Fitzgeralds Hotel Donegal

No vacation in Ireland would be complete without visiting the rugged and beautiful North West of Ireland. Co Donegal is one of the relatively unspoilt regions still left in Ireland where traditional skills are alive and well. A walk, cycle or drive along winding country roads is filled with the scent of broom, fuschia and honeysuckle in the hedgerows, turf fires from nearby homes and of course the wonderful bracing sea air.

Donegal Turf Bogs

Donegal's bogs constitute, in effect, an outdoor museum, preserving the remains of flora, fauna and occasionally human beings as well as or better than modern conservation techniques. The museums of Ireland, both local and national, are full of items retrieved from the bogs - manuscripts, golden chalices, weapons, as well as human remains from bits of bones, to skeletons to bodies preserved like leather. Bog butter, ie tubs of butter placed in the ground as a type of refrigeration, has been found in a number of places, most recently near Falcarragh. You will come on stumps of pine trees which were growing here long before the first human set foot in Ireland.

Those who live, or have lived, in rural Ireland are well aware of the 'journey' turf makes from bog to fireplace. The traditional method of turf cutting begins with a 'spade in the bog' - a phrase meaning three men working together. They dug the turf and spread it out to dry. Later it was turned for further drying, and then 'footed' into small piles. Next it would be either stacked and thatched beside a track or lane, or taken by donkey and cart down 'the old bog roads' to the farmhouse. Here it would be stacked and thatched. From here via bucket and fireside creel it ended in the hearth. To sit round a turf fire is to reap the benefit of nature's hard won gift.