Qualla: The Model, Sligo https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Model, Sligo https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo The Model, Sligo: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo/ Photo credit Sheila1988, CC0. In 1959, Sligo's county librarian Nora Niland needed paintings for the first-ever Yeats Summer School. She borrowed five works by Jack Butler Yeats - three large oils called Communicating with Prisoners, The Funeral of Harry Boland, and The Island Funeral, plus two smaller watercolours, Market Day and The Star Gazer. The summer school ended. The paintings stayed. From that borrowed handful Niland built what is now one of the most important Yeats collections in Ireland, alongside major works by Paul Henry, Louis le Brocquy, George Russell, and Estella Solomons. The collection lives in a converted Victorian schoolhouse on The Mall called, with charming literalism, The Model.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/gc9u-the-model-sligo-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Model, Sligo: Built to Be a Template https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo/ Photo credit Sheila1988, CC0. The original building went up in 1862 to a design by James Owen, then working for the Board of Works. It is a two-storey rubble and ashlar stone building in the Italianate Palazzo style, built by local contractors Patrick Keighron & Son for £8,000. "Model" schools were designed -...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/gc9u-the-model-sligo-built-to-be-a-template.mp3 0:06 2 full The Model, Sligo: The Niland Collection https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo/ Photo credit Sheila1988, CC0. Nora Niland's name is now on the gallery as well as on the collection. She was Sligo County librarian and a woman of practical determination. Starting with the five borrowed Yeats works in 1959, she expanded the holding throughout the 1960s into one of the country's most signific...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/gc9u-the-model-sligo-the-niland-collection.mp3 0:06 3 full The Model, Sligo: Two Refurbishments and a Cultural Quarter https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo/ Photo credit Sheila1988, CC0. The Model's first refurbishment opened in 2000 after Sligo County Council converted the old schoolhouse for museum use. A second, much larger redevelopment ran from 2008 to 2010 as part of the council's vision for a Sligo Cultural Quarter. The extension increased the building by ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/gc9u-the-model-sligo-two-refurbishments-and-a-cultural-quarter.mp3 0:06 4 full The Model, Sligo: Royals, Reconciliation, and an Apology https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo/ Photo credit Sheila1988, CC0. On 20 May 2015, Prince Charles - now King Charles III - made a speech at The Model during a visit aimed at reconciliation around the legacy of his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten's death. Mountbatten had been killed by an IRA bomb in 1979 at Mullaghmore, twenty-five miles north of S...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/gc9u-the-model-sligo-royals-reconciliation-and-an-apology.mp3 0:06 5 full The Model, Sligo: Naming Quarrels and Other Distractions https://qualla.com/the-model-sligo/ Photo credit Sheila1988, CC0. Not every controversy is so heavy. In 2009 the gallery rebranded itself from "Model Arts and Niland Gallery" to "The Model, home of The Niland Collection," which struck some long-time supporters as bureaucratic vandalism. Michael Keohane, former president of the Yeats Summer Scho...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/u/the-model-sligo-wp/gc9u-the-model-sligo-naming-quarrels-and-other-distractions.mp3 0:06 6 full