After our road trip took us along the North Coast, we’d decided to visit Donegal to check out some beaches. When people think of beaches, their minds often jump to the Algarve in Portugal, or south Spain, but Ireland has some truly breathtaking beaches dotted around its coastline, and after visiting White Park Bay during the first part of our road trip, we decided to visit a few famous beaches in Donegal too.
When all of Ireland was under the rule of the British Empire, there was a concerted effort to eradicate the Irish language, the surviving Irish speaking regions are in the Western extremities of the island, in the counties of Donegal, Kerry and Galway, and the 2 beaches we came to Donegal are in the heart of the Irish speaking area.
I had previously attended Gaeltacht courses with my school, which are basically summer camps in the Gaeltacht region with the intent of improving Irish language skills. One of the villages I’d stayed in was Machaire Rabhartaigh (pronounced Mah-her-ah Roar-tee), which has a remarkable long beach facing Tory island – I had always regretted not going for a swim when I was there as a teen, so going for a dip was high on my Irish bucket list.
We had booked a night at a charming cottage on the outskirts of Downings through AirBnB (you can see it here). Enough setting the tone of the trip, time to start talking about it.
We navigated through very narrow country roads to find the Fisherman’s Village we were staying at before venturing to Machaire Rabhartaigh. More narrow country roads where you’re unable to build up speed, but exceptional views make the slow crawl along the road from Downings worth it. When we arrived at Machaire Rabhartaigh, some memories flooded back, I glanced outwards towards Tory island, and along the beach, capturing some photographs.
We then began slowly walking along the stretch of beach, I changed into my swim gear and jumped in the water, but not long after, the sky opened up with hail and lightning.
We ran from the beach to the car to escape the hails (and potentially getting struck by lightning) but I was being pelted on bare skin (not ideal).
After finally drying up we decided to venture back for tea/coffee or something to warm us up.
We went back to Downings and picked up food from the chip shop in the village before calling it a night.
The next morning, we sought out the gnarly named Murder Hole Beach, which, albeit being on the same peninsula as Downings, was rather hard to find. But the beauty upon seeing it was worth the search.
You’ve to trample through fields with cows to locate the beach, but the soft sand and exceptional surroundings are genuinely breathtaking.
The tide is very temperamental at the beach, and we arrived at a high tide, cutting off the other half of the beach, but what we were still mesmerised by the sights.
Standing in the shallow tide, you can feel yourself getting pulled out to sea – the area is notorious for its vicious riptides – and visitors are discouraged from swimming.
This secluded county is often billed as one of the most beautiful in the country, and that’s a justifiable claim. These beaches highlight just a small part of the areas beauty – there’s so much that can take your breath away – and it’s a shame that tourism to Ireland rarely escapes Dublin, and when it does – it seems to just be to Cork, Galway or Belfast.
Those beaches are beautiful Padraig – beau-ti-ful – ☘️