Sligo - Between Benbulben and the Bay

[Title]
Sligo - Between Benbulben and the Bay

[Intro - soft tin whistle, gentle guitar, calm western river rhythm]
By the Garavogue at evening,
Where the river turns to grey,
Sligo lifts its western windows
Between Benbulben and the bay.

[Verse 1 - warm male lead vocal]
The Garavogue runs out of Lough Gill,
Through bridge and quay and stone,
It carries lake-light through the town,
And gives the streets a tone.

Shells beneath the old place-name,
Sea-wind in the rain,
Sligo wakes with mountain shadow,
And river-song again.

[Pre-Chorus - soft female harmony enters]
From Abbey Street to water,
From market roofs to sky,
The west keeps moving softly
Where the gulls and church bells fly.

[Chorus - gentle repeated chorus, not anthem-heavy]
Sligo, Sligo, river to the sea,
Benbulben in the morning,
The bay wind calling free.
Sligo, Sligo, old stone, western rain,
Between the mountain and the water,
Your quiet song remains.

[Verse 2 - old stone and Christian memory]
Sligo Abbey keeps its arches,
Open now to sun and rain,
Dominican stones still holding
Prayer, loss and time's refrain.

The cathedral bells rise over town,
Their chimes across the air,
A quiet Christian memory
Still finding music there.

[Chorus - slightly fuller, still intimate]
Sligo, Sligo, river to the sea,
Benbulben in the morning,
The bay wind calling free.
Sligo, Sligo, old stone, western rain,
Between the mountain and the water,
Your quiet song remains.

[Instrumental Break - fiddle and tin whistle, gentle bodhran, warm strings]

[Verse 3 - ancient landscape, carefully worded]
Out by Carrowmore the old stones
Stand in fields of western light,
Passage tombs and open silence,
Older than our names for night.

On Knocknarea the cairn stands high,
A story later tongues have told;
But stone is older than the legend,
And the wind is older still.

[Bridge - human meaning and Yeats memory]
Poets heard the western weather,
Not because the place was dream,
But because the real light gathered
On mountain, bay and stream.

Christ-light rests in chapel windows,
Mercy walks the rain-wet lane;
Sligo keeps its living memory
In river mist and mountain grain.

[Verse 4 - living local memory]
So let the river carry footsteps,
Past the bridges, shops and quays,
Let the bay breathe in from Rosses Point,
Let Strandhill answer on the breeze.

For Sligo is more than written pages,
More than names the guidebooks say;
It is a western town still singing
Between Benbulben and the bay.

[Final Chorus - fuller, warm, emotional but not stadium-like]
Sligo, Sligo, river to the sea,
Benbulben in the morning,
The bay wind calling free.
Sligo, Sligo, old stone, western rain,
Between the mountain and the water,
Your quiet song remains.

Sligo, Sligo, Garavogue and stone,
Where the western light remembers
Every road that leads us home.

[Final Refrain - soft emotional finish]
Mountain and bay, river and rain,
Sligo, call us home again.
Mountain and bay, river and rain,
Sligo, call us home again.

[Outro - final vocal line]
Between Benbulben and the bay,
Sligo keeps the song.

[Outro - instrumental only, 8 seconds, no vocals]
Fading tin whistle, soft fiddle, gentle guitar, light bodhran, slow natural fade-out.

[End]