Sligo Abbey, more accurately called the Dominican Friary of Sligo, was founded in 1253 by Maurice FitzGerald, Baron of Offaly. The Abbey has had a turbulent history, having been destroyed by fire in 1414, gutted during the Tyrone War of 1595 and attacked during the Ulster Rising of 1641. Despite this, friars continued to inhabit the abbey until the 18th century when the community moved. Lord Palmerston restored part of the ruins in the mid-19th century but eventually the Abbey was handed over to the state in the early 1900s and is now open to the public. Although commonly known as Sligo Abbey, the correct title for Sligo's only surviving megalithic structure is The Convent of the Holy Cross and was in fact a Dominican Friary.

The difference between an abbey and a friary being that where friar preachers live in a friary and invited the general public to worship in their church, monks would have lived in an abbey and would have generally confined their vocation to worship through prayer and meditation.