a bit of Breckenridge, Colorado.  See a few years ago (maybe 5) my family and I took a ski trip to Breckenridge, now my dad is a huge outdoorsy kind of guy and was thrilled to be taking us into the mountains. Well when we pulled up into Sligo the two cities became very familiar.  The layout of the city was very mountainous and outdoorsy, sporting stores lined the streets very similar to how Breckenridge was.  I also assumed that as cold as Sligo was in July, that it too has a lovely amount of tourist come in to ski during the winter and early spring months.  To say the least my dad was thrilled to hear all about the mountainous town of Sligo and it's babbling brook of Guinness like water flowing down the center of town.  I on the other hand had different interest, I was super excited about visiting all the old castles and exploring the history of Yeats country (even though I'm not a fan of the man myself).  On our first night a few friends and I decided to venture off into the town from our accommodations outside of the city and as we were walking we happened upon an old run down Abbey.  For those of you who don't know the significance of Abbey's in the past they were used as somewhat of a resting place for "divine" people of the denomination the church belonged too.  Looking at the abbey, I wished I could go inside and explore all the history left behind for us to learn about, but sadly it was closed and we were only able to admire it's beauty from outside the very thick and tall brick walls.  Part of me wonders what kind of secrets old structures like this abbey could have held back then and what all we could learn about the past today.