County Donegal

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For other uses, see Donegal (disambiguation)
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County Donegal
Contae Dhún na nGall
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Map
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Area: 4,841 km²
County Town: Lifford
Population: 137,575 (2002)
Province: Ulster

County Donegal (Irish: Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county in the northwest of Ireland. It is one of three counties in the province of Ulster that did not become part of Northern Ireland. The name comes from the Irish, meaning "the fort of the foreigners" (a reference to the Vikings). When first created, it was sometimes referred to as County Tyrconnel (Irish: Tír Chonaill), after the Tyrconnel earldom it succeeded.

Attempts to have the county renamed Tír Chonaill in the late 20th century were abandoned due to objections that the Inishowen peninsula was historically distinct from Tír Chonaill.

  • County town: Lifford
  • Largest town: Letterkenny (was once the fastest growing town in Western Europe)
  • Highest point: Errigal, 752 metres (2,467 feet)
  • Tidiest Town: Glenties

Contents

Geography

Image:Slieve League-cliffs.jpg

The county consists chiefly of low mountains, with a deeply indented coastline forming natural loughs, of which Lough Swilly is the most notable. The Slieve League cliffs are the second highest sea cliffs in Europe, while Donegal's Malin Head is the most northernly point on the island of Ireland. The climate is temperate and dominated by the Gulf Stream, with cool damp summers and mild wet winters. Two permanently inhabited islands, Arranmore and Tory Island lie off the coast, along with a large number of islands with only transient inhabitants.

Culture/Heritage

The variant of the Irish language spoken in Donegal is distinctive, and shares traits with Scottish Gaelic. The Irish spoken in the Donegal Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area) is of the West Ulster dialect, while Inishowen, which became English-speaking in the early 20th century, used the East Ulster dialect. Scots is still spoken to a degree in the Laggan district of east Donegal.

Donegal Irish has a strong influence on Irish speakers across Ulster, who find themselves speaking a language noticeably different (in pronunciation) from the 'official' Irish spoken on RTÉ.

Like other areas of western Ireland, Donegal has a distinctive fiddle tradition which is of world renown. Donegal is also well known for its songs which have, like the instrumental music, a distinctive sound. Popular music types are also popular, the county's most famous rock artist being the Ballyshannon born Rory Gallagher.

Donegal has a long literary tradition in both Irish and English. Modern exponents include the Inishowen playwright and poet Frank McGuinness and the Derry born playwright, and now resident of Donegal, Brian Friel. Many of Friels plays are set in the fictional Donegal town of Ballybeg.

Politics

Image:Www.wesleyjohnston.com-users-ireland-maps-counties-donegal.gif Donegal County Council has responsibility for local administration, running alongside Town Councils in Letterkenny, Bundoran, Ballyshannon and Buncrana. Both the County Council and Town Councils have elections every five years (alongside local elections nationally, and elections to the European Parliament), the last of which took place on the 11 June 2004. Twenty nine councillors are elected using the system of Proportional Representation, across five electoral areas (Inishowen, Letterkenny, Donegal, Stranorlar, Glenties and Milford). Donegal County Council's main offices are located in the County House in Lifford, but regional offices are located in Carndonagh, Milford, Letterkenny, Dungloe and Donegal.

For general (national) elections, the county is divided into two constituencies, Donegal South-West and Donegal North-East, with both having three representatives in Dáil Éireann.

Towns in Donegal

External links

Further Reading

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Image:St Patrick's saltire.png Counties of Ireland Image:Flag of provinces (Ireland).png
Connacht: Galway (~City) | Leitrim | Mayo | Roscommon | Sligo
Munster: Clare | Cork (~City) | Kerry | Limerick (~City) | Tipperary (North~; South~) | Waterford (~City)
Leinster: Carlow | Dublin (~City; Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown; Fingal; South~) | Kildare | Kilkenny | Laois | Longford | Louth | Meath | Offaly | Westmeath | Wexford | Wicklow
Ulster: Antrim * | Armagh * | Cavan | Donegal | Down * | Fermanagh * | Londonderry * | Monaghan | Tyrone *
* denotes counties in Northern Ireland (others are in the Republic of Ireland); italics denotes non-administrative counties; (parentheses) denotes non-traditional counties

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