Driving Route: Travel through Donegal, Sligo & Leitrim

Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim
120 km

The road from Donegal Town to Sligo Town passes through some of the most stunning scenery and most romantic landscapes to be found anywhere in Ireland -and that's saying a lot.

It sets off southwards, with two opposing possibilities for diversions. To the west is Rossnowlagh, a heavenly seaside place with an immensely long and uncrowded strand and at least one excellent restaurant. To the east is dark and beautiful Lough Derg and Station Island, on which St. Patrick was privileged to have a vision of the horrors of Purgatory. A place for pilgrimage for many centuries, the greater part of the island is occupied by a splendid basilica which seems to float on the water.

At Ballyshannon the road takes a deep plunge down to the River Erne and crosses the county border to go through the few miles of coastal Leitrim before entering Sligo. The very popular Victorian seaside resort of Bundoran welcomes many visitors and feeds them extremely well in any of several top class restaurants. The marvellous mountains of the Ben Bulben range rise as you continue southwards, Near the village of Grange there is a particularly fine stone-age tomb, just by the side of the road.

Then you come to see the incredible north face of Ben Bulben, standing up from the plain like a colossal stone wall. The poet W B Yeats chose Drumcliff Churchyard 'under bare Ben Bulben's head' nearby to be his burial place. His grave is carefully tended and a visitor centre established beside it. Close by is a beautiful Celtic cross and a round tower, the last mortal remains of a monastery that flourished there a thousand years ago. Down the road from Drumcliff is Lissadell, the classical country house which Yeats celebrated in many of his poems and the home of Countess Markievicz, the first woman ever elected to the British parliament.

Sligo Town is a busy, bustling spot with excellent accommodation, food and drink - to say nothing of theatre, traditional music and wonderful scenery on all sides. The town is cut in two by the Garavogue River which flows from Lough Gill into Sligo Bay and offers salmon fishing

A signpost from Sligo shows the way to Parke's Castle, Dooney Rock and other landmarks on the shores of the exquisite Lough Gill. An old road winds its way amongst bungalows for a mile where you turn off for the holy well of Tobernalt. Near the bottom of a cliff, draped with ferns and ivy, an altar stands above a tiny cavern whence clear water gushes out and makes its way down to the lake. By the lakeshore, Dooney Rock towers high above the trees and a well-marked footpath leads beneath it, down to the lake and back around a small hill. Two miles farther on there is another woodland picnic and parking place in Slish Wood and, three miles after that, the road to the inspiration of the best-known of all Yeats's poems - the lake isle of Innisfree.

At Creevelea Abbey pious members of the royal O'Rourke family provided an extensive dwelling for Franciscan Friars in 1508. It was the last of its kind to be built in Ireland for hundreds of years and the friars enjoyed only a century of peace within its walls. The friary stands on a hill overlooking the River Bonet and the village of Dromahaire, a pleasant spot with pubs and traditional music and a delightful riverside walk.

After Dromahaire, the road makes its way back to the shores of Lough Gill, passing beneath angular limestone hills and deep valleys filled with hazel bushes. Parke's Castle appears suddenly, a great grey building reaching down to the lake shore. The tall and comfortable dwelling is flanked by a massive wall and round turrets and still carries with it the air of menace that it was intended to convey to the conquered and dispossessed natives. The O'Rourkes had a stronghold there and entertained in the 16th century Francisco de Cuellar, one of the Spanish nobles who had been shipwrecked from the Armada.

The route around Lough Gill ends on the outskirts of Sligo Town and then turns off for the marvellous 'Alpine' valley of Glencar - where limestone cliffs and little waterfalls create some of the most spectacular scenery in Ireland. The lake is long and narrow and, at its far end, there is a welcoming car park which looks across the lake to a crannog, a man-made island created as a homestead for a family some two thousand years ago. Six windswept trees are all that inhabit it nowadays. Up the hill, across the road from the car park, a neatly paved path leads to Glencar Waterfall: not one of the biggest but certainly one of the finest cascades in the land.

The road through Glencar crosses the county boundary into Leitrim and leads to Manorhamilton, a town created by the Scottish warlord Sir Frederick Hamilton who built a castle there in 1638. The town climbs over a particularly rugged hillside which gives its protestant churchyard the air of a citadel rather than a place of worship. Hamilton's castle stands on another eminence, looking across the valley to the splendid Benbo Mountain. The castle is large, ivy-covered and rather inaccessible, being protected by an outer wall with turrets. But its very site gives a feeling of power over the people.

Several possibilities await you there. Manorhamilton is surrounded by wild and rugged mountains - penetrated by several good roads. From Manorhamilton, our route goes to Bundoran. The shorter way there goes northwards, under Saddle Hill to Rossinver and the beautiful Lough Melvin, known not only for its fishing but for the fact that no fewer than three species trout live there - to say nothing of salmon. An alternative is to go southwards as far as Drumkeeran and circle back through Dowra and Glenfarne. This loop of 55 km gives a view of the great Lough Allen, the Iron Mountains and, at Dowra, a piece of the Black Pig's Race, an earthen rampart from the iron age. Bundoran, where we end this tour, offers a variety of excellent places to stay and superb food.

FURTHER INFORMATION
For further information on any of the items featured above, or on the counties in general, please contact:

Fáilte Ireland North West
Aras Reddan
Temple Street
Sligo
Tel: 00353 (0) 7191 61201
Fax: 00353 (0) 719160360

Email: northwestinfo@failteireland.ie
Web: www.irelandnorthwest.ie