So, the The Ballyshannon Folk Festival 2024 ran its course – in spite of atrocious weather. It made it a tent-event, with too little music on the streets: bad luck, but the people who found their way to the Marquee still had lots of fun.
The Ballyshannon-Festival is the oldest festival of it’s kind meanwhile. All the other ones have gone, Ballyshannon keeps up the Trad-spirit. Check out their website, they are already looking for gigs for 2025.
Singer: Paddy Casey
Video: Joyce T.
Copyright: pat
Thinking about getting a sheep for the lawn is a kind of running joke amongst men. Some apparently make that dream come true. In July we passed a garden in Ballyshannon, where two of those organic lawn mowers were at work. One model was pretty dated – or extremely hungry.
Copyright: pat
Copyright: pat
Port Arthur in evening light: no footsteps.
Many people who come to Ireland come to see the coastlines, castles and experience the craic in the pubs. For irish people holidays at the west coast are very much about the water. Especially Donegal sports some of the finest beaches in Europe. And yes, you can swim there, in spite of the temperatures.
Continental Europeans are often flabbergasted how Irish approach the water: you run into it, you dive in – and then you just don’t leave it again until you are blue. The alternative is the wet-suit.
Bundoran Beach on a not-so-sunny-day: our grandson (4) in his wet-suit
Everybody wears them, you often get them in supermarkets on special offer, you can buy them second hand at surf-shops – Neoprene made Ireland a 12-month-a-year swimming-nation. The Temperatures vary between 15 and 19 degrees in the summer and fall to 10 in winter-time, but with 5mm neopren on your body that is not much of a problem.
Rossnowlagh Beach: a young girl experiences her first waves. On that busy day aprox. 100 kids were in the water, many with their surf-schools. Cost of the courses: around 35 euros a day
Rossnowlagh is all about the surfing: You can walk a 100 meters and more into the surf which is mostly moderate – ideal for beginners
Rossnowlagh bay, seen from the cliffs: Irritating for foreigners it still is a “drive-on-beach” – until the tide comes in
Icecream-vans are part of the fun. And mobile chip-shops
Sheltered beaches and bays like Bunbeg or Rossnowlagh feel considerably warmer than the open Atlantic waters you get at Bundoran, but it is all the same: the water is crystal clear and fun, fun, fun.
So yes, even for us our holidays at the west coast are very much beach-holidays meanwhile. Many of them are pristine and almost unreal in their untouched beauty. Even a busy beach like Bundoran has a tidal zone teeming with life: plants in rock-pools with shrimps, crab, starfish – an open-air-aquarium for the kids to explore.
All photos in this article where taken within 1.5 week in July 2024. Temperatures varied between 13 and 22 degrees. The beaches we visited were Bundoran and Rossnowlagh, Cliffoney, Bun Beag and Port Arthur. All are completely different.
Evening-mood at Port Arthur in the very north of Donegal
Looks like Sardinia, doesn’t it?
Bundoran is a buzzing kids paradise, with its rock pools and the nearby playground and summer fairground. Tullan at the other end of town is a long-stretched beauty mostly frequented by walkers and surfers.
Cliffoney is hard to reach, but totally pristine: We got there for 8pm on a lovely day, and our footsteps were the only ones we could make out.
Kids paradise: Beach, fun-park, playground: Bundoran in the summer is a lively place – and has a very nostalgic flair to it at the same time
I f*** dare you: a young man makes his way into the waves at Bundoran at sunset
Same place, next day: there are no seasons in Ireland, only changing weather. We experienced days like that in October 2023 – Late summer and early autumn can be the nicest time of the year, if you are lucky. And early September is the month with the highest water temperatures.
Need a private beach? Go to Bun Beag
Bun Beag with all its beaches, the backdrop of Errigal mountain in the background, the famous Bad Eddie-wreck in the bay and all its secluded little beaches offers stunning natural beauty and privacy: If you don’t want neighbours, you pick a 500-meter-stretch of beach for yourself.
Port Arthur is similar, but different again: The little beaches are divided by mighty rounded rocks – the pictures look more like North-Sardina or Corsica than Ireland. A plenitude of islands in front of the coast calm the waters that are teeming with fish. The biggest ones you see around are Basking sharks, if you are lucky: the second biggest sharks in the world – and totally harmless.
