Sligo tourist office to move to O’Connell St
The tourist office in Sligo town is to move permanently to a new location in O’Connell Street and the new office is expected to open in around eight weeks.
NEW OFFICE: The landmark former Hibernian Bank building at the bottom of O’Connell Street in Sligo, which will be new location of the Failte Ireland tourist office. Work is ongoing on a new wheelchair access ramp.
The office is presently based at the Failte Ireland offices at Temple Street, beside the Hawk’s Well theatre.
The new office will be in the ground floor of the former Hibernian Bank building at the corner of O’Connell Street and Lower Knox Street.
In more recent times the building has housed a building society, an auctioneers’ office and, prior to the last election, the campaign headquarters of Fine Gael TD Tony McLoughlin.
It has also previously been the location of a temporary additional tourist office for the summer.
However, Failte Ireland has now decided to permanently move its complete tourist information service to the centre of town.
Work is presently going to fit out the office inside, while a wheelchair access ramp is being built on the footpath at Lower Knox Street.
It is expected that the work will be completed in around six to eight weeks.
The tourism body was last week granted planning permission to erect signage on the building, which is a protected structure.
In it’s planning application it stated that “the primary road access routes to the town have been revised as a result of the new bypass road and Failte Ireland now propose to relocate the Tourist Information Centre to a more central location.”
Esther O’Donnell, the local Visitor Services Officer with Failte Ireland, said: “We see it as a very positive move as the new location is in a very busy area.”
Failte Ireland believe that the change in the main road has affected the number of people calling to their office at Temple Street.
Last season it dealt with 15,000 inquiries but the tourism body believes that that will greatly increase when the office moves to the centre of town.
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