Built about 1841 to 1845, the Dunfanaghy Workhouse gatehouses are the last remaining structures of what was once a full workhouse complex, set in its own grounds to the south-west of Dunfanaghy in County Donegal. The pair of gable-fronted, single-storey blocks with attic level were built to designs by George Wilkinson, architect to the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland. Wilkinson was responsible for the design and erection of all 130 workhouses built in Ireland. The paired gatehouses may have served as separate admissions blocks for male and female paupers, a layout slightly unusual for Irish workhouses, though parallels exist at Ballycastle and Castlederg. Dunfanaghy Union Workhouse was originally planned in 1841 to accommodate 300 paupers. Estimated costs were £4,350 for the buildings and £855 for fittings and fixtures. The site was purchased in 1842 from Alexander Stewart of Ards House, the proprietor of the town and surrounding areas. Some accounts state the workhouse was completed on the 15th of March 1841, while others suggest building works started in 1844 and first admissions were accepted on the 24th of June 1845. A separate fever hospital was constructed to the south of the site. It was one of seven workhouses built in County Donegal, alongside those at Donegal Town, Ballyshannon, Glenties, Inishowen, Letterkenny, and Milford. The workhouse closed in 1922 and the site became abandoned. The workhouse buildings themselves were demolished about 2000, and modern housing now occupies the ground, partially built using reclaimed stone from the complex. The gatehouses were modified in 1995 with a linking block and reopened as a heritage centre. The buildings carry what the record calls a "subdued Tudoresque architectural character" typical of workhouses in Ireland, with chamfered stone surrounds, mullions, transoms, and hoodmouldings to the windows. The design, described as almost picturesque, belies the grim institutional use and the fate suffered by many occupants during the Great Famine.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (CC-BY 4.0), NIAH 40807008 · source

Dunfanaghy means the fort of the fair warrior, though the fort and the warrior have never been traced. There is a stone cashel near Claggan on the Horn Head promontory, and a cromlech on a neighbouring hill, but they seem too far away to account for the name. The town lies at the head of the western arm of Sheep Haven, where at high tide the water comes almost under the windows of the outer rooms. The country from here towards Creeslough, and in the other direction towards Falcarragh, is almost entirely brown bogland, with an occasional lough and deep ditch to break the surface. That it was once covered with a forest of fir trees is evident from the remains of their roots and branches all across the bog. It is said with probable truth that the Elizabethan and later Lords Deputy had the trees cut down because the forests gave shelter to the Irish, who were fighting for their own country and were regarded as rebels by the British of the time. Thirty years ago, when the author first visited Donegal, a long car ran to Dunfanaghy from Letterkenny, always carrying far more passengers than it could conveniently hold. The well lay between the two rows of back-to-back occupants, piled high with luggage and provisions shed along the route at their proper destinations. A rail was supposed to keep the baggage from the passengers' backs, but they did not escape occasional bonnetings from insecurely tied packages. The rails on either side caused their own minor inconvenience.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 23 · source

A court tomb at Oirear Dhumhaí Beag stands at the edge of a flat, heather-grown bog, about 4km north-east of Falcarragh, on the coastal strip between Ballyness Bay and Horn Head. It overlooks lower ground to the south, and beyond that the mountains of north-west Donegal form the skyline. The name Dermot and Grania's Bed was meant to identify this tomb on the Ordnance Survey map, but it was mistakenly applied to a spot about 100 metres to the west. The tomb lacks a court. It consists of an unroofed gallery about 5 metres long, entered between a doubled pair of jambs at the south-east. The gallery stands toward the south-east end of a slight mound, 19.5 metres long and up to 0.5 metres high, narrowing from about 12 metres wide to about 6 metres. A stone wall marks the north side of the mound. Four jambs guard the entrance. The outer two stand 0.9 metres apart. The southern one is now 0.4 metres high, with a piece broken from its top. The northern jamb is more substantial, standing 1.1 metres high. The inner jambs are 0.55 metres apart. Beyond them, the main gallery is 4 metres long and about 2 metres wide, narrowing to 1.25 metres at the back. Two orthostats survive on the northern side, 1.05 metres and 0.7 metres high. A fine gabled backstone closes the gallery, 1.3 metres high, rising above the adjacent sidestones. Ordnance Survey documents of the mid-19th century indicate the tomb was then in much the same condition as now. But Fagan, surveying in the 1840s, claimed that besides the existing gallery there were a number of "disfigured" smaller graves in the mound, and nearby "the ruins of other graves." There is now no trace of any of these.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG025-005---- · source

Baile Na Bó, in Donegal, holds a stone feature that Borlase in 1897 listed as a dolmen, later described as a chamber tomb. It is an altar at which, it is locally believed, Mass was celebrated during the era of the Penal laws. The description was published in the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Volume 6, County Donegal.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG025-047---- · source

This is a court tomb at Baile Na Bó in Donegal. It stands on level coastal farmland 400 metres east of the Ray River and 1.4 kilometres from the sea, with Muckish Mountain dominating the skyline to the south. The monument has three elements linked on an east to west axis: a full court at the west leading to a gallery of at least two chambers, a middle structure resembling the ruins of a portal tomb chamber, and a lone orthostat 1.8 metres high standing in a small eastern mound. The cairn measures 28 metres in overall length and 13 metres in maximum width. A section north of the gallery has been robbed, and field stones have been dumped along the court perimeter. The court is bounded by at least fifteen orthostats. The original form of the complex is not altogether clear. Flint flakes were found at the site in 1981 and 1989.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG025-046---- · source

Close to Ballyconnell, somewhere around here, is Ballyconnell House, the residence of Sir John Olphert, and in its grounds sits the famous Cloc-a-Neely, the stone of the bloody head. It is a huge piece of white rock with a single red vein running through it. Legend says that vein is the crystallised blood of a mainland chieftain called Mackineely, who was beheaded on this very stone by one Balor, of the mighty blows, a former ruler of Tory Island. Balor afterwards met his own death at Bloody Foreland, a place then called Knockfola, meaning hill of blood. There is little doubt this stone is an old relic of the feuds that kept this district in a continual ferment in bygone days. Ballyconnell House also holds a capital museum, containing many objects and coins dug from the sand hills hereabouts. In the old churchyard of Myrath nearby is a gigantic cross, overthrown and broken, said to have been hewn from a single piece of stone from the side of Muckish Mountain by Saint Colum Cille. Close by is the dripping well of St. Finian, held in great veneration by the peasantry, who frequently make pilgrimages to the spot. And out on the island of Innisdooey there are some most interesting caves. The whole district is well watered by several rivers of more than passing importance. The fishing on them, and on the lakes from which they flow, is in the right of Sir John Olphert, who is pleased to grant permission to visiting anglers. For the most part they flow through wild mountainous country.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 36 · source

You are coming through Falcarragh now, in Donegal. In the late 1800s, this was where the nearest doctor lived when someone fell gravely ill on Tory Island, out in the Atlantic. When sickness came to Tory, people tried charms and old remedies first. Sometimes those were not enough, and they had to send for the mainland doctor. This happened within the last fifty years before the book was written. The doctor at Falcarragh later claimed the story as his own, though other doctors claimed it too. The writer notes the old adage, "Where doctors disagree, who then shall decide?" One morning, five or six fishermen from Tory arrived at his door, begging him to come treat a patient who seemed on the point of death. He knew the crossing would be rough and he doubted he would be paid. He tried to put them off. When that failed, he thought mentioning his fee would discourage them. He told them he could not go unless they first paid him a guinea. The fishermen stepped aside to talk among themselves. He thought he was rid of them. In less than five minutes they came back, laid the money in his hand, and told him to come. He had no grounds left to refuse. He pocketed his fee and his reluctance, boarded their boat, and they reached the island. They took him to the cabin where the sick man lay in a parlous condition. He prescribed for his patient, sat up the night with him, and left him in a fair way to recover. But when his work was done, the fishermen refused to take him back to the mainland. They demanded three guineas for the return passage. He was stranded on Tory for days until he paid.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 74 · source

As you pass through Falcarragh, there is a shed near the town where a battering-ram once stood in the open, manufactured but never used for the Gweedore evictions. It was an imposing-looking instrument, fashioned after a strictly classical fashion, and well calculated to do great execution upon the primitive cabins of the district. It seemed to be made of oak, or some equally hard wood, which had suffered little from the weather. The author saw it from a mail-car driven by a man named Larry, who was in the employment of the government. Larry drove a bareboned horse and carried a long list of parcels in his pocket that grew almost illegible from being taken out so often. Nothing seemed to move him, but when he saw the battering-ram his long face was lighted up with a sudden blaze of anger. He exclaimed, "Bad cess to ye for an ill-mannered baste that ye are. May the divvle rot ye entirely." The author calls it a monstrous monument of British respect for the rights of property. Just before reaching the shed, the mail-car came to so sudden a stop that the author was all but thrown into the middle of the road. A tall woman clung to a long rope tied to the right hind-leg of a huge pig, stretched right across the road. The woman was screeching Gaelic oaths, the pig was answering in its own tongue. She would not, the pig could not, let go, and the pair remained in a state of equilibrium for some time. Larry, thoroughly roused, fired off a torrent of evil-sounding Gaelic. The woman cursed, the pig squealed. At last the pig shook itself free.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 43 · source

As you pass through Gortahork, you are near the place where the old story says Balor cut off Kineely's head on a large stone. The stone is the Clough-Kineely, Kineely's Stone, a huge block of quartzite with a deep-red vein, mounted on a column in the grounds of one of the former generations of the Olphert family. His clotted blood can still be seen on it, or so the story goes. Kineely had wooed and won Balor's daughter, and she bore twin sons. When Balor heard the news, he fell upon Kineely and killed him on that stone, then sent a henchman to drown the infants in the sea. The henchman pinned them up in a blanket and cast them into the waves, but the pin gave way at a corner and one child fell out into the grass by the wayside. A herdsman found him and reared him. The other child was drowned, and the inlet where it happened is called Port a Delg, Bay of the Pin, to this day. The rescued twin grew up under the name MacKineely, Kineely's son. His foster-father told him of his royal birth and the fate of his father and brother, and the young man burned to be revenged.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 3 · source

As you travel through Cloghaneely in Donegal, what strikes first is the awful congestion of it. Farms and fields are tiny, houses packed almost as close as in a Garden Suburb. A French author described the congested districts of Connacht and Donegal as 'rural slums,' a terrible and suggestive phrase. Grass-roofed hovels climb the barren mountain at the foot of Errigal, sheltering large families. Children of the tenderest age herd cattle along the roads, if roads these ill-hewn passes may be named. The congested districts along the coast hold roughly half a million people, corresponding with the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking areas. Munster's Irish-speaking territories are more prosperous, and that prosperity may explain Munster's lead in the language cause. A certain modicum of prosperity is needed before a people can interest itself in an intellectual movement.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from From a Gaelic outpost (1921), De Bl©cam, Aodh, 1891-1951, Internet Archive fromgaelicoutpos00debl, Chapter 1 · source

