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Rainbows await in Ireland's wild, moody north

By Pat Hanna Kuehl
Special to The Denver Post

Mar. 11, 2001 - LETTERKENNY, Ireland - County Donegal, perched high on the northwestern tip of the Emerald Isle, tends to get short shrift from guidebooks on Ireland. After all, the jagged coast is buffeted by icy winds from the north Atlantic and there are more sheep than people.

Also, isolated Donegal is much closer to the fallout from the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland than the newfound prosperity of Dublin.

The quickest way to get to Donegal from Dublin is to drive north and cross the border into Northern Ireland, speed northwest on excellent highways and cross the border back into the Republic of Ireland on the way to Letterkenny.

Of course, some timid souls are reluctant to do that. They not only fear setting foot in Northern Ireland, they don't want to cope with driving on the right side of the car on the left side of the road.

It's difficult to get to Donegal by public transportation, few conventional tourist attractions await and when the weather is bad, it's very, very bad with fog so thick you can't see more than a car-length ahead. And the north Atlantic wind can roar like an out-ofcontrol roller coaster.

But when the sun comes out in Donegal, the sky is such a vibrant blue and the air so pure the craggy coast sparkles like it's sprinkled with diamond dust.

Some of the tallest cliffs in Europe soar above clear, deepwater bays bustling with commercial fishing boats from as far away as Spain and Portugal. And many restaurants serve salmon just hours from the water.

Inland, wire fences marking boundaries are as much to keep wandering sheep out as to keep other animals in. There are more shellfish farms than vegetable gardens.

Excellent roads with little traffic wind through rolling hills blanketed with heather flecked with velvety browns, purples, blues and mustard. Straight ahead, just over the next rise, there's often a landscape waiting for a photographer or artist.

I went to Donegal to learn about tweeds after my curiosity was aroused at a Dublin shop where I found "Donegal Tweed" covers a lot more than a black and white herringbone coat. I eventually found the jacket I wanted, but it wasn't a "salt 'n' pepper" - I chose a deep brown handwoven fabric flecked with the array of colors I'd admired in the Donegal countryside. It's my meaningful souvenir of a unique part of Ireland.

My driver and I covered the 20 miles from Derry to Letterkenny, the largest town (population 10,000) in County Donegal, in heavy rain. When we turned down the mile-long, tree-lined corridor leading to the Castle Grove Country House & Restaurant, the fog was so thick the driver slowed the car to a snail's pace for fear of missing the road and tangling with a tree trunk. I was beginning to wonder why I'd left Derry.

My spirits improved when Mary Sweeney, mistress of Castle Grove, greeted us at the door of the late 17thcentury Georgian country house, showed us to a lovely sitting room and served us tea and fresh scones in front of a blazing fire.

I was shown upstairs to a spacious corner room with 14-foot ceiling, deep crimson walls, white enameled woodwork and antique furnishings. A portable electric heater on the floor battled the chill seeping in from three tall shuttered windows. A soft, handknit throw draped on a chaise longue indicated this dreary weather wasn't unusual for early October.

After a hot bath in a vintage tub, I went downstairs to sip a glass of Black Bush (Irish whiskey) in front of the fireplace in a second, cozier sitting room while waiting to be called for a five-course dinner in the formal dining room. Things were looking up, but I still wasn't optimistic about the next day's prospects when I snuggled into my antique bed with its heavily embroidered sheets and pillow cases, lulled to sleep by the sound of rain pelting the window panes.

But the next morning I woke to brilliant sunshine, a full Irish breakfast (fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, grilled tomatoes, blood pudding, brown bread, butter twirls, a choice of preserves and individual pots of strong coffee), a pastoral view out the dining room's floor-toceiling windows and an urge to explore.

Denis Doyle, head of tourism in County Donegal, had agreed to show me his realm when he learned I was nervous about driving alone "on the wrong side of the road" in unfamiliar territory. A double for actor George Kennedy, Doyle's a man who speaks of Donegal's 18 golf courses like he's counting beads on his rosary. A genial guide, he sped his car down backroads with the rambling names of the tiny towns rolling off his tongue like the Devonshire cream that crowned strawberry preserves on those scones we were served every time we we stopped. The Irish love scones like Americans love Starbucks.

