Call for plaque to Lola Montez
A Sligo born Spanish dancer should be commemorated in her native county according to a North Sligo councillor.
Councillor Donal Gilroy has proposed erecting a commemorative plaque to mark the 200 th anniversary of the birth of 19 th century beauty and Spanish dancer Lola Montez where she was born at the site of the former military Married Quarters housing in Grange.
Born Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, she later took the stage name of Lola Montez, having trained as a Spanish dancer after her first marriage broke up. Montez lived and travelled extensively across Europe. In France she had affairs with the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt, the French author of ‘ The Three Musketeers’Alexandre Dumas before moving to Bavaria and seducing the elderly King Ludwig I of Bavaria who granted her the title of Countess Maria von Landsfeld. The German aristocracy were scandalised and the King was forced to abdicate in 1848 following riots against the affair.
She was married three times in total and spent almost two decades dancing on stages in Gold rush-era San Francisco and Australia, dying in 1861 in Brooklyn.
Cllr Gilroy told the meeting that marking her death could be a welcome tourism boost to the area and would become a focal point for German tourists due to her connection with King Ludwig I.
“Could we contact the authorities in Bavaria to mark it? Limerick has tried to claim her but she’s ours,” he told the meeting.
“She was born here and left as an infant but she wasn’t born anywhere else,” he said.
Cllr Marie Casserly agreed Montez was a “colourful” character and said she would be supportive of “anything that puts Sligo on the map.”
Director of Services Dorothy Clarke told the meeting that the Council would support “any Lola Montez interest group” in organizing an “appropriate commemorative event to mark her 200 th anniversary in 2021.
Meanwhile, Cllr Gilroy called for a series of events to commemorate the 1500 th anniversary of the birth of St. Colmcille in 2021. He said Sligo had many connections with the saint, most notably the Monastery at Drumcliffe, the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne (Cooladrumman) and his visit to St. Molaise at Inishmurray to receive his penance and banishment to Iona.
“There are contradictory historians who say he may or may not have visited Sligo, he may or he may not but he got his penance at Inishmurray,” said Cllr Gilroy.