This is a burial site at Caoldroim íochtarach in Donegal. In the 1840s, Thomas Fagan recorded that people knew it locally as 'Dermot and Grania's Bed.' He described two stone slabs, one standing upright, about 1.4 metres high, 1.05 metres long, and 0.2 metres thick, with a smaller slab leaning against it. Other stones lay flat on the ground or stood on edge, all apparently within a round enclosure about 23 metres across. The site was excavated in 1976. The excavator found a rubble-cored wall, faced inside and out, forming a round enclosure 23 metres in diameter. At the south, a chamber filled with midden material sat within the wall's thickness. At the north-east a gap in the wall, and 3 metres south of it, stood the two stones Fagan had noted. The excavator suggested they were opposed sidestones of a small megalithic chamber, with a socket behind each and another forming the back at the west. Immediately east of and in front of this chamber, he identified a small 'forecourt' marked by sockets. Two periods of activity were found. The earlier left sherds of Western Neolithic pottery, a plano-convex flint knife, and possibly sherds of coarse pottery. The later period left stone spindle whorls, a bone needle, a bracelet and ring both of chlorite, and a heavily corroded iron object. Animal bones and piles of shells came from different parts of the enclosure, along with a small amount of cremated human bone. By 1994 the site was largely hidden by furze bushes and looked like a ruined cashel, with the two stones Fagan described, one leaning against the other, forming what seemed an entrance at the south. The nature of the supposed megalithic chamber remains uncertain, and the context of the Neolithic activity at the site is unclear.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG024-015001- · source

You are passing through Gweedore in Donegal. In 1837, Patrick M'Kye, the national school teacher here, sent a memorial to the Lord Lieutenant describing the desperate state of the parishioners of Tullaghobegly. He wrote that they were "in the most needy, hungry, and naked condition of any people that ever came within the precincts of my knowledge." M'Kye had travelled through parts of nine counties in Ireland, England, Scotland, British America, and 2253 miles through the United States, and said he had never witnessed even a tenth part of such hunger, hardships, and nakedness. He told the Lord Lieutenant that only the extraordinary importance of the matter would make him presume to lay it before him.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 85 · source

You are coming through the locality of Gweedore in Donegal. In the famine winter of 1847, a traveller passed through here and saw two estates side by side, and the contrast between them was, in his words, a most striking illustration of the working of two opposite systems. One was Lord George Hill's estate. The other was the adjoining estate belonging to the Marquis of Conyngham. The poor tenants of Gweedore were suffering. They had lost the crop on which they chiefly depended, like their neighbours. But they still had some property, some cows and a little corn. And they had a store, well provided with all suitable articles of food and clothing, where everything they produced could be disposed of at a fair price. Lord George Hill had written a little book called Facts from Gweedore, which the traveller said deserved to be more widely known. The passage says that what was done here by landowners acting on common humanity, common justice, and common sense might have been done by others with similar success. It required no hidden or mysterious agency. It was not a discovery. It was the application of well-known principles, and it showed the practicability of raising the character of the most degraded portions of the Irish people, and improving, through their agency, the value of the soil. The traveller visited both estates in the midst of the sufferings of that winter and never, perhaps, could the contrast between them be seen to greater advantage.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from A Visit to Connaught in the Autumn of 1847: A Letter Addressed to the ... (1848), James Hack Tuke , Society of Friends Dublin Monthly Meeting . Central Relief Committee, Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends (Dublin, Ireland), Internet Archive avisittoconnaug00irelgoog, Chapter 1 · source

The Clady River runs through here in Donegal, flowing about 5 miles from Lough Nacung Lower down to Gweedore Bay at Bunbeg. It is salmon and sea-trout water, and the hotel puts boats on the loughs while the river itself can be fished from the banks, with no need for wading. The hotel's fishing waters spread well beyond the Clady itself. Lough Nacung Upper has two good brown-trout feeders, the Sruhannameel from Lough Atirrive and the Glentornan from Glentornan Lough, and both rivers and loughs may be fished free by visitors at the hotel. Above Nacung Upper lies Dunlewy Lough with the Owenwee, Cronaniv and Devlin streams, but those are strictly preserved by Mrs. Monk. One rule to mind: the use of a gaff is prohibited on the Clady.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 41 · source

Built about 1835, the watch tower at An Bun Beag stands on a remote site overlooking Gweedore Bay. It is a freestanding single-storey structure, now disused and roofless, with coursed rubble granite walls and crenellated parapets. Window and door openings have pointed arches with dressed voussoirs. A fireplace sits in the southwest corner. A former coastguard station stands nearby. This curious, folly-like structure was possibly erected by Lord George Hill, an improving but controversial landlord. It probably served to combat smuggling and for maritime safety. It is marked, but not named, on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (CC-BY 4.0), NIAH 40903201 · source

Gweedore in Donegal was the home of a man called Patrick O'Donnell, a puddler by trade, forty-eight years old, and the shape of his life was strange. He could not read or write. He was ordinarily inoffensive, and he was thrifty. He served as a soldier in the American Civil War. His thrift let him invest in the Pennsylvania silver mines, but misfortune stripped the fruits of that away. He owned a public house in Canada, and came into a small fortune again. He put money into Fenian bonds, and once more commercial failure left him poor. He returned to Ireland as an emigrant, then went over to Scotland, where he was an inmate of a hospital in Edinburgh. From there he roamed a second time to the American continent, having taken the oath of citizenship in 1879. He was a restless traveller back to Ireland at the beginning of June 1883. That was the first half of his career. The second half opens as he leaves Donegal at the close of the same month for South Africa. On the same day a woman with seven children, three boys and four girls, took steerage passage for Natal on the same vessel under the name of Power. She was in reality Mrs. Carey, and among the children was Thomas Francis Carey.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from A history of the Phoenix park patriots (1884), Corrigan, James Francis. [from old catalog], Internet Archive historyofphoenix00corr, Chapter 31 · source

You are coming through Gweedore in Donegal. Before Lord George Hill bought this estate, the land here was held under the rundale system, and neglect had let holdings divide and subdivide until a plot shrank from a "cow's grass" to a "cow's toe" or what they called a "skiberleen". One man was said to hold land in forty different places and gave up trying to find it all. There seemed little chance for improvement.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from A Visit to Connaught in the Autumn of 1847: A Letter Addressed to the ... (1848), James Hack Tuke , Society of Friends Dublin Monthly Meeting . Central Relief Committee, Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends (Dublin, Ireland), Internet Archive avisittoconnaug00irelgoog, Chapter 1 · source

You're coming through Gweedore in Donegal, a place with a sharp old tale about how rents used to be gathered here. Before Lord George Hill's time, the story goes, rent could only be got by stratagem. A local tailor owed two years' rent, and the bailiff heard the tailor had hired a horse to go to Dunfanaghy for potatoes. So he went straight to the tailor's wife and told her the husband had sent him for the money, and if two years' rent was not paid at once they would get none of the land that was dividing. The wife said there was not a shilling in the house, but the bailiff made a lucky guess and told her the money was in the chest in his breeches pocket. She never doubted him, ran to the chest, got out the breeches, and handed over the two years' rent. The bailiff paid it in at the office, and the tailor came back raging, wanting a warrant against him for robbery. The bailiff just said to the agent, "Och, yer honour, was not I the lucky man that happened for to say that it was in the breeches pocket."

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 93 · source

As you pass through Annagary in Donegal, this is a place where the parish priest once walked into the Anglers' Inn while two guests sat by a peat fire deep in reminiscence. He had one of the kindest faces the narrator had ever seen, even in Ireland, with bright blue eyes and golden hair, a thoroughly well-built man with strong arms and sturdy legs. Mr. Gallaher brought in the materials for toddy, and the three settled into what the narrator called a three-handed crack that belied the old proverb, two's company, three's trumpery. His Reverence told them he was not a political priest, and both guests thought the better of him for that.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 55 · source

A holy well on Sliabh Mhullach Dearg, a roughly circular hollow cut into a rock outcrop. A tradition speaks of an inscription on the flag at the bottom of the well, though it could not be verified. Ó Muirgheasa described it in 1936 as a holy well in Cruck townland, a quarter of a mile south of Mullaghduff National School. He recorded that there is said to be an inscription on the flag in the bottom of the well.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG041-005---- · source

Mullaghderg Signal Tower is a freestanding two-bay two-storey tower, built 1806, now ruinous and missing its roof. The walls are rubble stone with a slight base batter and large squared quoins. First-floor openings are segmental-headed with red sandstone voussoirs; the ground-floor opening is stepped and square-headed with keystones. Openings are recessed internally. The tower stands on an exposed headland overlooking Inishfree Bay. This ruined structure is a remnant of the military architecture of north County Donegal, early nineteenth century. The British colonial authority built it in anticipation of a possible French invasion during the Napoleonic War. The signal tower formed part of a substantial network of defensive structures erected along the south, west and north coasts of Ireland. It makes a significant contribution to the defensive and architectural heritage of the coastline, a distinctive feature in the landscape.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (CC-BY 4.0), NIAH 40904104 · source

A penal Mass station at Cionn Caslach, in Donegal. It is shown on the current Ordnance Survey map as the site of an altar, but it was not marked on the first edition of that map.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG041-012---- · source

Up ahead is Burtonport, where the Loughswilly light railway comes to an end after bypassing most of the towns it was meant to serve. The line runs four miles from Dunfanaghy and about three from Falcarragh, and one stretch crosses a viaduct through Barnes Beg Gap with foundations so shaky that trains crawl at no more than four miles an hour. It was described as a great fishing station for northern Donegal.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 25 · source

You're coming through Dunglow now, a town on the Marquis of Conyngham's estate. In the winter of 1847, there was literally no meal here the day before a visitor arrived, and even the Protestant clergyman's family did not know if they would have bread the next day. Half-naked men, women, and children came down from mountain hovels through the snow to find out whether they would be kept alive. A cart was sent 25 miles to Lord G. Hill's store at Gweedore, 20 of those miles through the Marquis's own estate, to see if meal could be had. It was uncertain whether the cart could cross the snow-covered mountains, or whether the store would spare anything for people who had made no provision. The supply did arrive, but it could not meet half the wants of the starving people. No sudden effort of charity could have met them. Multitudes perished from starvation that winter, not because the land could not have supplied their needs, nor because the people would not work it, but because it was subjected to a system opposed to common humanity, common justice, and common sense. The Marquis's estate was not a singular instance of neglect, only an example on a large scale of the condition of a great portion of the property of Ireland.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from A Visit to Connaught in the Autumn of 1847: A Letter Addressed to the ... (1848), James Hack Tuke , Society of Friends Dublin Monthly Meeting . Central Relief Committee, Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends (Dublin, Ireland), Internet Archive avisittoconnaug00irelgoog, Chapter 1 · source

As you come through Dunglow in Donegal, you are passing through a town that Father T. Finlay, the Jesuit economist, once held up as an example not only to these islands but to the world. The occasion was the opening of the big new Co-operative Machine-Knitting Factory premises. Father Finlay told the people of Dungloe that they had done something governments, political parties, reformers, and revolutionaries had all failed to do. They had created a democratic industry that was successful. In England and other big industrial countries, he said, workers were trying to seize capital, and those countries were filled with turmoil. But Dungloe had shown there was another road, and that industry could be built up without exploitation or unrest. The factory stood at the centre of a group of associated activities that strengthened one another. The gas-engine that drove the dynamo for the electric lighting of the factory also lit the great distributive stores up the road, where the workers could spend their money to the best advantage, and it drove the sawmill in the yard, where box-making and other work was in busy progress. It was, in the words of the book, something traditional modernised, existing in the healthiest and happiest of environments and not divorced from agriculture. The associated activities gave work to some 500 people, practically all of them Irish speakers, in what people often regarded as a backward place, the Gaeltacht. The turnover of the Society that owned this industry had reached nearly 100,000 pounds per annum.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from From a Gaelic outpost (1921), De Bl©cam, Aodh, 1891-1951, Internet Archive fromgaelicoutpos00debl, Chapter 4 · source

