Sligo Times - Sligo Poets

(1909-1914)

Robert Smyllie, the editor and proprietor of this newspaper, had spent almost twenty years on the staff of the Sligo Independent.

The Sligo Times was a generally brighter publication than Sligo's other unionist newspaper the Sligo Independent which Smyllie called ‘our staid contemporary’. It contained photographs, a womans' page, and a chess column.

Its progress was hampered by its inability to secure printing contracts from public bodies in the county and it continually complained about this.

The newspaper was unionist and anti-Home Rule. It made few editorial comments on the progress of and opposition to Home Rule but did report on the determined campaign by Sligo Unionists. It refused to respond to the continual goading of the nationalist Sligo Champion preferring to stress its interest in the development of the commercial and business life of the town and county.

Robert Smylie, editor, was elected to Sligo Corporation in 1911 and was the only non-nationalist on that body. He was the father of the more famous Bertie Smyllie, editor of the Irish Times 1934-54.

In early 1914. the paper collapsed and Smyllie left Sligo to take up a position with the Belfast News-Letter.

Robert Smyllie in the 1901 Census; in the 1911 Census.

Poems included in the Sligo Times 1912.

The following poems represent well the various types of poetry published in Sligo local newspapers. There are some recognisably non-Sligo poets, Kipling and Susan Coolidge.

The local author, D.C. Devine sent his solution to the newspaper's chess problem in verse in January and his acrostic elegy for a fellow resident of Tubbercurry was included in her obituary in March.

Local politics and events are represented by three poems. Peter's Psalm is the most overtly political of these, making fun of the agrarian campaign of the UIL. The one on Tobercurry Waterworks may also have a political agenda, as part of the Unionist argument against Home Rule was the inability of nationalist-controlled local government to function satisfactorily. The poem on women's suffrage reflects the jocose way this issue was often dealt with. However the Sligo Times contained more factual reporting of Sligo suffrage activities than did its competitors.