Tuesday, 29th July DRUMDONEY
- DONEGAL - DERRY
Robyn writes: Another moving day today, and this one didn’t go quite as smoothly as others have! It was raining when we woke up this morning, and remained very cloudy and overcast for most of the day. We had breakfast to use up as much food as we could, and chatted to Cait and Danny, then finished our packing and headed north a bit after 9. We were sad to say goodbye to our lovely big farmhouse; our next accommodation was to be much smaller.
We retraced our steps from the other day up the coast through Sligo and then continued on to Donegal, where we thought we might look for morning tea. However, on the outskirts, we saw a sign to a Craft Village, so we decided we’d swing in there for a look. They had a café, so we got a nice, warm table at Aroma’s, and ordered. Lex had the Lemon Polenta Cake, and Jo and I both saw Potato Omelette on the menu so ordered that as an early lunch. We got a real surprise when it came – it was an omelette wrapped around cooked potato and onions, with a slab of Brie on the top! At any rate, though it wasn’t exactly what we’d been picturing, it was certainly very tasty and filling.
We looked around the village at the different craftspeople – there were potters, jewellery makers and glassmakers plus an artist whose work we really liked. He had actually painted some pictures for the café of the cooks at work in the kitchen, and they were great. I did buy a little star glass Christmas tree ornament; now I just need to get it home in one piece…..
From here we went into Donegal town, and managed to find a
park just near the castle. We’d seen it in 2014, so Lex went for a walk along
the river, and Jo and I went in. It’s totally different to the other castles we’ve
seen recently – this one is now more like a manor house. It was built by ‘Red’
Hugh O’Donnell in the late 15th century. They have restored the
original tower (which was built onto in the 1600s anyway), and there is a Tudor
manor house wing which is a fairly solid ruin, so you can picture what it was
like. Of course, the castle has changed hands many times over the centuries,
from the original Irish owners to being handed over to the British overlords in
the 1500s after the Flight of the Earls. It’s a very nice little castle, and
right in the middle of the town on the river, so very picturesque.
Once we’d finished, we went into the town triangle (not a town square!) to have a look around. We found some lovely Irish gift shops (of course). I ran Lex and let him know we were finished, so we arranged to meet at the Train Museum at 1.15. This has been set up to commemorate the ending of all train services in the Donegal area several decades ago; they operated from 1847 to 1969. It’s in the old Donegal railway station, and had some interesting displays, and lots for kids to do. They have an old steam engine there that you can go into, and activities in some of the old carriages (I tried the ‘be a fireman’ game and was assured that I’m brilliant at it; must be some good railway genes in the family!)
By now, it was about quarter to two, so we figured we’d best be on our way to Derry. This should have been a fairly quick trip of only about an hour, but we hit major delays at roadworks, and in the end it took us almost two hours. Charlie, our host, was waiting for us at the house, and showed us around. His Derry accent was so thick that it was a bit hard to understand him! Anyway, it’s a ‘two up, two down’ terrace house, very small compared to our previous homes. It’s just been renovated – you can still smell the paint. It’s okay, but as I said, very small. There’s a lot of dodging around each other. Jo and I have put on a couple of loads of washing, so we have it draped all around the living area. We’re not game to put it on the clothesline.
Lex went for a walk to the Foyle River and into town, and enjoyed reacquainting himself with the area. We were here in 2014 and really enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to seeing it all again.
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