As the road brings you through Dungloe, this is a town where a new Irish college raised its banner in 1920. The Iol-Scoil Uladh, the Ulster University, had a hall arranged for it here. Military occupation of the town turned it out of that hall. But the college went on, undaunted, under Father O'Toal, Fionn M'Cuail and Seumas O Grianna. The writer who recorded this hoped the college would return for a second year. His words were, "where Dungloe leads, Tirconaill will follow." He called this the most progressive and wide-awake town in North-West Ireland, but said it was sadly anglicised. This was a typical case in the Gaeltacht counties. Colleges were started in remote mountainy places and did some little good locally, but the progressive centres were left to anglicise themselves with never an effort to save them. He compared the effort to Eoghan Rua O'Neill, who landed in Sheephaven Bay by Doe Castle and, before anything else, opened four schools of Gaelic learning. He noted that no modern warrior on a warlike errand would give his first thought to reviving culture.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from From a Gaelic outpost (1921), De Bl©cam, Aodh, 1891-1951, Internet Archive fromgaelicoutpos00debl, Chapter 3 · source

As you pass through Dunglow in Donegal, this was once a thriving co-operative hub. The society here gave work to about 500 people, nearly all Irish speakers, across a knitting factory, stores, a sawmill and fish-salting. The turnover reached nearly 100,000 pounds a year. A Jesuit economist called it an example not only to these islands but to the world, proof of what was possible in the Gaeltacht.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from From a Gaelic outpost (1921), De Bl©cam, Aodh, 1891-1951, Internet Archive fromgaelicoutpos00debl, Chapter 4 · source

As you come through Dungloe in Donegal, you are in the heart of the Rosses, the scattered district that runs between here and Gweedore. Not long before this account was written, fishing on any large scale was unknown in these parts. Men saw no point in risking their lives for herring and mackerel when the best they could do was spread the rotting fish on their fields as manure. The parish priest tried urging his flock to catch and cure the fish, and when that failed he took a boat and nets himself, but had no luck. Then a man who had been to America and seen things tried the experiment and made haul after haul, and the neighbourhood took heart. The Government stepped in with money for boats and nets, set up a curing station, and brought men from Scotland to teach the process. The result was striking: last year over twelve thousand pounds was paid on the quay for fish landed by almost a hundred boats. Local tradesmen in Dungloe cured three thousand and four thousand barrels apiece. Women do the curing work and earn about fourteen shillings a week at it. Nearby Burton Port, where a cooperage was established, looks a more thriving concern than Rutland Island, where forty thousand pounds was spent in 1785 under the Duke of Rutland's viceroyalty making quays for the herring fishery, only for sand and storm to have their way with it.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 55 · source

Somewhere close to Meenlecknalore, the Dungloe chain of loughs stretches out, and this water sits among them as one anglers came back to again and again. The chain was the most popular of the fishing waters in this district. Sallagh was the top lough of the chain, and a narrow strip of water connected it to Meenlecknalore, a strip wide enough for a boat to pass through. The guide called Meenlecknalore a very pretty lake. Its shores are irregular and form what the book calls capital fishing bays. The water is studded with islands, and between these islands and the shores there are excellent drifts in many parts. For several years past, this lough produced the best baskets of large sea-trout in the whole Dungloe chain. From Meenlecknalore a connecting stream flows to the bridge on the road to Fintown, and from there it connects up three small loughs called Fad, [illegible], and Cushkeeragm, before reaching the important water of Lough Craghv, locally known as Tully Lough. That lough was called the most picturesque on the chain, ranking second only to Dungloe Lough as a sporting water. Visitors to the district were advised to contact a Mr. Hanlon, who would furnish reliable information about prospects of sport and provide the necessary tickets and licenses, and arrange for boats and boatmen. Boats were provided free on the principal loughs, with the boatman's fee at 3 shillings a day plus his lunch. As a rule, two anglers fished from one boat. Much of the fishing lay within easy walking distance of Dungloe, though reaching some waters required a car, generally shared with other anglers heading the same way.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 47 · source

You're coming up along the Gweebarra River now, one of Donegal's most important salmon rivers. It rises in Lough Barra and flows south for some distance before taking a more westerly course. The sporting rights along its banks are divided. On one bank, a number of small farmers hold the rights, and they have placed their interests in the hands of Mr. O'Donnell of Doocharry. On the other bank, the rights belong to the Marquis of Conyngham, let through his lordship's agent at Glenties. Anyone coming to the district for angling was advised to communicate with both beforehand. Within a mile and a half of Doocharry the river receives a tributary, the Cloghernagore River, which has its source from several brooks flowing from small loughs, the chief of them Lough Nacroge, Lough Fadda, Lough Leck, and Lough Fad, all good for brown trout. The Cloghernagore itself receives a tributary, the Glenleaneen River, rising from streams in Lough Namurlege and Lough Nabracks and flowing through Lough Errig, also good for brown trout. A third tributary comes from Lough Drumaneagy, described as a capital fishing lough. At Doocharry the Gweebarra is joined by the Owenwee River, which flows down by the road already traversed by car on the way to Slieve Snaght. From Doocharry the Gweebarra is much increased in volume and size, and it ultimately empties into Gweebarra Bay below Doocharry Bridge. The guide remarks that it is passing strange that such attractive countryside, with a railway station at Fintown convenient, should be without a touring hotel, the nearest places to stop being Glenties or Dungloe.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 49 · source

This is a portal tomb at Tuaim in the townland of Leitir Mhic an Bhaird, County Donegal, standing on a low ridge west of Toome Lough, north of the Gweebarra estuary, with the bare rock face of Trusklieve Hill looking down on it from across a narrow valley. The monument holds two megalithic chambers set 10 metres apart along a long narrow mound that runs east-south-east to west-north-west, now covered in bracken and briars, its western end lost in the growth. The western chamber is a small, well-preserved portal tomb, its two tall portal-stones flanking a high doorstone, with opposed sidestones and a gabled backstone behind. A roofstone rests on a corbel, the backstone, and the southern sidestone, and it would have carried a second, larger roofstone in its time. The eastern chamber is largely collapsed. Only two stones stand clearly in place: a gabled stone that may be a backstone, and a low orthostat beside it. A slab lies almost horizontal across two opposed stones and may be a roofstone. A long slab nearby, not set in the ground, may be a fallen portal-stone. If that reading is right, this is one of the rare cases where two portal tomb chambers were placed in a single cairn. The mound is 36 metres long and 10.5 metres wide, rising no higher than 1 metre at its western end, and a collapsed field wall runs along its top north of the western chamber.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG065-005---- · source

A holy well at Mulnamin Beg in Donegal. It is a natural crevice in a rock at the base of Mulnamin Hill, with rough stone walls and a slab roof. The maps mark it as Tobernameeloge, and the site is still visited.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG065-016---- · source

Somewhere around here, on the shore of Gweebarra Bay, people once saw an island that shouldn't have been there. They call it the Enchanted Island, and it has appeared all along the west coast, from Cork to Antrim, drifting in and out like a light in a bog. When it showed itself here, the people looking out over the water made out a village along its shore that looked like Maas, the very place they lived in. The Inishboffin islanders in Donegal had much the same experience, saying it looked like their own island, that two twins couldn't be liker. No one agrees on what the island is. Some say it is a real island, its comings and goings down to jommethry or some other enchantment. Others hold that it is not earth and stones at all, but only a deluding show made by evil spirits or the devil himself to deceive poor dissolute creatures. A Kerry fisherman put the matter plainly, saying it is against nature for a real island to come and go like that, and when you do see it, you can see through it.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Irish Wonders (1888), D. R. McAnally, Jr., Project Gutenberg #19486, Chapter 5 · source

This is a burial ground at Cashelgolan in Donegal. It sits on a subcircular mound, 17 metres across and up to 2 metres high, the surface uneven and its edges hard to trace in places. A number of featureless grave markers stand on the mound. One slab on the west side has a small oval perforation cut through it. A cross-slab lies in a ditch along a field boundary to the south-east, 1.6 metres long and 0.3 metres across the arms. On one face a simple cross stands in relief at the centre of a broad cross-shaped groove. The ground around it is low-lying: woodland to the south and west, pasture to the east, and the sea to the north.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG065-011001- · source

A children's burial ground at Loughfad in Donegal. In 1937 workmen levelling a mound found a double cist burial. The mound was oval, 19ft east to west, 16ft 6in north to south, 3ft 6in high, made of dry sandy soil held by a kerb of large boulders, with boulders scattered over its surface. A cist lay 3ft below the mound surface near the western kerb, about level with the outside ground. Two capstones covered it. It had two compartments, each 32in east to west, 11in wide and 14in deep, formed of thin limestone slabs held by packing stones. Each compartment held one disarticulated burial, head to the west. Other skeletal material turned up in the mound, including two tiny skulls. These likely point to the site's later use as a cillin, a burial ground for unbaptized children, up to around 1850. The site stands east of Lough Fad in good pasture with patches of rougher ground.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG064-013003- · source

Close to Naran, somewhere around here, a walker on the road one evening came upon a black beetle heading in this direction, three miles away and half an hour before dark. He stooped to watch it crawling laboriously through the dust, climbing stones he called miniature Errigals twenty times its own height, falling into ruts headlong and rising again none the worse, keeping on with what he called "a mind fixed and a heart unconquered." After five minutes he felt a strange kinship with the creature, a wayfarer like himself, "a poor earth-born companion and fellow-mortal," and stood watching hat in hand until it disappeared. The last he saw of it was silhouetted against the sunset on top of a stone on rising ground, before it dropped over and he resumed his journey, thinking.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Mearing stones : leaves from my note-book on tramp in Donegal (1911), Campbell, Joseph, 1879-1944, Internet Archive mearingstoneslea00camprich, Chapter 15 · source

As you come through Portnoo in Donegal, you're passing a place rapidly growing into a popular seaside resort. It has two strands, bathing, boating, sea-fishing, trout-fishing in nearby loughs, and shore-shooting. A pier was recently erected and a commodious hotel completed by Mr. Cannon of Glenties.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 52 · source

This is a portal tomb in Kilclooney More, in Donegal. It stands on gently undulating bog broken by outcropping rock, about 2.6 kilometres north-east of the inner end of Loughros More Bay. The monument holds the remains of two portal tomb chambers, one set just over 9 metres behind the other, within the slight remains of a long mound aligned north-north-east to south-south-west. The mound is trapezoidal, 26 metres long, narrowing from about 17 metres at the north-east to about 8 metres at the south-west, and roughly 0.8 metres high. A modern field wall crosses the mound between the two chambers. The larger, north-eastern chamber is well preserved, about 2 metres long and 1.4 metres wide, covered by a massive roofstone 4.2 metres in length. A small number of plain Neolithic pottery sherds were picked from its floor and acquired by the National Museum in 1958. The smaller chamber at the south-west end is 1.5 metres long and 1 metre wide. A watercolour dated 1799 shows its roofstone was then in place, but by 1847 it had become partly dislodged. A circle of stones that Borlase in 1897 claimed surrounded the larger chamber is no longer apparent.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG073-004---- · source

