This hotel bar is full of people,
The piano man is really laying it down,
The old bartender is as high as a steeple,
So why tonight should I wear a frown? – A Million Miles Away, Rory Gallagher
Woolly says – We’d arrived late afternoon at our small rustic cabin for the night, Jo was not looking well at all by this point and having dosed her up, found some hot water bottles to put on her aches and pains, I knew I was in for a long night of nursing her. Although small our cabin was warm and cosy and luckily once the poorly human had received further medication and more hot water bottles, she slept for the majority of the night with just an odd coughing fit and a few blows of her snout.
The morning dawned with rain and having made sure the patient had taken everything she could to get her through the day we set off for the first of two stops. A short drive away from the town took us to the Fairy Bridges and wishing chair.
Pulling up we found a very crowded carpark and hundreds of people wandering around with surf boards, we appeared to have arrived in time for the Euro surf junior competition.
Ignoring the sporty folks, we gazed across the pristine beach below us with the Atlantic battering onto the sand, it was mighty impressive.
Having made our way past some of the surfers we paused for a while to watch them battling the high waves and freezing conditions.
We arrived at the Fairy Bridges a natural sea arch bridge which had been a tourist attraction since the 1700’s. It looked incredible as the sea sent huge waves through them; I peered over as far as I could but was mindful of slipping down. The bridges come with a number of myths and legends.
Local folklore says that these jagged rock formations and sea stacks were heavily haunted by the “good people” or fairy folk. With 19th century accounts from the Ballyshannon Herald warning ordinary mortals to tread carefully across the stone span. It was said that troops of fairies could constantly be heard—and occasionally seen by those gifted with “second vision”—flying hastily from one end of the natural bridge to the other. Although I looked very hard, I couldn’t see any of the small people.
A few feet further on was the Wishing Chair, a stone seat carved from O’Flaherty’s Stone (traditionally believed to mark the grave of an ancient local chieftain). Legend dictates that visitors should sit in the chair, gaze out over Donegal Bay toward the Slieve League cliffs, make a silent wish, and tap the seat twice upon standing to prove the wish is genuine. I thought about doing that but with the winds blowing hard I didn’t feel it was worth flying into the Atlantic whilst making a wish.
Leaving the surfers and cheering behind us we headed into the small town of Ballyshannon, meaning ‘the mouth of Seannach’s ford’, a town in County Donegal.
Archaeological sites dating as far back as the Neolithic period (4000 BC – 2500 BC) have been excavated there and in surrounding areas, representing settlement and ritual activity from early periods of human settlement. During the Second World War, the British and Irish governments quietly reached an agreement to create an air corridor between nearby Belleek and Ballyshannon, the “Donegal Corridor”, which was used by British Royal Air Force flights from Northern Ireland into the Atlantic Ocean. This was used by the aircraft which located the German battleship Bismarck.
Parking was no problem as there was barely a sole around, in fact most places were closed, being a Sunday, I suppose we had to expect that.
We wandered down through the town passing a lovely building with a clock tower on it, we passed the old Military barracks which now housed the museum which like everything else was closed for the day.
Reaching the river, we looked across from both sides, not the biggest river in the world but one that had been very important during the second World War.
Heading back up through the town we headed to one of the main reasons we had come. Ballyshannon might be small, but it had been the home to Rory Gallagher, Ireland first rock star.
William Rory Gallagher (2nd March 1948 to 14th June 1995, known for his virtuosic style of guitar playing and live performances. He has sometimes been referred to as “the greatest guitarist you’ve never heard of”.
Gallagher gained international recognition in the late 1960s as the frontman and lead guitarist of the blues rock power trio Taste. Following the band’s break-up in 1970, he launched a solo career and was voted Guitarist of the Year by Melody Maker magazine in 1972. Playing over 2,000 concerts worldwide throughout his career, including many in Northern Ireland during the Troubles his global record sales exceeded 30 million. During the 1980s, Gallagher continued to tour and record new music, but his popularity declined due to shifting trends in the music industry. His health also began to deteriorate, resulting in a liver transplant in March 1995 at King’s College Hospital in London. Following the operation, he contracted a staphylococcal infection (MRSA) and died three months later at the age of 47.
Gallagher has been commemorated posthumously with statues in Ballyshannon and Belfast, and public spaces renamed in his memory in Dublin, Cork, and Paris. He has been commemorated on a set of postage stamps and a Central Bank of Ireland commemorative coin. Since 2002, the Rory Gallagher International Tribute Festival has been held annually in Ballyshannon which our lovely friend Micky Oliver always tries to attend.
With our little tour complete we found the one open café in the town so that Jo could be dosed up again prior to the drive over the border into Northen Ireland.