The Model, home of The Niland Collection

Completed in 1862 as a Model School, The Model is now a world-class visitor centre that boasts a restaurant and coffee shop, a bookshop, a wonderful gallery circuit, a purpose-built performance space, and a suite of impressive artist studios on the top floor, with enviable views of Sligo Town and County.

This award-winning building is home to one of the most notable public art collections in Ireland, which features one of the largest public holdings of work by Jack Butler Yeats in existence. The Niland Collection also features a broad range of both traditional and contemporary works by artists including Norah McGuinness, Dorothy Cross, Alice Maher, Clodagh Emoe, Eamon O’Kane, Sean McSweeney, Estella Solomons, and Paul Henry amongst many others.

The Model’s acclaimed contemporary art programme features several major exhibitions of noted national and international contemporary artists each year. The Model develops projects in collaboration with artists, and is itself a site of artistic production, with new commissions, eight purpose-built studios and an artists’ residency programme.

Integral to all aspects of the Model’s programme is an extensive offering of educational opportunities for children and adults, including, in recent years, groundbreaking initiatives such as Sligo Global Kitchen, Touch the Sky (in partnership with RehabCare) and Bart Lodewijks’ Unforgettable Neighbourhoods.