W.B. Yeats bitterly condemned the Dublin merchants of his day over their refusal to fund a gallery for the Hugh Lane paintings, and for their preoccupation with adding "the halfpence to the pence". The same complaint could not be made back in his home county today, as £3.5 million is being spent on a number of Sligo's principal arts venues.
In a frenzy of activity, the Model Centre, the Yeats Memorial Building and the Factory Performance Space are all undergoing major refurbishment, while in Gurteen, in the south of the county, an entirely new arts centre is to be built.
These developments, added to the fact that an increasing number of artists and writers are taking up residence in the area, will add to Sligo's growing reputation as an important centre for the arts.
One reason for the boom, apart from generous European funding, is a growing realisation of the economic importance of developing the arts. Cultural tourism has been identified as a potential growth area, and local authorities are playing an increasing role in promoting the arts.
Mr Hubert Kearns, Sligo County manager, stresses that the local authorities are not getting involved for solely economic reasons. Sligo, mainly because of the Yeats brothers, has long had a strong association with the arts.
"We want to build on that and foster a new environment where artists feel valued, and we want to stimulate a greater interest in the arts among people generally," says Mr Kearns.
Regarding the largest and most expensive of the projects, Sligo Corporation and Sligo County Council have joined in partnership with the community-based Model Arts Centre to refurbish the existing premises and build a new gallery. The cost of the project will be more than £2 million, with the local authorities providing £500,000. The Department of Arts, making use of EU structural funding, is providing £1.25 million.
Originally the Model School, the building was constructed some 150 years ago and is one of Sligo's most impressive, even though it is in need of some repair. Staff admit there was the odd occasion when a piano leg went through the floor boards, but such incidents haven't deterred them.
An arts centre since 1990, it has hosted many important exhibitions and annual festivals, including the Scriobh Literary Festival, an Early Music Festival and a Contemporary Music Festival, which takes place this weekend. The centre is also home to Sligo Arts Festival and the publication Force 10.
The building will close from December 11th and reopen some 18 months later as the Model and Niland Centre. The new Niland Gallery will at last provide a fitting home for an important municipal art collection, which includes work by Jack B. Yeats, Sean Keating, Paul Henry and many other leading Irish artists of the 20th century.
The existence of the collection is mainly due to the life-long efforts of the late Nora Niland, a former county librarian, who set out to ensure that the people of Sligo would have the "cultural property" that was rightfully theirs.
In 1960, she raised £3,000 to buy three Jack B. Yeats paintings - The Island Funeral, The Funeral of Harry Boland and Communicating with Prisoners. The collection has grown with donations and acquisitions over the years and art lovers in the region will be looking forward to seeing the works displayed in their new surroundings.
The new gallery has been designed to meet the standards required by the National Gallery of Ireland and will be capable of facilitating large touring exhibitions.
Meanwhile, an ambitious refurbishment is also taking place at another of Sligo's main landmarks, the Yeats Building on the Douglas Hyde Bridge. It was donated by the AIB to the Yeats Society in 1973 as a memorial building to the Nobel Prize-winning poet.
The society, which is best known for organising the Yeats International Summer School, now hopes to make the building "self-sufficient". It currently houses a specialist library of practically every book published on Yeats, and the Sligo Art Gallery. The library is open at set times, or by arrangement.
A cafe, conference room and museum will be provided initially at a cost of some £500,000. It is eventually intended to construct a new three-storey building on the riverside site behind the existing house. Ground-floor shop units will be rented out.
Mrs Maura McTighe, president of the Yeats Society, says such an income is vital if the society is to develop its activities. "We have a great desire to be more community-oriented, and would like to make the building a focus for cultural life. In the past it wasn't fulfilling its full potential," she says.
Further along the quayside, builders are also at work on the Factory Performance Space, the home of the Blue Raincoat Theatre Company. Some £150,000 is being spent upgrading the premises, a former abattoir.
Founder/director Malcolm Hamilton says that with the improvements, the venue will be able to complement the Hawk's Well Theatre as a secondary performance venue. The refurbishment should be completed by March when the company stages its next production.
Traditional music will be the focus of the new Coleman Centre in Gurteen, which is to be built on the site of an old creamery at a cost of £700,000. The centre will include an auditorium and museum, and a traditional music school will run full-time courses. Named after the fiddler Michael Coleman, the school will specialise in the unique playing style of south Sligo.
In 1912, an angry Yeats wrote: "Let Paudeens play at pitch and toss". Given current developments, he can rest happy under Ben Bulben knowing that Sligo is giving "children's children loftier thought".