DONEGAL TOWN : TUESDAY : 26th April 2011

We started the day with a large cooked breakfast (full Irish) before heading out to explore. Donegal itself is quite small with a few shops, a castle which is less than impressive, and more churches than the population justifies. It has a reputation for its tweed and linen however we didn’t see any evidence of either of these trades, the mainstay of this town seems to be tourism, of which there seems to be an endless supply. We went to the Abbey graveyard later in the day and it seemed as if a tour bus had off loaded a bunch of Americans on their genealogy trail.

It was very cool graveyard surrounding the remains of an old abbey destroyed, accidentally blown up in 1601. Four of the resident Friars about that time, fearing that the arrival of the English meant the end of Celtic culture, chronicled the whole of known Celtic history and mythology from 40 years before the Flood to 1618 ad in ‘The Annuls of the Four Masters’, still one of the most important sources of early Irish history. The graveyard around these ruins displays a inclination towards the Celtic cross, and boasts a plethora of old Irish family names (a few Sweeney’s included).

Back to the start of the day, our first stop was to the Donegal Craft Market, this wasn’t quite up to what we were expecting. Rather than a craft market it was a venue for resident artists to occupy a studio and sell their wares. Unfortunately only a few of the units were occupied, however those that were displayed some very cool work, although a little rich for what we had in mind spending today. These are artists, not craft shops.

KILLYBEGS : County Donegal : Republic of Ireland : Population 2000

In 1588, Killybegs was the last port of call for the Spanish vessel La Girona, which had dropped anchor in the harbour when the Spanish Armada arrived in Ireland during Spain's war with England. With the assistance of a Killybegs chieftain, MacSweeney Bannagh, the Girona's rudder was repaired and she set sail for Scotland. Killybegs is a natural deepwater harbour with a minimum of 12 meters of water at all times

Today we are heading West to a place called Slieve League, but on our way we stopped at a place called Killybegs. This seems to be a small fishing village. This may not convey the image of what it is really like. This is a commercial port filled with very large modern looking commercial fishing boats. Apart from that there doesn’t seem to be much that goes on in this town.

Whilst in Killybegs there was a certain church that we wanted to find, as we had been told that there was a particular stone slab there that might be of interest to me. When we found the church up on the hill, we were greeted by a procession of trucks, and a chain of men loading them up with the long wooden pews from out of the church. It looked like they were emptying it out ready for a refit. Beside the outside of the door was the stone slab that we had come to see. It was the grave slab of Niall Mor McSwyne (or McSweeney) who died in 1524. The slab depicts a warlike figure in chain mail and with battleaxe. The story is that he was the head of the clan of one of the ruling families in Donegal, he was a gallowglass, which was a Scottish mercenary who came to these parts in the 13^th Century. He was evidently an ancestor of mine. The same ancestors that owned Doe Castle to the North of the County, a 16^th Century stronghold of the MacSweeney’s until it fell to the English in the 17^th Century.

SLIEVE LEAGUE : County Donegal : Republic of Ireland

Ireland’s highest sea cliffs at 601 metres, three times higher than the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare

Once we arrived at Slieve League, we parked at the bottom car park as we had been advised, but in retrospect we aren’t sure why, except that it gave us a good excuse to get the exercise of walking the 2 kms up the steep incline to the top carpark. Once we got there, there was no reason that we couldn’t have driven up except that perhaps it fills up on busy days, but today it wasn’t. So with heart pumping and heavy breath we then proceeded to commence the rest of the climb to see the cliffs. These polychrome cliffs rise 600 metres above the sea which crash incessantly against its base. These are the highest marine cliffs in Europe and as such are very impressive. But if you are expecting vertical cliffs rising straight up 600m from base to top, they aren’t. It is more like the look and feel of Cape Kidnappers, with very high hills with vertical facets dropping down to the sea. Very cool nonetheless, with multi-coloured faces, huge rocks and heather and other flora clinging wherever it could find traction. Down in the cove at its base the wash of waves is ceaseless, with the blue water rushing in, two large islets/rocks sit in the middle of the cove that are known as the ‘School Desk and Chair’ for obvious reasons.

MAGHERY : County Armagh : Republic of Ireland : Population 201

Maghery is the shortening of its older name Magherygreenan

From here we headed Northward via a convoluted route to a beach called Maghery, on the Northern edge of the peninsula. The beach is a wide open expanse of the finest and whitest sand that we have seen in a very long time. Looking out there are big continuous sets of waves rolling in, and even on a calm day like today, their white caps are being whipped up into distended horse manes by the wind. The full force of the waves were kept off the beach by the series of sand bars that were visible from the waters edge.

This is a wild and wooly, and sparsely populated part of the country borne out to us by what we have been traveling through. Winding single lane roads (which are made more interesting when you meet large articulated trucks on the corners – in one instance we had to reverse 150 metres back down the road to find somewhere where we could squeeze past each other), huge rock faces, rough scraggly looking sheep, and vegetation that would make a camel give up. However they seem to have plenty of sheep, evidently they are a Scottish highland breed that are used to doing it tough.

Back to the beach, looking behind us we can see the high knarled hills, to our front we see the wide expanse of sand and the wild and crazy looking sea leading out to the beautifully blue water, and to our left there are the most amazing jumbled collection of huge slabs of rock. It was amongst these rocks that a group of 100 villagers lived in caves trying to escape the destruction of Cromwell in the 17^th Century. All but one of them were eventually found and massacred. We have the feeling that this wasn’t on the minds of the small group of swimmers that we saw braving the waters. They seemed to be putting on a brave face though. As they emerged we asked them how it was, and they responded with the unanimous “Bloody cold, don’t do it.”

We finished the day back in Killybegs, having fish and chips by the water. We have managed to uphold our promise that we will only eat fish when we are within sight of the water.