Inside a small terraced house, the blinds are down and the fire is still unlit at midday. There is no other form of heating. A man in his 70s explains that he is "a bit under the weather" and has no real interest in Christmas.
He tells the volunteer delivering meals-on-wheels that he doesn't have much of an appetite. But he takes the two small tin dishes containing a main course and dessert.
For another elderly woman, Christmas Day was not very different from any other. She ate alone, a Christmas dinner from meals-on-wheels. "I get lonesome sometimes, but I have good neighbours," she says.
On a meals-and-wheels delivery run with a volunteer from Sligo Social Services, you see elderly people in a range of very different circumstances. Most of the houses are cosy and well-kept, their owners are obviously very comfortable. But others are badly in need of repair, and you can't help but wondering if these elderly people, living alone, are able to take full care of themselves.
Throughout the past week the meals-on-wheels service operated as normal, thanks mainly to volunteers who give up their free time to help prepare and deliver the dinners.
On Christmas Day about 35 meals were delivered in Sligo town and surrounding areas, compared to 85 most other days.
The director of Sligo Social Services, Father Tom Hever, says that while he knows the meals-on-wheels service in some Dublin areas had to be suspended over Christmas because of a shortage of volunteers, they have had no such problem in Sligo. In fact after a radio broadcast about the problems in Dublin, people rang to check that there were enough volunteers for the week. "I think that is a marvellous sign of the state of a community," he says.
More than 130 volunteers help run the meals-on-wheels in Sligo town and within a six-mile radius. The total number of volunteers within Sligo Social Services is about 300.
Only a small proportion of these people are young. Many are retired and the vast majority are aged over 40, so Father Hever accepts he is "not sure about how it will go in the future".
The co-ordinator of the meals-on-wheels service, Eithne Kiely, says she believes many of the volunteers come to the work through religion, and they see it as an extension of their faith. Young people's declining involvement in organised religion may be a factor in their under-representation.
She stresses that meals-on-wheels is not "charity", as people pay different charges, depending on their means. Both she and Father Hever believe that most elderly people are well looked after now, that the state agencies do a good job. Sometimes pride prevents them taking all the help that is available.
But in encouraging people to volunteer, Father Hever stresses that there is "a need out there", that the notion that everybody benefited from the Celtic Tiger economy is not true. The reality is some people are struggling.
Ms Kiely says the service is about more than just meals - it is also about contact. "Some of these people might not see anybody all day otherwise. During the snow last Christmas, many of them told us that the only footsteps to their door was the meals-on-wheels person," she says.
At the end of this year, designated specifically to acknowledge the role of volunteers, Father Hever says he cannot over-emphasise their importance.
"The greatest gift we can give to people is our time. Certainly money is necessary but time is the greatest gift. When you give time to people, it does wonders for them, but you also get something back yourself," he says.
"And for the people receiving the services, it gives them a sense that they are important. These are people who have no sense of worth at times and they feel, 'I am important enough within the life of the community for this person to be here for me.' It shows them that they are still significant," he says.
Helping out our neighbours has always been a part of Irish society, he says. "That would be an awful thing to lose. If we lose that, we lose a certain part of our soul."