Knowing sunshine is a precious commodity in Donegal, Doyle said we should first head north to Downings, a fishing village on the North Atlantic coast known for three things: McNutts of Downings tweeds, the Rosapenna Golf Resort and the Atlantic Loop, a 6-mile scenic drive that begins and ends in Downings.

With its bird's eye view of the rugged coastline with surf leaping at least 50 feet in the air, glimpses of farmers cutting rectangles of peat from the ground to pile near their cottages for fuel and closeups of black-faced sheep resting their chins on stone walls as though posing for portraits, the Loop was as scenic as the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula - but without the tour bus traffic.

Doyle was saving what he considered best for last. He said the Rosapenna Golf Resort ranks among the top three golf courses in Donegal. (The other two are Ballyliffen at Inishowen and Murvagh at Donegal Town.)

"We play golf year round here," he said. "There are 16 link courses-- golf courses that overlook the water and are pretty much flat - and two park land courses with trees and rolling terrain. Rosapenna is where most golfers would want to head. It's a four-star hotel with challenging links," Doyle added. Golf pro Don Patterson began a series of golf clinics this month.

A Rosapenna official said avid golfers play at least 10 months a year on its links through fair and foul weather. The resort dates to 1893, when the British introduced golf to Donegal. Until then the big draw for tourism, always important to the local economy, was salmon fishing. The original wooden hotel burned down in 1960 to be replaced by a sprawling contemporary structure with windows offering views of the golf links in the foreground and tiers of whitewashed cottages in Downings.

Most of Rosapenna's clientele is from Northern Ireland, the same folk who own the holiday homes that are springing up like mushrooms on every bit of land with a view.

"The Northern Irish have about a 25 percent break on the local exchange rate," Doyle explained, "and some feel there's not as much risk living down here." We were on a tight schedule, so there wasn't time to visit the vil lage of Crolly, home of Irish folk music recording star Enya. Doyle said her father displays her gold records on the walls at his pub (Leo's of Crolly) and plays her videos from time to time, and there's always the chance Enya herself might show up.

Nor was there time to check out Tory Island, the primitive art colony 15 miles off the coast of Bunbeg, though Doyle thought we might find some of the artists' work at The Gallery in Dunfanaghy.

The Gallery didn't have any Tory Island artwork at the time, but Moira Harley, one of its owners, was a treasure trove of non-guide book information ranging from the art colony's English portrait painter founder, the late Derek Hill, to northern Donegal's longtime popularity with artists.

"In the 1930s, '40s and '50s there used to be a hotel at Gortahork where the guest book read like a who's who of politicians, writers and artists," Harley said.

"They used to stay there together and paint. They didn't have to stretch themselves too much because they had the sea, the mountains and the sky for inspiration," she explained.

The next day - another travel poster-variety dazzler - we drove south of Letterkenny to start our itinerary at Donegal Town, the most tourist-oriented town in the county with excellent shops, including Magee's for the ultimate Donegal tweed jacket.

There's also a prize-winning pub named McGroarty's and Donegal Castle, last home of the O'Donnell clan chieftains.

Doyle made a short detour south of town for an all-too-brief stop at the Donegal Craft Village. I could have spent the better part of a day there, starting with Charles Roberts' shop that offers handmade Uilleann bagpipes fashioned from fine woods, brass, silver and leather, moving on to Niall Bruton's stunning silver jewelry displays and Nuala Toland's unique pottery selection.

Our major destination that day was the southwest coast due west of Donegal Town - the commercial fishing port of Killybegs, the weaving towns of Kilcar and Ardara and the Gaeltract area, where Gaelic is spoken as much as English.

On the drive back to Letterkenny the grand finale came when we rounded a curve in Glenveagh National Park and found the road ahead arched by not one, but two, vivid rainbows - one for each of my perfect days in Donegal.

Pat Hanna Kuehl is a freelance writer-photographer in Denver.

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