Buncrana

The town

Buncrana (Bun Cranncha in Irish, meaning “foot of the River Crana”) is a town in Inishowen in the north of County Donegal, on the eastern shores of Lough Swilly, twenty-three kilometres north-west of Derry and forty-three north of Letterkenny. Its 2022 census population was 6,971, making it the second most populous town in County Donegal after Letterkenny, and the largest in Inishowen. It is the practical town of the peninsula: the shops, the fuel, the full range of stays, and the lough at its door.

The keep

The town’s history sits at the mouth of the River Crana, where the three-storey O’Doherty’s Keep stands on the northern bank as the lough opens out. The keep is the only surviving part of an original fourteenth-century Norman castle, and the town was the historic home of the Ó Dochartaigh — O’Doherty — clan, originally developing around that defensive tower. The town moved to its present location, just south of the river, when George Vaughan had the current Main Street laid out in 1718. The keep is the place the story sits, and the walk to it from the town is short.

The trade

Buncrana was a major centre for the textile industry in County Donegal from the nineteenth century until the mid-2000s, and the town’s name is still made in the cloth that the county is known for. The industry built the town the way the lough built it: the water, the trade, and the people who came to work it. The town is the base for the whole Inishowen circuit, and the lough esplanade is the easy way to see what the water has meant to it.

Practical

Allow a day: the keep in the morning, the lough and the esplanade, and the Inishowen villages in the afternoon. Pair it with the Fahan and Rathmullan for a full lough day.