This is a portal tomb in Kilclooney More, Donegal. It was called Dermot and Grama's Bed on the pre-publication field map, though on the revision of the OS 6-inch map it appears only as a small rectangular enclosure, not named. The monument stands about 6km north-north-west of Ardara, and 1.6km north of Ballinreavy Strand, at the inner end of Loughros More Bay, on rough, wettish, level pasture broken by outcropping rock and scattered erratics. The chamber is small and roofed, 1.45 metres long and 1.2 metres wide, facing south-south-east. It stands near the centre of a sub-oval grass-grown mound measuring 7.5 metres north to south by 11 metres east to west and 0.7 metres in height. Patches of peat on parts of the cairn suggest the monument was once substantially enveloped in bog. A single stone forms each side of the chamber, closed by a gabled backstone. Only the western portal-stone survives. The portal-stone, backstone, and a small stone laid on top of the inner end of the eastern sidestone support the roof stone. The portal-stone is 0.6 metres high and rises 0.25 metres above the western sidestone, which overlaps it. The roofstone, straight edged at the front, narrows to a point beyond the backstone. It is 2 metres long and up to 1.5 metres wide. A supposed shallow cup mark on its upper surface is probably of natural origin. Thomas Fagan visited the site in 1847, and from his account the monument was then in the same condition as it is now. This small chamber is classified as a portal tomb but with some reservation. The portal-stone is of exceptionally slight dimensions, and its complete overlap by the sidestone is an unusual feature.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG073-006---- · source

As you pass through Ardara in Donegal, you are near Woodhill, where Major Nesbitt kept the bell of St Connell in 1835. The scholar O'Donovan wrote to Nesbitt and visited him there, hoping to inspect the bell and hear a prayer repeated by O'Breslan. Nesbitt refused to open the shrine case, fearing a report might spread that he had found treasure inside, as Sir William Betham was said to have done with the Cathach, the sacred standard of the O'Donnells. The bell itself is made of plate-iron, held together by flat-headed rivets, standing about 7 inches high and measuring roughly 3 and three-quarter inches by 3 inches at the mouth, tapering to about 2 inches at the top. It is much worn by age. O'Donovan never recorded whether he obtained the words of the prayer he sought.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Inis-Owen and Tirconnell. Being some account of antiquities and writers of the county of Donegal: (1895), Doherty, William James, Internet Archive inisowentirconne00doheiala, Chapter 158 · source

Ardara was a cloth town once a month. On the last day of every month people came carrying rolls of homespun cloth to the depot for inspection. The morning after, the rolls were handed back to their owners. If a roll had not been stamped, the faults were pointed out, and the proper remedy with them, all recorded in the Inspection-book. Patterns of new and saleable designs were distributed to anyone who wanted them. Then the fair began. The rolls of cloth were laid down on the footway, on both sides of the road. A great deal was brought in that had not been finished in time for inspection. Buyers came from the neighbouring towns of Donegal, Killybegs, and Glenties, and several were in Ardara itself. There was the usual bargaining and haggling, and Ardara, thronged with the mountain-folk, became for a time a Gaelic-speaking town. In two or three hours everything was disposed of, and generally at good prices. This beautiful and unique fabric, stained with the soft, unfading colours produced from common plants and mosses, was in great demand. Of the native dyes, those principally used were crotal and heather. Crotal is the Gaelic name for the grey lichen that grows on granite and certain other rocks in boggy districts. Boiled down with the wool it yields a dye, varying from a pale buff to a very dark red brown according to the quantity used. Heather gives a bright yellow. Peat soot gives a brownish yellow, and the roots of the blackberry give a rich brown. Indigo and madder were bought in.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 53 · source

Up ahead is Ardara, a town in Donegal that has long been the centre of hand-weaving in the west of the county. The Congested Districts Board and the Irish Industries Association, founded by Lady Aberdeen, recently developed the trade, though most of what is woven here still serves local needs rather than reaching England. Donegal women have spun wool from their own sheep from time immemorial, and Donegal weavers have woven it. For most of that time the wool was left in its natural colour and the result was a grey frieze, which you may still see occasionally, especially in Inishowen. Old Lord George Hill was never clad in anything else. About 20 years back, Mrs. Ernest Hart started an institution at Derrybeg near Gweedore to teach the peasants to use dyes ready to their hand, heather and lichen and the rest. Since then skilled supervision has improved the spinning and weaving, better looms have been introduced, and a standard set to the workmen. As it stands, you will see everywhere poor men wearing stuff admirable in colour and pattern, which costs them no more than the cheap and nasty products of Manchester factories. The hand-knitted things of which Glenties is a great market have also been promoted. Donegal homespuns are to be seen in the shops in any of these western towns and in the hotels at Carrick and Gweedore. Long may they continue.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 52 · source

As you pass through Ardara, you might picture a ragged ballad singer who once worked this street. He howls out the verses in disjointed, unmusical bursts, acting with head and arms. At a frenzy he takes a run and gives a buck-jump, like the ancient dancing-songs. Women throw him money or shout at him to stop wakening the children.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Mearing stones : leaves from my note-book on tramp in Donegal (1911), Campbell, Joseph, 1879-1944, Internet Archive mearingstoneslea00camprich, Chapter 10 · source

Somewhere around here on Glengesh, the author met an elderly woman walking up the mountain. Despite her age she outpaced him on the climb. She pointed to a turf-stack and said only salt and iron never go grey, noting her own hair had once been black like the turf.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Mearing stones : leaves from my note-book on tramp in Donegal (1911), Campbell, Joseph, 1879-1944, Internet Archive mearingstoneslea00camprich, Chapter 11 · source

A children's burial ground at Cionn Na Coilleadh, in Donegal. It sits atop a low hillock in a mountain valley, with limited views to the north-west and south-east. Local information holds a tradition that this is the site of a burial. What remains is a slight sunken circular area, defined by two quartz slabs and one upright orthostat, with possible packing stones at the base of the orthostat. It is not clear whether this is an archaeological monument or whether the sunken area is the result of quarrying. The upright orthostat with its packing stones may suggest it is archaeological. According to local information, this group of stones marks a children's burial ground, a tradition passed on by S. McGinley on the 30th of August 2010.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG081-013---- · source

As the road passes through Glencolumbkille, you are in the country where Finn MacCumhal once hunted. Manus O'Donnell preserved the story in the fifteenth century. Finn, the great warrior and sportsman, was hunting in southern Donegal when an unusually fine stag appeared before him. His famous dog Bran was on it at once, and Finn set off in pursuit with Bran leading the way. The stag kept well ahead with perfect ease, running until it reached the River Murlin. It crossed the stream without apparent effort and stood perfectly still on the farther bank. Then came the astonishment. Bran, who had never been known to fail, who had never let a hart escape however swift, refused to cross. He stood rooted to the spot on the same bank as Finn. Finn knew some dark mystery lay behind the dog's conduct. He consulted his divining tooth, and it gave him a clear answer. The words were these: a child Columba will be born in due time of the stock of Cormac MacArt, who will be a great light in Ireland and found many churches and monasteries. The region to which the stag has fled will be sacred to him, and a place of refuge to all succeeding generations. Manus adds that in his own lifetime, in the fifteenth century, the way the stag had fled was still known as the path of the stag. The author of this book heard one old man use those words in ordinary conversation but could not get him to explain them. Either the man knew little of the legend or he refused to tell all he knew. That often happens with the Irish country-folk, who dread ridicule being poured upon traditions in which they themselves believe with all their heart.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 91 · source

You are coming through Glencolumbkille in Donegal. This parish has a strange link to a disaster at sea. Out on Tory Island there is a Holy Stone, pagan in its origin, though probably blessed by St. Columba or one of his successors. For many centuries, when any invader was to be seen, the stone was pointed in the direction of his approaching fleet. A great storm would break over him, and he and his force were sure to be lost in the ocean. In September of 1884 the landlord thought it was time to collect his rents and arrears. He obtained from the government the gun-boat Wasp to aid him in that difficult and usually dangerous process. The keeper of the Holy Stone saw the Wasp approaching. He disliked her appearance and set the stone in the direction of her course. A violent storm at sea arose. The gun-boat was wrecked and all hands lost but six. This disaster happened on the 22nd of September, 1884. The body of the luckless commander, after drifting for many days, came ashore in the stormy bay of Glencolumbkille, and lies buried in the Protestant graveyard there. The belief of the islanders in the virtue of the Holy Stone was established by that tragedy upon a foundation which cannot be shaken.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 73 · source

This is St. Connell's Well, a holy well at the base of the south side of Glencolumbkille valley, in Dooey townland. The well is lined with slabs and drystone walling. A small perforated slabstone once lay beside it, believed to have curative power. Ó Muirgheasa wrote in 1936 that the stone "has been brought to America and back to perform cures, and has been sometimes two and three years away." The stone has since been taken away.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG080-023---- · source

As you come through Glencolumbkille in Donegal, you are passing the glen Saint Columbkille came to rid of demons. His biographer says an angel warned him in a dream that his presence was needed in the Sean Glan, because a company of demons had fled there from Croagh Patrick under the force of Saint Patrick's heavy maledictions. Columbkille was not disobedient to the divine vision. He gathered a band of his disciples, including Cearc, and set out for the lonely glen. When he arrived he found it covered in a darkling mist that hid it from his sight. The early Irish monks always esteemed such regions of mist as favourable to meditation, and many of their single cells and churches still crumble away in places far from everyday traffic.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 91 · source

The road takes you near Glencolumbkille. Glen Columbkill is the most remarkable of the valleys on the east of the Burren high land. What makes those valleys so remarkable is the bareness of the limestone rocks which surround them. They look like vast artificial amphitheatres rising in regular steps and terraces of stone, receding here and advancing there, till the long parallel lines of stratification fade away in the blue haze of the distance. The isolated hills are like great fortifications surrounded by regular bastions and walls rising one above another, till each terminates in a small citadel crowning the summit of the hill. The light gray of the nearer hills fades into purple in the distance, and, should a stray sunbeam strike through the clouds on some remoter promontory, the part lit gleams out like a marble building, with all the effect of some magnificent architecture. The numerous rock fissures are lined with the most splendid ferns and other plants. The delicate maidenhair fern is found here as well as on the Aran Islands, together with several species of plants very rarely to be met with in other parts of the British Islands.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Guide to Galway, Connemara and the West of Ireland (1912), Lang, Robert Turnbull, 1870-, Internet Archive guidetogalwaycon00lang, Chapter 27 · source

Lough Unna lies here in Donegal, fed by streams that flow down toward Teelin Bay by the base of Slieve League. The scenery through its course is extremely wild and at places grand. It is an exceptionally good brown-trout water, and sea-trout also mount into it. You can fish it from the banks in all parts.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 59 · source

