Is Donegal Worth Visiting?
Admire the turquoise water lapping the Silver Strand beach. Enjoy spectacular vistas at Slieve League cliffs — if it isn’t fogged in. Feast on delicious cappuccino and pastry in Killybegs. Explore the stone buildings and castles of Donegal. Delight in the stone round tower of the Church of the Four Masters.
Read on to find out how to make the most of your time — decide which places you should visit, see which photos fascinate you, as well as get links to our custom Google maps and itinerary planning information.
Author & Photographer: George Mitchell
Our content and advice are derived from our personal experience and knowledge, gained from living in Europe for seven years and studying its art and architecture. Our recommendations are not influenced by affiliate links – we do not have any. Ireland is one of our favourite destinations.
All of our recommendations are top-rated by Google Maps, which is based on the opinions of everyone, not just tourists. Each place recommended in our posts and our Ireland North Map is appended with a Google Maps Rating (G0 to G5).
Donegal Castle
Slieve League, one of the best cliffs in Ireland, was supposed to be the highlight of day 29. Instead, it was pouring rain, so we first drove around Donegal, a small town of 2600 people. You can see this route on our Ireland North Itinerary Map.
Donegal means fort of the foreigner (probably the Vikings). The 15th-century keep was the stronghold of the O’Donnell clan, one of the most powerful Gaelic families in Ireland from the 5th to the 16th centuries. They rule all of County Donegal to Derry and parts of other counties as well.
Tirchonaill St. Bridge
Continue east on Tirchonaill St. across a bridge with a good view of the town east along the River Eske. In the distance, a church with a round tower caught our eye, so we drove to find it.
Church of the Four Masters
Church of the Four Masters was built in 1935 using granite. It commemorates the Annals of the Four Masters, a medieval history of Ireland written by four Franciscan friars. The Church was built in the Irish Romanesque style with a semi-circular door.
A round tower is a free-standing bell tower similar to a campanile in Italy, where we lived for four years. This architecture began in the 4th century in Italy. Campana in Italian means bell. The most famous campanile in the world is the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which is also round.
Other interesting buildings are the Castle and the Old Castle Bar as seen from Bridge Street.
The Diamond Square (actually it’s a triangle) is the centre of Donegal. The Market House Restaurant is one of the interesting stone buildings.
Killybegs Harbour
It was time to drive the N56-R263 Loop to Malin Beg. The road is basically inland until Killybegs Harbour. We took a photo of this major fishing port.
We walked into the McLoone deli-bakery, which also sells lunches and some neat pastries. Then we stopped in at Ahoy Café for some great cappuccino and pastry — it was so good we stopped again on the way back!.
Silver Strand
From here, we drove all the way to Malin Beg, where there was a great high viewpoint. Above is what the scene really looked like — 50 shades of dreary and dismal grey. We stayed for quite a while, eating our lunch. Then the rain stopped, and a new round of photos was taken.
No, it did not suddenly get sunny. Back at home, through the magic of Photoshop, we can now see just how beautiful this beach scene can be. Turquoise water laps the golden sand. Perhaps it should be renamed Turquoise Strand.
This is the view to the right side.
This must be spectacular on a sunny day! OK, now back to reality…
A steep staircase leads down to Silver Strand. Are you ready for your workout?
Slieve League
There is one thing worse than rain for photography — unrelenting fog. We left Slieve League for the end of the day, but while the rain had slowed, the poor visibility did not. So we saw bubkes. Although less famous than the Cliffs of Moher, Slieve League is almost three times higher.
I even hiked up the trail just a bit, but all I could see was the stone stairs. I knew from photos that there was a sheer drop off on the other side of the fence along the trail.
On the plus side, there was a cute pub in the Tiny village of Teelin (Tí Linn). Besides the traditional atmosphere, The Rusty Mackerel has a large, amazing monochrome mural commemorating local traditional musicians.
We returned to the warmth of our Gap Lodge B&B (G4.7) with its cozy breakfast nook.
Final Comments on this Itinerary
This is a pleasant day trip in Donegal without many tourists. Remember, the most important “destination” is meeting the people.
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Itinerary Maps & Guides
This itinerary is part of our Best Places for 2 Weeks in the North of Ireland and Ireland North itineraries.
Ireland North Map – our custom Google map
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