Visit to Donegal Gaeltacht
By Brendan Mulvey

In the January edition of “The Harp” I took you on a mini tour of Donegal, recently I have had the pleasure of driving a group of students from Poland and Romania on an educational tour of the Donegal Gaeltacht and I would like to share the experience of trip with you.

Glencomlumbkille in Co. Donegal

County Donegal has the largest Gaeltacht area in Ireland. It is a region renowned all over the world for its traditional music, poetry and of course song, the Donegal Gaeltacht is the home to many top singing stars and Irish bands, they include Daniel O’Donnell, Eyna, Altan and Clannad.
We started our tour in Ardara, then onto Kilcar and Glencolumbkille, I wrote about this area in my previous story on Donegal, we travelled along the craggy coastline to the village of Doochary, this is an area of outstanding natural beauty and a haven for anglers who enjoy game fishing, Lough Finn we were told was teaming with Salmon and Trout, we went to see the “Salmon Leap,” this is where the annual migration of salmon fights its way up river to their spawning grounds.
We continued to “An Mhuc Dhubh” (The Black Pig), this is Donegal’s only operational narrow gauge railway, it takes its name from the original black engine.

The three mile trip on the narrow gauge railway took us along the shores of Lough Finn, the train engine and carriages have been immaculately restored, the trip brought back lovely memories for me, we had The Cavan – Leitrim narrow gauge railway close to my home in Leitrim.
We headed on to Dungloe, the town is known as the capital of the Rosses, the town is known all over Ireland for its “Mary from Dungloe” festival, it is a thriving town and well kept, even on a cold February day it looked impressive, we continued on to Burtonport, a fishing port in the western gaeltacht area, from the port you can catch the ferry across to the island of Aranmore, we continued to Kincasslagh the home village of Daniel O’Donnell, I was surprised some of the group had heard of Daniel and a few knew a few of his Irish Ballads.

Our next port of call was Carrickfinn, it is a tiny well kept village, my group paid a visit to the wildlife sanctuary and were most impressed by the tour, we had a drive up the road to the airport, we took a half hour break and went inside for a coffee, inside the door is a lovely signed picture of Daniel O’Donnell and a lovely message to the airport staff thanking them for their kindness to him, the staff proudly told me he is a regular passenger at the airport. There are daily flights from the Airport to Dublin and Glasgow.
Annagry is just a short drive from the Airport, our guide had organised a visit to a local school to meet native Irish speakers, all the group had a bit of practice at speaking the Irish Language and I was suprsied how well some of the group picked words and sentences, they told me I would have to speak “Irish” for the rest of the tour, I was wishing I had my native Irish speaking friend Gerard Weir alongside me, however we got on OK with my “Cupla Fochail Gaeilige”.

A short drive away and we were in the village of Crolly; the village nestles in a lovely valley at the foot of Derryveagh Mountain. We paid a visit to the world famous “Crolly Dolls” factory, we had a guided tour of the factory, many members of staff were speaking Irish, I was surprised to learn that the first doll was manufactured in 1939, the dolls are world famous and can be purchased in many top stores right across the world.
Leaving Crolly we made our way to Dunlewey, the village is dominated by Errigal, Donegal’s highest mountain, it is 752 meters high, there are two lovely lakes close to the village, we continued to our final place on the tour, Glenveagh National Park.

The park is set in 16,000 hectares of mountains, lakes, wood and wild bogs. The park is the largest of its kind in Ireland, hundreds of wild red deer roam the grounds, the park also has majestic Golden Eagles, they were introduced to the park from the Highlands of Scotland, we seen numerous red deer sadly the eagles did not put in an appearance while we were present.

We had an excellent audio visual presentation and were then taken on a guided tour of Glenveagh Castle, it was built in 1870 and has been tastefully restored to its former splendour, the rooms are fully furnished and the guide we had gave us a top class tour of a truly magnificent building. We then had a walk through about five acres of well-laid out gardens. After a two-hour visit it was time to set off to Letterkenny for our overnight stay. To sum up Donegal Gaeltacht has breathtaking views that changes as you go round the next bend in the road.

Finally may I wish The Birmingham Saint Patrick’s Festival Committee a successful Saint Patrick’s Day Parade and great weekend for all the festivities they have planned, also bon voyage to The Birmingham Irish Pipes and Drums and Friends as they embark on what will be truly a memorable trip for the band as they visit New York for Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, I only wish I was with you at this great event.

Finally “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day” to all the readers of “The Harp”

Until the next time its Good Bye and God Bless from the Hills of Sligo.