Carrick sits beneath Slieve Liag, and two painters came here for the grandeur of those cliffs. Lord Leighton came when he was painting his picture of Andromeda. He wished to see cliffs in their most majestic form, and he was not disappointed. He did not stay in the pleasant hotel at Carrick, but his genial and graceful presence was long remembered in the neighbouring villages. The older men loved to tell of his stately courtesy and his unfeigned kindness of heart. To the same spot came Sir Noel Paton, engaged in painting his picture of The Temptation. He had less reason for his visit than his fellow-artist, unless he wished to see what a real wilderness was like. That he could find within a stone's-throw from the hotel, in all the land stretching from Carrick to Malinmore on one side and Glencolumbkille on the other. There was, and is, a wilderness sparingly dotted with farms and cottages, memorable for several cromlechs of the largest size and two prehistoric forts. The hotel itself is closed now, that comfortable hostelry with its happy company of government officials, each succession going about their business and moving on. Slieve Liag is always called the mountain in this neighbourhood, and the writer who kept these memories came to climb it by the shortest way, neither the safest nor the easiest, determined to cross the razor-like edge of One Man's Path to the broad eastern summit.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 10 · source

You are coming through Carrick, in Donegal. The whole district around this town teems with coast, mountain, and river scenery of exceptional beauty. Here are some of the finest cliffs in the British Isles. The cliffs are seen to best advantage from the sea, and it would be difficult to point to such another gorgeous panorama of cliff scenery as that obtained by sailing from Teelin Bay round the coast to Slievetooey. Sailing boats and competent boatmen can be hired at Teelin, close by Carrick. On closer acquaintance, the exploration of these magnificent cliffs entails a lot of hard walking and somewhat risky climbing. With a local guide, which the tourist is well-advised to arrange for, and the exercise of some care, no serious danger need be encountered. For those who are not practised mountaineers or cliff-climbers, several points of vantage from which magnificent views can be obtained are quite easily reached. The more venturesome certainly see more of the majesty of the cliffs and mountain passes, but a good idea of the extreme grandeur of the place is obtained with absolutely no risk and, comparatively speaking, but little fatigue.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 56 · source

The town of Carrick is an angling centre. The Glen River, the Owenwee River, their tributaries, and the numerous loughs from which they flow are all reserved to guests at the Glencolumbkille Hotel. No charge is made for fishing these waters for salmon, sea-trout, or brown-trout. But the salmon and sea-trout angler must take out a 20s. licence at the hotel, whether or not he has taken out one previously in some other part of Ireland. If he has done so, this amounts to a contribution of 20s. towards the local fishery. The salmon fishing is limited to the River Glen between Crooked Bridge and Teelin Bav. The best of the sea-trout fishing is obtained in the Owenwee River. The brown-trout fishing in all the waters is good, especially during May and June.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 58 · source

You're coming into Carrick, a scenery and ruin centre in Donegal. The forts and other antiquities here are said to date back to the sixth century. It was a favourite summer resort of the artist Sir Frederick Leighton, who frequently spent his summers there.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from On an Irish jaunting-car through Donegal and Connemara (1902), Bayne, Samuel G. (Samuel Gamble), 1844-1924, Internet Archive onirishjauntingc00bayn, Chapter 1 · source

This is a mass-rock at Cill Chathasaigh in Donegal. It sits at the base of a south-facing low hillock on the floodplains of the Ballaghdoo River. A flat slab rests on several support stones, forming an altar structure 0.25 metres high above the ground. The faintest incised lines can be traced on the surface, appearing to form a crude St. Brigid's Cross, though this identification is not certain. The remains of an 18th century church, known locally as the Spanish Church, stand in the same field 70 metres to the north-west of the mass rock.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG096-036---- · source

As you come through Kilcar in Donegal, there's a ruined church by the old road from Carrick that people still call the Spaniard's Church. The story goes that Father Carr absolved a dying Spanish sailor after a shipwreck, and used gold from the man's girdle to build the church. The writer admits he wonders whether the church might actually be older than the tale, but calls it a beautiful story that may well be true in essence. He warns that no sceptical traveller should dare to hint a doubt among the people of the neighbourhood, lest he be scouted as a heretic and unbeliever, if indeed he fare no worse. The Irish are tenacious of their traditions, handing them down from parent to child and keeping them firmly fixed in memory.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 14 · source

Coming up along the road here, you are nearing Kilcar, three miles from Carrick. In this town there is a whole townland where the farms have never been squared, and the land is still held in rundal, the old communal system of farming. The author of this passage passed through the glen learning about that system, picking it up from one or two plots along the way, and for a full explanation of the term he sends you to his chapter on Gweedore. Nearby lies Cashel, a village in the valley, cut off from the rest of the glen by a river and a marsh crossed by a causeway. In winter, and sometimes even in summer, the tide covers that causeway, so the folk of Beevna, who have no boats, have no way of reaching the rest of society except by a long journey over the top of Sturrell or Craig Beevna and round by the head of the glen. The author said he had learnt much from his day, though dense mist prevented any sight-seeing. He had very good tea at the little public house here, then took his machine and wheeled it laboriously up a mile or so of hill, found a level stretch of a mile at the top, and after that a generous descent of about four miles.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 50 · source

This is St. Carthach's Well, an octagonally-shaped spring on the south-south-west side of a cairn, in good pasture west-south-west of Kilcar town. The cairn measures 6.3 metres by 4.9 metres and stands 0.95 metres high. Ó Muirgheasa, writing in 1936, described three holy wells at Kilcar. There was Tobar Charthach, or St. Carthach's Well, and Tobar Chonaill, or St. Conall Caol's Well, and Tobar Mhuire, or the Blessed Virgin's Well. O'Donovan, in the Ordnance Survey Letters, had said one of the wells was called after St. Patrick and the other two after St. Carthach, but Ó Muirgheasa called this an error. St. Carthach has only one well at Kilcar, and St. Patrick's Well is at Cashel. Crowds of pilgrims still made the station, or turus. It began in the old ruined church of St. Carthach, after which the pilgrim made three circuits of each of the three wells, and then finished at "the altar" in the old church. The turus was made on the 4th March, though all the Martyrologies give the 5th March as St. Carthach's festival, the same day as St. Ciaran's. A probable explanation is that the people of the Kilcar district found it too much to do both stations in one day. The old Irish day began at sunset, so after sunset on the 4th would count as St. Carthach's festival. Local tradition says that St. Carthach was a Munster bishop who came to do penance for his sins, and that the Munstermen, on discovering his retreat, wished him to return home, but he would not go. The Martyrologies say he was sent to Rome to do penance, which is probably a later addition. He was the pupil and trusted friend of St. Ciaran.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG096-013001- · source

As the road comes down the long hill and over the bridge, Kilcar lies in a valley with its church and Roman Catholic chapel, and the marshy hillsides around the village are carpeted with wildflowers. Bluebells flood the open meadows, growing not in shelter of trees or hedges, for there are none on these wild moors, but covering the ground to "the colour of an Italian sky." Bog-cotton stands everywhere through the heather, marsh marigolds shine like the sun in rushy places, and by the ditches there is pale pink cuckoo-flower. Somewhere on the hill a fine patch of white bogbean grows in a swamp. The most beautiful sight of all is the young fronds of the King fern, shooting up straight and strong, glowing with golden olive and brown, not yet at their full height and dignity.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 40 · source

Bavan court tomb stands at the head of a rocky, bog-grown valley about 7 kilometres west of Killybegs. It overlooks two other excavated court tombs: Shalwy, 400 metres to the south-west, and Croaghbeg, a further 200 metres beyond that. When Thomas Fagan visited in 1847, ten stones stood and others lay prostrate. By the mid-20th century only six orthostats were visible. Excavation over two seasons, in 1964 and 1965, revealed much of the ground plan. An oval full court at the south-east led to a gallery divided by jambs into two chambers. The whole stood in a cairn of local quartzite rubble, 19 metres long and 10 to 11 metres wide, delimited by a revetment of drystone walling. The cairn had been levelled, apparently deliberately, but the basal layer of the revetment survived. In places it had been carefully built, with large key-stones placed deliberately north of the front chamber to anchor the cairn body. At other points the cairn stones appear simply to have been dumped. There was no trace of bone at the site, but a considerable array of stone implements, principally of flint, and some pottery sherds were found. From the base of the cairn came a plano-convex knife worked to a point, the tip of another, an end scraper, two leaf-shaped arrowheads, part of an axe of polished mudstone, and a crystal of clear quartz. From the gallery floor came the sherds of a large decorated bowl, three leaf-shaped arrowheads, an end scraper that appeared to have been subjected to heat, and three beads of schistose stone. A javelinhead, a hollow scraper, and numerous other worked flints were found around the cairn perimeter and in the court area.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG097-020---- · source

A court tomb at Shalwy in Donegal, one of three such tombs excavated in the same rocky coastal valley, standing on a low knoll of rock between the other two. A plan of the monument was made in 1952, when it survived as a substantial long cairn with a gallery thought to contain two chambers, opening from a court at its north-east end. Only two orthostats of the northern arm of the court were visible then. A doubled lintel marked the gallery entrance, and tiers of corbelling were visible along both sides. A large roofstone covered the inner half of the gallery, which was filled with stones almost to the tops of the sidestones. Fagan visited in 1847 and found it in much the same condition. The tomb was excavated over four seasons from 1966 to 1969. The work revealed a coffin-shaped cairn with a crescent-shaped facade and a dry-wall construction along its sides and rear. The court proved to be pear-shaped, and the gallery was confirmed as two-chambered. Finds from the court included worked flakes of flint, chert and quartz, two hollow scrapers, an end scraper, two plano-convex knives, a multiple scraper, and a leaf-shaped arrowhead. The gallery floor produced Neolithic flint implements, including four end scrapers, ten hollow scrapers and an arrowhead, along with tiny fragments of Neolithic pottery. Later Iron Age occupation layers in the rear chamber yielded pottery, metalwork, a glass bead, and a bone comb. Animal bones were found at all levels, and a razor-clam shell lay beneath the edge of the backstone. The excavation reports make no mention of human remains. The cairn measures 37 metres in overall length, reaching its greatest width of 14.5 metres across the front of the court.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG097-018---- · source

This is a burial ground at Shalwy in Donegal, marked as Kilkieran on old maps. The site is a circular enclosure 27.6 metres across, walled in stone, standing among rough grazing land and rock outcrop. A gap in the wall opens to the north, with a slab set across the wall line on the west side of it. Inside, two altars stand in the south-west sector and four small penitential cairns sit in the northern half, along with uninscribed grave-markers. To the east is Toberkieran, a holy well, with a cross-inscribed slab on its south side bearing a Latin cross whose left arm and base end in fish-tail terminals. Close to the north-east is Saint Kieran's Bed, a natural slab. A boulder 11.5 metres north of the burial ground holds a carved rock-basin.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG097-019001- · source

