I have tried to embody, in the following pages, the secular, the religious, the social, and, in 'some measure, the natural history of Sligo. I have spared no pains to collect and verify the facts which belong to the subject under each of these aspects. Knowing the great want of an original and authentic history of the county, and aiming at the supply of the desideratum, I have taken nothing at second - hand, but have gone in all cases for myself to the sources.
Though disposed at first to rely, more or less implicitly, on John O'Donovan and the Ordnance Survey letter-writers, I had not proceeded far when, finding them generally unsafe, and frequently misleading guides, it became necessary to trust them, like others, only in proportion to the weight of the evidence which they bring to the support of their opinions. After demurring to the authority of O'Donovan, as to the matter in hand, it is almost superfluous to add that I set little store by his echoists and copyists—epithets which may with justice be applied to those who have written about Sligo since his day.
