Ice rink and Christmas market set for Sligo’s Queen Maeve Square

The square, formerly a car park, officially opened last St Patrick's Day has hosted a number of open air music events since including a recent successful food festival.

Cllr Walsh told The Sligo Champion that the background to the proposed ice rink and Christmas Market was that Sligo County Council and eight other local authorities got €50,000 for developing festive activities like Christmas Markets and lights.

"Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Alan Dillon is proposing to allocate €30,000 to Christmas Markets and €20,000 for an ice rink.

"The ice rink will be there for six weeks and will be available until January and it will take up only a part of the square and there is also a proposal for Christmas Markets in conjunction with the ice rink.

"There was an in ice rink there many years ago but insurance costs were too high. It has not got over the line yet but hopefully it will be soon. All of the councillors are pushing it as Queen Maeve Square needs funding for events.

"I think Sligo BID have done a lot of work on this in conjunction with the local authority. Queen Maeve Square is a fantastic facility but there needs to investment into supporting people who run events there and it was discussed in detail at the last Council meeting.

"That is the key and I am involved in the Sligo Summer Festival and we are planning to run three festivals next year but only on the basis that it is supported with funding. That should come from all the stakeholders including the hospitality sector, Sligo BID, the local authority and Fáilte Ireland."

Cllr Walsh added that it was costing €80,000 to run a summer festival per week. "We were told at the last meeting that Sligo BID were going to be the controlling body on it. The governance document on it is supposed to be published in November. So Sligo BID would be the operator and they would have a standard operating procedure in terms of risk assessment, safety and insurance etc.

The Square needs an operator as there are people who would book it for different events throughout the year, from festival operators or locals like the Food Festival or any other event and hopefully Cairde will use the square next year as part of their festival. There needs to be a booking procedure so that it is open to all."