A holy well, Toberkieran, St Kieran's Well. A circular burial place enclosed by a stone wall stands on this ground, marked Kilkieran on old Ordnance Survey maps. To the east of the graveyard is the well. On its south side stands a cross-inscribed slab, the top broken, measuring roughly half a metre long by a quarter metre wide. A Latin cross is carved on its west face, the left arm and base ending in fish-tail terminals. Close to the north-east of the graveyard is a natural slab known as St Kieran's Bed. About twelve metres north of the burial ground sits a boulder with a rock-basin carved into it, the basin roughly forty centimetres across and ten deep. The land is rough grazing with much rock outcrop, better ground lying to the east. Ó Muirgheasa described the place in 1936, writing that St Ciaran's Well is below the road at Bavan Gate in Bavan townland, about two miles from Kilcar on the road to Killybegs. Stations were still made there on the 5th of March, proving the connection to St Ciaran of Saighir, patron of Ossory, generally supposed to be earlier than St Patrick's time. He is commemorated by churches in Argyleshire and the island of Islay in Scotland, the coast of Cornwall, and Connemara, suggesting he used the sea as a highway for his missionary labours. When dying he dedicated his congregation in Ossory to God and St Carthach. The accounts of his life are uncertain and confusing, having lived so early. The Litany of Aengus Ceile De mentions "the 15 men who went with Ciaran of Saighir." The station begins at a stone structure within the green plot, locally called the altar. The cross-marked stone now standing by the well was turned up some years before in the graveyard. Ó Muirgheasa concluded there could be little doubt this plot was the site of St Ciaran's Church.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG097-019003- · source

This is the old burial ground at Kill in Largymore, in Donegal. By 1847 it was already destroyed. Human bones and stone coffins had been dug out of the ground. Great standing stones once enclosed the site. No definite trace remains now, though a short line of boulders may have formed part of that old enclosure. In a field to the west, a rock-basin has been carved into a boulder. The ground slopes south towards the sea.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG097-013002- · source

This is a holy well in the townland of Kill, in Kilcar parish, Donegal. In 1936, Ó Muirgheasa described it as almost closed up, on the slope of a rugged hill. Some 20 or 30 yards lower down was an old graveyard, the site, he said, of a cill or church. When the plot was cultivated many years before, bones were dug up on the spot. No saint's name is remembered in connection with the well or the church. The oldest people about did not remember having seen stations performed there. But the name of the townland, Kill, points to a church having stood there, and the tradition of the holy well beside the old graveyard site is, in Ó Muirgheasa's words, 'a chain of circumstantial evidence sufficient to satisfy all reasonable requirements.'

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG097-013003- · source

Coming through Killybegs in Donegal, you are on a coast where ships of the Spanish Armada once sheltered and wrecked. In 1588, three vessels put in here after escaping northwards from earlier disasters on the Sligo coast. The Rata, under Don Alonzo de Leyva, had broken loose from her anchors and run ashore, but her crew were sheltered by O'Rourke of Brefny until they embarked on the San Martin, which had held out in the offing. They met the Girona and the Duquesa Sta. Anna and made their way north, the wind still westerly. The three ships again foundered here. But the crews, 2,000 in number, got ashore with their arms. They obtained fresh stores and a welcome from MacSwiney of Banaght, lord of this country. Having patched up two of the vessels, they put to sea again, abandoning the San Martin. The Duquesa Sta. Anna had no better fortune. She ran upon the rocks in Glennagaveny Bay, west of Inishowen Head. De Leyva escaped and made his way to the Girona, which lay at anchor in Mulroy or Sheephaven. After a week's labour to make her seaworthy, he and the remnant of three crews stood out to make the coast of Scotland, where there was some chance of friendship. But hugging the Antrim coast near the Giant's Causeway, she ran on a rock and perished. Sorley Boy Macdonell, Lord of Dunluce, came to the rescue, but recovered only five of the crew, certain butts of wine, and three pieces of cannon, which he mounted on his castle and refused to give up.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 35 · source

Killybegs sits along this stretch of Donegal coast, and in 1588 these waters saw disaster after disaster as the great Armada staggered homewards. Medina had ordered his fleet to run well north and far west of the dangerous Irish coast, but heavy weather met them. Ship after ship failed to weather the jutting shore of Connaught, dropped anchor, and found their cables too weak to hold against such a sea. They went ashore here. The unhappy crews who managed to land were stripped or slain by the natives, and such of them as the Irish spared were hanged by the English. This was under Sir John Perrott, who had brought the country into something more approaching a willing loyalty to the British crown.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 34 · source

Killybegs has always had some touch with the outside world, thanks to its harbour, the best on the west of Ireland. In 1598 a vessel put in here carrying ambassadors from Spain, and Red Hugh O'Donnell and Tyrone travelled to the port to interview them. Ten years earlier, Spanish vessels had put into Killybegs in very different circumstances. When the great Armada was staggering homewards, this shore was the scene of many disasters. Medina's instructions to his fleet were to run well northwards and far to the west of the dangerous Irish coast, but heavy weather met them. Ship after ship failed to weather the jutting shore of Connaught and was driven to cast anchor. In nearly every case the tackle proved too weak, the cables parted, and they went ashore. The unhappy crews, if they succeeded in landing, were stripped or slain by the natives, and such as the Irish spared were hanged by the English. This was in the days when Sir John Perrott had brought the country into something more approaching willing loyalty to the British crown. Ten years later, in the days of Red Hugh, any Spaniard who landed on this coast would have found a warmer welcome.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 34 · source

Killybegs, in Donegal, organized a volunteer corps of its own, similar to the Ballyshannon Volunteers. The banners of both corps were later exhibited at the Royal Irish Academy, where they formed part of the decoration of that learned body's building. This was for a conversazione given in honour of the British Association, which met in Dublin in the autumn of 1878. The display of the two banners together was noted as a memento of the local spirit and patriotism of Ballyshannon and Killybegs.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt, Chapter 26 · source

Killybegs sits along the road. The Stragar River rises on the east slope of Crocknapeast Mountain and flows into the harbour. It picks up feeders along the way, the chief one coming down from Lough Aderry, with others from loughs close by, among them Lough Aroshin. Both loughs are good for brown trout. The Stragar is a pretty river in places with some capital pools on it. It is a good brown-trout river and gives fair sport with sea-trout later in the season. Lough Aderry is also a sea-trout water, and there is a boat on it. The fishing is quite free.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 60 · source

Gilbertstown portal tomb is a megalithic tomb standing on level ground 150 metres east of the Oily River, which reaches the sea at McSwyne's Bay, just over 3 kilometres to the south. Rising ground close by restricts the outlook except to the north and north-west along the river valley. The land in the immediate vicinity is wet and rush grown, and rock outcrops occur close by. What remains is a partly collapsed small chamber, at least 2 metres long, facing south-east toward rising ground. Three orthostats survive in place. Two of them, a sidestone and a portal-stone to its south-east, form the northern side of the chamber. The sidestone leans against and overlaps the portal-stone. A set stone at right angles to the inner end of the portal-stone seems to be a sillstone. The greater part of the structure is overlain by a great roof stone, 3.7 metres in overall length, 2 metres in greatest width, and 0.3 to 0.5 metres thick. Its northern edge rests on the surviving sidestone, and it slopes down almost to ground level at the southern side to rest on the outer ends of two displaced slabs. One of those slabs rests on the sillstone; the other sits beside it to the south-east. Their original function is not now clear. The surface of the chamber area seems to have been dug at some period. The portal-stone rises from 0.5 metres high at the front to 0.9 metres at the back, and the appearance of its top suggests a piece has been broken from it. The sidestone rises 0.45 metres above the portal-stone.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG092-006---- · source

Close to Bruckless, the Oily River runs down from the hills and empties into McSwyne's Bay, offering about four miles of free salmon, sea-trout and brown-trout fishing of very decent quality. It starts up in Lough Tamur at the south-western base of Binbane Mountain, 1,493 feet, where it is called the Corker River. After it receives the Tallinteane River it becomes known as the Oily, and almost every pool down to the sea is worthy the angler's attention. The principal pools, working upwards from the estuary, are Bullrush, Draft, Carry, Jackeys, Pwllbradden, which is the salmon leap, Ash Bush and Mullendarragh. The upper reaches are sinuous and slow-running and can be fished from the banks, but you need to wade the lower water, where boulder-strewn flats alternate with pools and the river passes through a succession of rocky gorges as it nears the sea. The salmon range from 6 to 15 pounds, averaging 7 or 8, and the best months for them are August and September. The sea-trout run up to 3 pounds and average about a pound, with July and August the best months.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 60 · source

Close to Bogside, this ground was once water and bog. Derry stands on a sharply rising knoll on the left bank of the Foyle, where the river is tidal and over 300 yards wide. In old days the knoll was practically an island, because the north of the town, still called the Bog Side, was an impassable morass. The cathedral sits atop this acropolis, and from whatever point you see the town you will discern it, stretching up to the sky.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 137 · source

As you pass through Dunkineely, the one thing of antiquarian interest is McSwyne's Castle. The average tourist might be excused for mistaking it for a heap of rubbish. The town itself is uninteresting. But it is a capital sporting centre, and Hill's Hotel will be found very comfortable for sportsmen. The proprietor has some very fair mixed shooting available, including grouse, partridge, a few pheasants, and some hares. Rabbits are plentiful. There is good woodcock shooting, and at Saint John's Point is one of the best snipe bogs in the north of Ireland. Hill has also some good mixed shooting at Gilbertstown. The shore shooting is really very good, and plenty of wild fowl are available in season. The sea-fishing is of excellent quality, as it is all along this coast right into Donegal.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 60 · source

Close to Port, a boat was overwhelmed by a mighty Atlantic breaker near Tormore, and a woman drowned. Her body was found later by fishermen miles away. The surviving men climbed the cliff naked to seek help from people in the houses. When the author visited, the tragedy was still fresh in the minds of neighbours for miles around. A captain called Johnnie told the tale point by point, with what the author calls a quiet pathos matchless in its direct simplicity. He ended with a solemn remark, spoken in a hushed tone, as if he had seen it all himself.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 20 · source

St. Naul's Well is a holy well on a south-south-east slope above the sea at Fanaghans, near Inver in County Donegal. It has been traditionally associated with a miracle of St. Naal, who drew water from the rock. In 1936, Ó Muirgheasa described it as once the centre of a great annual pilgrimage. Even in recent times, the presence of votive offerings and discarded sticks attested to cures, but the station had declined to negligible dimensions. This account was abridged by Dr. Maguire. The well has been modernised, and sits at the foot of a south-west-facing hillside to the west of Inver village, overlooking Inver Bay. On 17 February 2001, archaeological testing was carried out in the vicinity of the holy well. The proposed development entailed the construction of three detached dwelling-houses, associated services, and an access road. Eighteen test-trenches were excavated at the proposed house locations, the access road, and percolation areas. Topsoil and sod overlay compact yellow brown sand and bedrock. Nothing of archaeological significance was noted during the course of monitoring. The testing was carried out by Declan Moore of Moore Archaeological and Environmental Services, based in Galway.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG098-004---- · source

