Headland · Co. Donegal
Slieve League
A wall of grey limestone dropping roughly 600 metres into the Atlantic on the Derrybeg Peninsula in southwest Donegal — among the highest sea cliffs in Europe, and only properly seen from the foot of them.
The town
Ardara is a small town in the south-west of County Donegal, about twenty-five kilometres north-west of Donegal town, on the N56 and R261 roads. Its population at the 2022 census was 785, up from 731 in 2011 — an increase of about thirty per cent since 2006, which is a good deal for a town its size. In 2012, The Irish Times named it the best village in which to live in Ireland, and the title has stuck to the place ever since: it is the kind of town that is easy to understand, with the shops, the fuel, the pub and the school all inside a ten-minute walk.
The country around it
Ardara sits at the foot of the Bluestack Mountains, and that range is the town’s other reason for existing. The walks from the town into the Bluestacks are short enough for a day and wild enough to be worth the drive, and the west coast — the bays, the headlands, the small settlements — is the other half of the day. The N56 through the town means it is on the way rather than out of the way, and that is the difference between a stop and a base.
Why people stay
The census numbers and the title tell the same story: people move to Ardara and stay. The town is small enough to be quiet and big enough to be convenient, and the country around it — the Bluestacks to the east, the coast to the west — is the kind of country that does not need much doing to it. It is the practical choice for the south-west Donegal circuit.
Practical
Allow a day: the town in the morning, a Bluestack walk or the coast in the afternoon. Pair it with Inver to the north for a full touring day.