Cliffoney-beach, famous Classiebawn-castle in the background: The castle was the Mountbattens holiday-home, members of the english royal family spent their holidays here. The beach was almost private for them
Where we walked: At the end of a long, beautiful summer day the only footsteps in the sand were ours. Irelands beaches might be colder than the ones in the Mediterranean, but they offer you something you will not find in warmer parts: the luxury of solitude in places of breathtaking beauty
Going up the hill, looking back: Ballyshannon has a One-Way-System
The first time we came to Ballyshannon was back in 1985. It was a terrible summer, cold and rainy, but we pitched our tend up at the school — just a couple of hundred meters from our house now. It was the time of the Ballyshannon Folk Festival, at the time one of the biggest Fleadhs on the West Coast, and it was a mad ride!
There was music everywhere, the pubs were busting, although there were a lot of them. Think of a town with less than 2500 inhabitants and 13 pubs! According to the BBC 10,000 people attended the festival.
Eleven of them are still going, but most are only open a couple of nights per week. As everywhere else Covid has taken a toll, and many businesses suffered. So the plentitude of pubs means that outside of festival-times there are just not enough guests to fill them.
Luckily, Ballyshannon still is a festival-town! There is a yearly Theater-Festival in February, the Folk-Festival in August and a Literature-Festival in November. But the best-known Festival still is the Rory Gallagher Tribute Festival that takes place every year on the first weekend in June.
Dicey Reillys: pub and micro-brewery
Gallagher is the most famous son of the town today, the other one being William Allingham, the 19th century poet. Since 2010 there is a Gallagher-statue by artist David Annand in the town-center, that quickly became a true “instagram spot” in Ballyshannon.
Ballyshannon calls itself the “oldest town in Ireland”, which is more of a legal thing than a historical truth: Ballyshannon was granted Town-rights in 1613, as one of the first settlements in Ireland. But the first inhabitants arrived significantly earlier: There were people living in and around Ballyshannon more than 5000 years ago, as archaeological finds from the neolithic period show.
Far more important than that: According to legend the mystic Partholon and his people landed on Inis Saimer, the little river-island at the pier, to repopulate Ireland 300 years after Noah’s flood. There you go now.
Rory Gallagher, 1948-1995: his father took part in the construction of the power-station
You won’t see much of that ancient past in town itself. The oldest houses today date back to the late 18th century. The town was always a workers and fishers place, so don’t look out for fancy mansions and royal palaces – I do not think that Ballyshannon ever was a particular rich place. For me the most interesting building is the old workhouse from victorian times, just round the corner from our house.
Those tragic places, once upon a time created to soften the impact of poverty, are deeply connected to the most bitter periods of history – and not only in Ireland. The Workhouse in Ballyshannon was left to rot far too long. Although the decay added to its eeriness, it is good news that there is a scheme on its way to renovate it.
Evening mood at the pier, early March 2024: according to legend the first place humans set foot on Irish soil after Noah’s flood.
That might have been the reason the town readily agreed to the proposal, to construct the first hydroelectric power-station at the top of town in the early 1950s. A dam was erected that created the reservoir that is known today as Lake Asseroe. At a time a remarkable technical achievement that not only brought electricity, but lots of employment to town. Today it is regretted by many: There was a picturesque waterfall where the dam is today. What a tourist attraction the famous Asseroe Falls could have become!
Since a couple of years the discussion is on, how the river can be renaturalized to make it more appealing again.
Going down to the little pier you get an impression how idyllic that could be: Inis Saimer in the sunset, the river going out to the sea and on the horizon the dunes of Tullan Strand are indeed a nice view. The park above it is a popular evening stroll – and in the morning you might see joggers and sportive people on the work-out-stations provided.
The town itself is easily walked, the road leading up the hill comes down again on the other side of the block. Shortly before you are back at Rory’s statue you’ll reach the Diamond, the little central square: It is not only the local “foot mile”, but the center of nightlife as well.
Coming down the hill: parking can be tricky, but most of the time you’ll find space at the Diamond