Inver Church of Ireland church is a ruin now, built about 1610 on an elevated site at a bend where the Eany Water River meets Inver Bay. It may hold the fabric of an earlier church, even one from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. In 1622 it was described as in reasonably good repair, with a thatched roof. The walls are rubble stone, with a buttress at the north-west corner, and they are largely covered in ivy now. The roof has collapsed. It was originally thatched, and in the middle of the eighteenth century it was slated and a chamfered cut stone eaves cornice was added. A cut stone plaque on the north-west wall carries the Hume family coat of arms, the inscription True to the End, and the date 1751, commemorating Thomas Hume. The graveyard surrounding the church holds a collection of recumbent, upstanding, and table-type memorials, mostly from the nineteenth century. The earliest legible memorial is dated 1751. The graveyard is enclosed by a rubble stone boundary wall that curves with the ground, and there is a gateway with squared stone piers and wrought-iron gates, reached by a flight of cut stone steps from a causeway running alongside the river. This church continued in use until 1807, when a new Church of Ireland church was built a short distance to the north-east, and this one was left to fall. The round-headed doorway at the west end of the north wall is blocked now, but you can still see the stone voussoirs of its arch, the remains of a hoodmoulding, and a worn carved stone head. The round-headed window openings in the gable ends are much denuded. A rectory to the north was originally built to serve this church. Together they form a group of related sites that tell something of the established church's presence in this corner of Donegal.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (CC-BY 4.0), NIAH 40909826 · source

Mountcharles is the home of Seumas MacManus, who collected a great number of fairy stories from the seannachies of his native County Donegal. He retold them with vigour and humour, worthy of Samuel Lover himself. He claims to have heard most of them from oral tradition, and the author of this passage fully accepts that claim. MacManus had the advantage of speaking Gaelic. The same writer notes that within his own memory, the banshee had ceased to be heard wailing for the approaching death of a member of some noble family. He could himself remember the cruelty with which a hapless old woman, believed to be a witch, was burned in the presence of a large crowd.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 83 · source

Up ahead is Mountcharles, a village built on the side of a steep hill. From the top you get a fine view of the bay below, with the mountains piled up all around inland. At the foot of the town, on the shore of the bay, the Marquis of Conyngham has a handsome residence. In the neighbourhood are some important quarries yielding marble of excellent quality for building and other purposes. Beyond the village the road leads through a smiling countryside of well cultivated gardens and fields, with clean comfortable cottages forming a pleasing contrast to the wild surroundings recently left behind.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Picturesque Donegal: its mountains, rivers, and lakes. Being the Great Northern Railway (Ireland) Company's illustrated guide to the sporting and touring grounds of the north of Ireland (1908), Shrubsole, Edgar S, Internet Archive picturesquedoneg00shru, Chapter 61 · source

Set in sand dunes on a small headland jutting into the north side of Donegal Bay, this is an ancient burial site. In August 2017 human bones were exposed in an eroding section of the dunes. An Garda Síochána was notified, and they established that the burial was ancient. They collected the bones and transferred them to the National Museum. Osteoarchaeological examination showed the bones belonged to a young adult male, about 172 centimetres tall, aged between 16 and 20 at the time of death. Pathologies in the bones and teeth indicate he suffered nutritional deficiency and acute infection in early childhood. There was evidence of stress to his spine, possibly from heavy lifting and manual labour. Despite his young age, periodontal disease was already present on his teeth, along with a heavy plaque load, suggesting a predominantly carbohydrate diet. The exact form of the burial is uncertain. When discovered, the bones were partly displaced, having eroded from the sand dune. There was no obvious trace of a grave structure and no artefacts were found. The date of the burial remains unknown. A possible midden is visible in section a few metres to the east, and a hut site and cluster of cairns are located about 90 metres to the west in the same dune system.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG099-022---- · source

You're coming through Donegal now. In August 1601, the Franciscan friars here had warning of the enemy's approach, and most of the brethren fled by sea, carrying what relics they could save. Nial Garve and English auxiliaries seized the convent and turned it into a garrison packed with soldiers. Then fire, which some thought came from heaven, reached the gunpowder stored inside, and the blast destroyed the convent and the church, killing about 1,000 people. The friars scattered to the mountain districts, at least twelve of them, and some were sent to other convents. The next year, Oliver Lambert, governor of Connaught, took the sacred vessels within his reach, had the chalices turned into ordinary cups, and the vestments torn apart or burnt. Father Mooney was one of the last to leave the convent, and it was his account that recorded the whole loss.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Inis-Owen and Tirconnell. Being some account of antiquities and writers of the county of Donegal: (1895), Doherty, William James, Internet Archive inisowentirconne00doheiala, Chapter 65 · source

As the road brings you through Donegal, this town holds the remains of an abbey where one of the great works of Irish history was made. In the early days of 1632, the Four Masters came here bearing a rare collection of Irish manuscripts of many kinds and various dates. Ancient chronicles penned by the monks of the earlier centuries of the Christian Church, heroic poems and traditions of the legends of their race, written records of many a hero and many a saint, and perhaps examples of bardic poetry, had been brought together at the cost of great labour and much money, chiefly by Michael O'Clery himself, the leader and inspirer of the rest. Amid the roofless walls of the abbey, the faithful company reared a homely cottage differing little from those of the peasants around them. Summer and winter alike, amid storm and calm, they worked at their self-imposed task, pausing only to pray, sleep, eat and drink. By the middle of 1636, they had compiled perhaps the most valuable historical work of its kind in Europe. It was entitled "The Annals of Ireland," and is now generally known as "The Annals of the Four Masters." The compilation they made, in a manuscript of two parts, is one of the most prized possessions of the Royal Irish Academy, where it rests with many other memorials of the learning and piety of Ireland in the far past.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 106 · source

As you pass through Donegal, you are near the ruins of an old abbey that was burned in 1600 or 1601, during a siege. The fire left it roofless and ruined. The abbey once had noble buildings and priceless stained glass. All of that was lost. Rory O'Donnell tried to restore it, some years later, but he failed. So it remains much as Oliver Lambert left it. Lambert was the English Governor of Connacht. He seized the abbey's consecrated chalices and vestments and used them for profane purposes. The book says he drank profane healths to his sovereign from the consecrated chalices, while shuddering Catholics looked on at the blasphemous sacrilege. The ruins stand in a sequestered nook by an inlet. On the opposite shore, the green woodland of the Donegal Banks waves over its secluded path. The outer wall of the sacred enclosure hangs over a pebbled beach, where the tide rolls its waters in and out. Rooks and starlings, lesser birds, and the winds now chant where the monks' psalmody was once heard. The salt sea air blows where clouds of incense once rose to the vaulted roof. Time has added its own tooth to the destruction the fire began. The forms of mitred abbots and quiet monks, of stately chieftains and stern English commanders, are gone from the vacant aisles. Last of all comes Lambert, with his sacrilege.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 105 · source

As you come through Donegal, you're passing through what was once the seat of a Celtic princedom, and its end came in the years after 1601. Red Hugh O'Donnell marched south to join the Spanish at Kinsale and met ruinous defeat by bad generalship, then fled to Spain to plead for more help and never returned. He died there by poison. His brother Rory was created Earl of Tyrconnell in a hollow pacification, but within four years Rory and Tyrone found themselves surrounded by intrigues and fled Ireland in despair. Their property was declared forfeit, and Donegal was among the spoils of the confiscation. Nial Garv, who more than any man had brought this outcome about, proffered his claims and was sent to rot in the Tower of London until he died. So ends the history of Donegal as the seat of a Celtic princedom.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 33 · source

Somewhere around here in Coxtown you have Bishop's Cove, a modern name probably taken from some man called Bishop who drowned here. Close by is Bishop's Cave, a deep pit of the puffing-hole class, about forty perches inland from the cliff's edge. More than one life was lost there before a wall was built to fence it off.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Journal of the Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society (January-March, 1906) (vol. January-March, 1906) (1906), Waterford & South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society, Internet Archive journalofwaterf1906wate_1, Chapter 14 · source

There is a strand near Ballintra, a mile of sand trending in the direction of Donegal. If the tide is not full in, you can get down on the sand and travel along the water's edge with nothing but blue sea between you and America. Like all good things, this strand has an end, a projecting point that extends no further than you can see. About a quarter of a mile on the near side of the point, a road runs up from the strand to Ballintra. To reach that road you go through sand hills full of pink cranesbill and innumerable blue and yellow pansies, and all the other delightful things that grow on sandhills. It is not a good road when you get to it. After about a mile it lapses into the ordinary jog trot of roads. Then there are three miles of easy going to Ballintra, where you strike the main road, excellent, with telegraph posts to see you safe all the way to Donegal. From there you travel through a well-wooded country, rich with lush grass, showing prosperity in its well-kept hedges. Altogether as prosperous-looking a district as you would see in Ireland. Decidedly the O'Donnells knew what they were doing when they settled at Donegal. No part in the English Pale looks richer or trimmer, yet here you are in purely Celtic Ireland. Something perhaps must be allowed for the magic of May on a sunny morning, when every hawthorn bush was dashed with white and made the air heavy with scent, and all the trees were decked out in the first freshness of verdure.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 29 · source

Between Drumlhambo and Carrigan, General Lake received orders from Lord Cornwallis at nine o'clock to march for Cloone. He crossed the river at Ballintra, where the bridge had been repaired. The French were so hard pressed in the pursuit that they abandoned two pieces of cannon on the road, about a mile from the crossing.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Memoirs of the different rebellions in Ireland, from the arrival of the English : also, a particular detail of that which broke out the XXIIId of May, MDCCXCVIII : with the history of the conspiracy which preceded it (vol. 2) (1802), Musgrave, Richard, 1745 or 1746-1818, Internet Archive memoirsofdiffere02musg, Chapter 105 · source

Ballymagrorty Scotch in Donegal is the site of a ruined wedge tomb, standing on level pasture among low drumlin hills, with a view of the sea to the west between two hills. The monument is considerably ruined. No gallery structure is visible, though it may lie concealed under grass-grown fill occupying the western two-thirds of the gallery area. The eastern end has been dug to a depth of 0.8 metres, possibly the pit noted by Thomas Fagan when he visited the site in 1847. Fagan recorded that barley-malting operations had been carried out at the site for a considerable period. What survives above ground is fragmentary. A row of six stones to the south seems to represent a line of outer walling, 6.8 metres long. Three stones of the northern outer wall remain. At the west end, between the outer walls, two opposed jamb-like stones stand 0.55 metres apart. Two displaced slabs lie in the fill, one at the north-west corner at least 1.6 metres long, the other midway along the structure. A low grass-grown mound, no more than 0.5 metres high, survives beyond the north side and the east end. The gallery, orientated west-north-west to east-south-east, appears to have been about 4 metres long.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG103-014---- · source

Lurgan court tomb stands on a slight knoll in pasture, in drumlin country about 6km north of Ballyshannon and about 3km inland from Donegal Bay. The outlook is restricted by low hills, though the sea is visible to the west. What survives is the inner end of a court to the east, leading to a chamber now open at the back. The structure stands near the centre of a grass-grown mound of roughly round outline, measuring 15 metres north to south by 16 metres east to west. The mound is flat on top and rises about 1 metre above the surface of the knoll. A courtstone adjoins each entrance jamb of the chamber. The northern courtstone is 0.45 metres high, and the southern one is 0.6 metres high. The entrance jambs, each 1 metre high, stand 0.8 metres apart. Inside these is a prostrate slab, apparently a displaced lintel, measuring 1.8 metres by 1 metre by 0.6 metres thick. The chamber is about 3.5 metres long. The front half is 2 metres wide, and it narrows to 1.7 metres at its open end. Two sidestones survive on the north side and three on the south. On the north, the outer sidestone is 0.85 metres high and the inner stone is 1.25 metres high. On the south side, the stone adjoining the southern jamb is 0.75 metres high, the second is only 0.1 metres high, and the third is 0.25 metres high. The slight narrowing of the chamber at its western end may indicate a point of segmentation along a largely destroyed gallery. This description was published in the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Volume VI, County Donegal.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG103-022---- · source

