Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Rainy day at Donegal Castle

Saturday, July 1, 2023

Rainy day at Donegal Castle

We've been lucky with the weather so far this Ireland trip, but after yesterday we're guessing things are back to normal for the rest of the trip. That's okay... we have raincoats and umbrellas!

Oh, yesterday evening I posted our June expenses... you can read them here if you missed the post... https://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2023/06/june-expenses-higher-than-budget.html

Donegal is one of those towns that makes you pay for parking just about anywhere. But we hate paying for parking, and we arrived early and managed to find one of the very few free spots located walking distance to the castle. It helps if you don't mind walking!

So we put on our raincoats and opened the umbrellas and walked over to Donegal Castle.

Donegal Castle.

Entrance fee is normally €5 per person, but it was free for us with our English Heritage cards. We've sure got a lot of use out of them!

Donegal Castle was built in 1474, and a manor house was added in 1607. The castle itself was fully restored in the 1990's, but the manor house still has no roof.

When you build the walls this thick, your castle will last many years!

Anyone need to use the facilities?

The original stone carved fireplace.

I found this photo online of the fireplace, taken in 1895.

The banquet room.

A model of what the castle looked like in 1650.

They rebuilt the roof using tecniques and tools that would have only been available at the time of original construction.

It's just a small castle, so you're in and out in around 30 minutes.

We went for a walk around the town of Donegal.

Old pubs in Donegal.

It doesn't look like it in the above photo, but Donegal is a busy little town, even in the rain. Lots of tour buses and things going on. Looked like they were getting ready for some kind of festival.

We moved on to the little fishing village of Inver where Max was quite happy parking on the pier for the night.