About County Leitrim
County Leitrim is one of Ireland's smallest and least populous counties, a narrow strip of land between Sligo and Cavan that touches the Atlantic at a single point, a tiny coastline of barely five kilometres. Its landscape of drumlin hills, river valleys and lakes has a quiet beauty that has inspired poets and writers. Leitrim was among the counties most devastated by the Famine and emigration.
History
Leitrim was the territory of the O'Rourke clan, princes of Breifne, whose territory stretched across the northwest midlands. The county's poverty was structural, its thin soils and wet climate made farming difficult even in good years. When the potato failed, Leitrim had little resilience.
How Leitrim families left Ireland
Leitrim's population has been falling since the Famine and has never recovered. The county lost more of its people to emigration, proportionally, than almost any other. Leitrim families left through Sligo and Drogheda, many going to New York where the county association remains active to this day.
Places worth visiting in County Leitrim
- Parke's Castle, the beautifully restored plantation castle on the shores of Lough Gill
- Glencar Waterfall, the fall that inspired W.B. Yeats, tumbling from the Dartry Mountains
- Lough Rynn Castle, the estate of the Clements family, surrounded by notable parkland
- The Shannon-Erne Waterway, the restored canal linking two of Ireland's great river systems
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