Killinangel More burial ground was a circular enclosure, marked on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map. It no longer survives. It stood in cultivable land and seems to have been destroyed by the building of a railway line.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG103-016---- · source

Somewhere around here stood Kilbarron Castle, where Cucogry O'Clery lived. He was one of three kinsmen Michael O'Clery took to his lonely hut to help compile a vast narrative, the work that became known as the Annals. Cucogry was a great scholar who took no part in politics. He lived quietly here, near Ballyshannon, pursuing his historical researches. But an English document described him as, in its words, a mere Irishman. His estate was forfeited to King James, and he was turned out to shift as best he could. He dragged out the last years of his life in great poverty till 1666. The passage notes the irony: James had promised to care for his Irish subjects, and was proud of tracing his ancestry to their ancient kings. Yet this was his method of fulfilling that promise. The author calls James the learned but slatternly first of the Stewarts, who sowed broadcast the seeds of a storm his ill-fated son would later reap. Under Michael O'Clery's guiding care, Cucogry and his fellow assistants worked for nearly four years and brought their efforts to an end in 1636.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Haunts of the eagle : man and wild nature in Donegal (1924), Fox, Arthur William, Internet Archive hauntsofeagleman00foxa, Chapter 107 · source

Recorded in 1936, St. Barron's holy well at Ballyshannon stood near the railway, a short distance from the old chapel and ruins of St. Barron's Monastery. It was a rag well. Now it has dried up and is disused.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG103-052---- · source

This is a wedge tomb at Kilbarron in Donegal. It stands in rushy pasture on the north side of a broad, shallow valley, about 650 metres from the coast, 4 kilometres north-west of Ballyshannon. The gallery runs west-south-west to east-north-east and is 6.3 metres long, narrowing from 1.25 metres wide at the front to 0.75 metres at the back. A septal-stone divides it into a portico and a main chamber. Well-preserved outer-walling surrounds the gallery, though a considerable fill, some of it modern, lies between the outer wall and the gallery sides and obscures much of the structure. No mound is visible. The main chamber is partly roofed with two roofstones still in place, and a third has slipped southward onto the fill. Thomas Fagan visited the site in 1847, and his notes suggest that the now-displaced roofstone was then in its original position. Apart from that, the monument appears to have been much as it is now. A suggestion of megalithic art on the outer face of the westernmost outer-wall stone at the south cannot be confirmed.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from National Monuments Service, Sites and Monuments Record (CC-BY 4.0), DG107-002---- · source

Coming through Ballyshannon now. In 1597 an English army, four thousand strong, was retreating down the hill in companies, trying to cross a little-used and dangerous ford called Casan-na-gCumha, right above the waterfall. Many soldiers were swept down the fall and drowned. The ford got its name from this, meaning the path of the champions. The commander and officers managed to cross to the south bank of the river and retreat toward Sligo. O'Donnell, who had come to the rescue with soldiers from other parts of Tirconnell, crossed the river after them and pursued them for a considerable distance. English losses were not less than 600 killed, and they lost the greater part of their baggage and stores in their hurried flight. The odds against O'Donnell had been tremendous. The invading army was four thousand men, well armed and provisioned, while the castle garrison numbered only 80, commanded by a Scottish captain named Owen Crawford, six of whom were Spaniards and the rest Irish. O'Donnell had received a cargo of stores from Spain a couple of months before the siege, which he drew on for this emergency. After things settled, Cormac O'Clery, one of the monks of Assaroe, searched carefully and recovered the body of the Baron of Inchiquin, and his remains were buried with solemnity in the Monastery burial-ground. The friars of Donegal Abbey, hearing of this, contended that the body should be buried elsewhere.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt, Chapter 16 · source

In 1597, the town of Ballyshannon became the scene of a siege that failed. The English army crossed the Bar with their military stores, landed supplies on the island of Inis-saraer, and on Monday brought cannon to the mainland. They placed them before O'Donnell's castle, marched from the Abbey, and took quarters on the summit of Mullaghnashee. Then they opened fire. The cannonade went on without intermission from Monday to Wednesday. The Four Masters described thick flashes of fire and red shot from loud-roaring guns and heavy ordnance, the reports echoing far through the air. The besiegers wore thick iron armour, polished helmets, and shields of hard iron. O'Donnell's soldiers defended the castle gallantly, pouring down shot from the battlements and throwing heavy stones, beams, and missiles on any foe who came under the walls. The old fortress was proof against all the battering. After 3 days it stood as impregnable as ever. The besiegers, despite great numbers and extensive stores, saw that all their efforts were in vain. They turned their backs on the walls and retired to their camp on Mullaghnashee, taking a parting salute of shot from the garrison as they went. They lost great numbers killed, and many more were badly wounded. Through the night on Mullaghnashee the commander and officers held a council of war, their deliberations lasting till break of day on Thursday, when they decided on a precipitate retreat.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt, Chapter 16 · source

Ballyshannon, in 1588, was a turning point in a grim errand. Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam had hurried west from Dublin when word came that the western coast was being strewn with wreckage and plunder. He gathered what treasure he could and made short work of all Spaniards. He had already seen Streedagh Strand, its whole length littered with twelve or thirteen hundred dead corpses, shattered timbers, boats, cordage, and huge masts. Then he reached the town. From there he took with him the O'Donnell, Red Hugh's father, bound to acquiescence, for his eldest son was a kidnapped prisoner in Dublin Castle. Together they made a peregrination through Tyrconnell. Fitzwilliam seized upon the survivors from the Trinidad Valencera, all of whom were put to death. Two other vessels went ashore on the coast of Donegal in the Rosses. One, it is said, was a treasure-ship. She lies in the sand off Mullaghderg to this day. Expeditions have tried to recover her spoils. A few brass guns, brought up a century ago, are all that has been won back from the sea. As lately as the spring of 1895, the Harbour Lights steamer stayed a fortnight on the spot, but went away empty-handed. The other wreck lies in Castleford Bay, inside the Island of Aran. In 1853, coastguards at Rutland Island tried their luck and fetched up the great anchor that lies outside the United Services Institution in Parliament Street.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 36 · source

As you come through Ballyshannon, there is a story from Camden's Britannia, published in 1722, about gold found in this neighbourhood. Not many years before that, two pieces of gold were dug up here, discovered by a remarkable method. The bishop of Derry was at dinner when an Irish harper came in and sang an old song. His lordship did not understand Irish, so he asked what the song was about. The subject was this: in a named spot, a man of gigantic stature was buried, and over his head and back were plates of pure gold, and on his fingers rings of gold so large that an ordinary man might creep through them. The place was so exactly described that two persons present at the dinner were tempted to go in search of the golden prize the harper's song had pointed out. After digging for some time, they found two pieces of gold.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt · source

This is Assaroe, where monks once found a slain man in the river. He was an O'Brien, a descendant of Brian Boru. He had been struck in the plates of his armour by a ball and fell into the water. The monks of Assaroe found his body and interred it. But the Franciscan friars of Donegal insisted that the O'Briens were always buried in their houses, and they appealed to have the body lifted and interred with them. Red Hugh O'Donnell gave the order, and it was done. So great was the contention for the bones of a descendant of Brian Boru. Not long after, Clifford crossed the Erne and marched down the right bank to Assaroe. On the same day a ship from Galway bringing ordnance for his support put into Inis-saimer, or Fish Island. The troops took up a position on Mullaghnashee, the hill on which the parish church stands, and planted their guns there. One of the Four Masters may have seen it himself. He wrote that on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday they continued to fire, shooting at the castle with heavy loud-sounding fiery balls from the loud-roaring guns of that huge ordnance planted opposite the fortress. They sent large parties of their choicest soldiers with wall-razing engines, thick iron armour about their bodies, bright shining helmets on their heads, and a bright testudo of round broad hard iron shields to protect them from the shot of their enemies. The resolute attack they made upon the fortress was of no avail. From the castle were poured down upon them showers of brilliant fire from well-placed guns and costly muskets, and rough-headed rocks and massive stones and beams and blocks of timber hurled from the battlements. Great numbers of them were destroyed. Others, severely wounded and exhausted, delayed not to be further slaughtered. Turning their backs to their enemies, they were routed to the camp.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Highways and byways in Donegal and Antrim; (1903), Gwynn, Stephen Lucius, 1864-1950, Internet Archive highwaysbywaysin00gwyn_0, Chapter 23 · source

Somewhere around here, salt was once manufactured, both at Portnason and at Milltown. The salt water used in the process was brought from the Erne in large boats built for the purpose. It was no uncommon sight to see one of these lumbering craft towed, canal-fashion, to Portnason by a horse that walked or waded on the edge of the sands. The importation of English salt put an end to this local industry long ago. The weaver's loom and the housewife's spinning wheel, once so common in the neighbourhood, have become scarce. In a few years more, the spinning wheel, once regarded as a necessary piece of furniture in the country house, will be regarded as an antiquarian relic. In the early part of the present century a linen market existed here, and the weavers brought their webs to the market, which was presided over by an inspector and a stamper, both appointed by the Board of Trustees of the linen and hempen manufacturers. These officials were there to prevent frauds such as "fine laps," "short lengths," "thick selvages," and "uneven cloth." The market stamp was impressed on perfect pieces only, as the stampers had to allow compensation whenever their seal was found on defective pieces. In 1828 this Board was dissolved, and the trade appears to have dwindled away afterwards. More than twenty years ago a scheme was set on foot for the establishment of a spinning mill on a large scale at Laputu. A considerable sum was spent on the erection of a suitable building, but it was never completed, and the building has since been tenanted by rooks, who alone disturb the silence of this gloomy-looking structure.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt, Chapter 39 · source

Somewhere around here in Finner Warren, labourers building a wall came upon a chambered cairn, an artificially constructed sepulchral cave. Inside were portions of several human skeletons. The teeth in some of the skulls were in good preservation. There was no evidence of cremation having been used, and this form of cairn burial is supposed to be of great antiquity. There are three such examples in Finner Warren. One was unroofed some years ago and found to contain an urn full of burnt human bones. A stone circle stands in the same locality as well. The earliest form of human habitation found in the district takes the form of artificial caves. As inhabitants increased in numbers, the woods could not give them the necessary shelter, and the construction of artificial caves, partly for hiding treasure in and partly as dwelling places, naturally suggested itself.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt, Chapter 40 · source

As you pass through Bundoran, this is where the cholera plague of 1832 first broke out. It was summer. The disease was supposed to have been carried here by a smack from Liverpool, which had called to take in salmon. From Bundoran it spread through Ballyshannon and the neighbourhood. Ballyshannon lost 93 people, with 152 recoveries. The mortality was small compared with many neighbouring towns, but the panic that prevailed gave a serious check to the trade of the town. By 1835 the exports were 10,704 quarters of oats, valued at 11,130, and imports amounted to 9,524.

Told by the narrator (z-ai/glm-5.2) from Ballyshannon Its History & Antiquities (1879), Joseph McGarrity Collection at Villanova University Digital Archives, Internet Archive BallyshannonItsHistoryAntiquitiesOpt, Chapter 39 · source