Donegal in sunshine

 We took a couple of nights away earlier this month. C had been up in Donegal for work back in February, and came back full of enthusiasm for the scenery. His dad was  from Donegal but a different part to where we went. I had a couple of childhood holidays there, but I suspect that it was only a couple because the cottage belonging to my aunt was a bit too small for a family plus dogs and usually at least one cat. All our later holidays were in rented houses in West Cork for a couple of years and then in Connemara for as long as I went on family holidays, initially in a house right beside the sea, then in one on a little almost island in a lake.

Anyway, the place we went this time was near where C had been for work, and also very near where I went to Irish Summer College when I was about 14 or 15 - it's an Irish speaking area. We were blessed with the most amazing weather and I was regretting having forgotten to pack my swimsuit as I would definitely have got in, and I also wished I had sandals for the half day we spent walking around Glenveagh National Park. We walked from the carpark to the castle, around the castle gardens, up to the viewpoint above it, then took the electric shuttle bus back to the carpark and did the short nature trail, so we probably walked about 6 miles in all.

Apart from that we spent most of our time visiting two beaches - one just down the road from our guesthouse, and one a little further south which had a very picturesque ruined boat (Bád Eddie, Eddie's boat - the first time I said it C thought I was saying "bald Eddie" and had no idea what I was talking about). It's the ever diminishing remains of what was a small fishing boat just needing a couple of timbers replaced back in the seventies. We ended up there with a snack picnic supper at sunset on the first evening because the pizza place we wanted to go to was closed, and we went back again for sunset the following evening. 

On the way home, C had already decided that we would go home a different route and because that meant passing very near to my early childhood holiday location, I checked the tide tables and asked could we visit Muckross Head. We didn't have time to wait for low tide and therefore couldn't walk all the way round the base of the cliffs, but otherwise it was exactly as I remembered it, and was new to C as it was too far off the beaten track for him ever to have been there in the days when he was a delivery driver. 

Small selection of photos - if you have the stamina for a full 100, the album is HERE. 

Dunlewey

Port Arthur Beach

Gola Island, known to all Irish schoolchildren (at least of many generations) from the song "Báidín Fheilimí - the tune was "instant total recall", my sister said when I sent her a photo

Mount Errigal

Maherclogher Beach

Glenveagh National Park

back to Port Arthur beach

And back to Maherclogher beach

Muckross Head

rock pool

Dungloe - one of my mother-in-law's favourite Irish folk songs was Mary from Dungloe, and C often used to play and sing it for her. 

I make mention of the sunshine because one of the years we had a family holiday there my mother had forgotten to pack waterproofs. After three days confined in the cottage, she decided to bite the bullet and buy us new raingear in the local fishing village. I still remember those macs and sou'westers - red for me, blue for my brother and yellow for my sister.