Arlene’s son is President and Sligo Gaol is open. It’s 2070

IN THE PAST two weeks, McHugh’s Views has been looking back at what Sligo was like when I first came here 49 years ago.

So this week, let’s have some fun going the opposite direction in the time tunnel and try to envisage how things will be in 49 years from now in 2070. I can do so with the luxury of knowing that I will not be around to answer to readers if I get it totally wrong. But the time tunnel enables me to visit Sligo in 2070.

Taking the same route as I did coming here in 1972, I head up the M16 motorway which runs from Enniskillen to Sligo. I set the controls on my driverless car and sit back, enjoying the scenery.

The motorway was officially opened a few years by the President of the United Ireland, Ben Foster, son of Arlene Foster, who once headed a party known as the DUP.

Ben took over the office of President from an aging Mary Lou McDonald, who was President for 14 years before retiring at 87.

At Ballinode I turn right and cross the Eastern Bridge to Riverside. I am now in the revamped Sligo East City area, which grew out of the Cranmore Regeneration Plan.

I go for a coffee in the visitor centre at the Sligo Gaol Complex, which is now 35 years open. The amenity attracts 55,000 visitors annually. Some come for the gaol tours and others to attend concerts and conferences in the events centre at the complex.

I pay for my coffee with an app on my tiny electronic device. The notes and coins that we once used are now obsolete, but some people hold on to a few of them for nostalgic reasons.

Going towards the city centre, I again take the Eastern Bridge back to the Ballinode roundabout. The road into the city takes me under the skybridge linking the main section of Sligo University Hospital with its new extension, which was originally Sligo Grammar School.

The Grammar is now based in the refurbished and extended St Columba’s Hospital, originally owned by the health authorities. Basically, they agreed a swap of buildings.

The hospital has made huge medical advances in recent years with gene therapy treatment replacing many of the traditional procedures.

My car parks itself in Connaughton Road, one of the few car parks remaining from the old days. I take a walk around the city centre, where most streets are pedestrianised. The absence of cars is as a result of the park-and-ride lots on the outskirts of the city. Driverless buses take shoppers and workers in to their destinations.

Despite the fact that most are working from home, the city is bustling. I go for a pint in Hargadon’s, the only establishment in the city that has remained as it was all those years ago.

An elderly couple next to me are recalling a virus that crippled the world back in 2020 and 2021. Apparently it was a bad dose. Thankfully it went the way of the dinosaur.

I take a trip on a commuter train out to Strandhill. The seaside town is booming since it was officially declared the surfing capital of the 32-county Ireland.

The one big disappointment is that the once famous golf club is no more. Climate change and resulting coastal erosion has drowned out the course, as happened in Rosses Point a few years earlier.

Now, due to my 600-word limit, it’s time to head back in the time tunnel to 2021.

I hope Covid is gone when I get back.

Brian McHugh is the founder and former editor of the Sligo Weekender. He can be contacted at brian.mchugh@sligoweekender.ie

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