Glenveagh, May 2025. Copyright: pat
In 1981 I came to Donegal for the first time. I had just turned 18 and hadn’t seen much of the world. Holidays were rare in my childhood, my parents were workers. And when we did go somewhere, it was an affordable ‘package holiday’. The Costa Brava was the most exotic place I had ever seen.
And then this! We hitchhiked through a lonely world of mountains, water and moors frozen in time. In the vastness of the landscape there were only a few isolated houses and here and there the ruins of a derelict cottage. As we rounded the foot of Errigal it struck me speechless: a valley of unearthly beauty stretched out below us. I had never seen anything like it. At one end, the steep walls of Poison Glen rose up as if the gods had walled up the world. At the other end of the valley, beyond the glittering lake, the Gweebarra flowed in countless meanders down to the sea.
The sea! Blue, wild water, tiny islands protected the coast, where endless sandy beaches awaited feet. Not a soul for miles around. For me, growing up in the cramped Ruhr area, the loneliness of the landscape was almost painfully beautiful.
Bad Eddie, Gweedore’s famous shipwreck, May 2025. Copyright: pat
I once wrote a short piece about this first encounter with Donegal. In 2014, the Irish Times called on its readers to name places in Ireland where you can experience the wild side of the country. I wrote something and sent it in, and the paper actually left it to me to praise Donegal:
“As I come from an urban, overcrowded and industrial area in Germany, northwestern Donegal back then was the most remote and solitary place on Earth for me. Donegal’s highlands are a gem among many precious places in Ireland. Sitting up on Muckish’s highest spot and looking down to the sea and over to Tory Island always will be one of the most sublime experiences of my lifetime: pure solitude you share with no one but the wind and the drizzle. Who could care up there?”
It got me hooked, never let me go. I visit Donegal since over 40 years, I lived in the north-west for a while, I found love and family here. In 2022, we bought our little house in Ballyshannon. It wasn’t a sensible decision as we didn’t have the money to spare. But it also was no decision I would have regretted for a single second since.
From Ballyshannon we explore the north-west, which we thought we knew so well. I still love travelling south to the warm Mediterranean. But the place that keeps drawing me back is up here in Donegal. I would need another 40 years to see it all.
Bundoran beach, May 2025. Copyright: pat
