Ireland day 0627. Saturday 17 June 2023- Donegal 01

Today’s summary	Drove up to Gortahork in Co Donegal for a short holiday.   visited Sligo town, Classiebawn Castle, and Mullaghmore en route
Today’s weather	Humid and mild with heavy rain and thunderstorms on and off all day.   Light south easterly wind.   Appx 20C
Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)			Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Mullachmore

Commentary

(Summary blog only.   Last full blog was Day 0368).

We’re having a short holiday in Co Donegal, staying in a small AirBnB in Gortahork for four nights.

We drove up today, stopping off in Sligo town and at Mullachmore on the way.  We really liked Sligo town – neat, tidy, clean and lively.   A really nice spot.   And the Mullachmore headland was beautiful.   It’s where the late Lord Mountbatten’s castle at Classiebawn is situated.   Sadly, it’s also the place where, in 1979, he and several friends and members of the family were assassinated by the IRA while out on a fishing trip.   Nowadays, the castle is still in private ownership and it’s not open to visitors.   But you can get good views from the western side of the headland, opposite Mullaghmore town.

The views were today made even more dramatic by the flashes of lightning and dark black clouds swirling round and threatening to saturate us at any moment.

The only downside to this beautiful situation is that it’s on the Wild Atlantic Way, so a bit of a tourist mecca.   But hey, we were tourists today too, so I can’t complain too much.   We are thoroughly enjoying it up here – one of the nicest of the many nice places we’ve visited in Ireland, actually.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)

Iconic cast-iron marker for the Wild Atlantic Way	beautiful orchids in abundance right by the roadside
Memorial to Mountbatten et al	Mullaghmore harbour
We were here too!   With Classiebawn castle behind	Errigal and Dunlewy Lough
Six-spotted burnet moths on one of the many orchids in the area

Interactive map

(Elevations corrected at  GPS Visualizer: Assign DEM elevation data to coordinates )

Download file: Mullachmore compressed corrected.gpx

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