Fitzgeralds Hotel Donegal

Fitzgerald's Hotel in Bundoran Town, Co Donegal is the ideal base from which to enjoy Sight-seeing and Touring Holidays of Donegal and the West of Ireland, including Co Sligo, Co Leitrim and Co Fermanagh. The region has a wide range of attractions for visitors of all ages including megalithic burial grounds, ancient Castles, Abbeys, Wildlife Parks and of course the renowned Donegal coastal scenery.

Glenveagh National Park - Some 14,000 hectares of mountains, lakes, glens and woods with a large herd of red deer. The central feature is a 19th century castle surrounded by the famous Glenveagh Gardens.

The rugged Donegal highlands may be one of the bleakest places in Ireland, but in a secluded valley beside a mountain lough is a most remarkable garden. Laid out around the operatic setting of a baronial castle, this ten-acre garden comprises formal and informal areas with a wealth of vegetation, almost tropical in its luxuriance and brimming with rare and tender plants.

The garden was begun in the 1870s by Mrs Adair, a rich American heiress, following the construction of Glenveagh Castle on a bare hillside. After her death in 1929 the property was acquired by Mr Kingsley Porter, Professor of Art at Harvard, and later in 1937 by another American, Henry P. McIlhenny, once described by Andy Warhol as 'the only person in Philadelphia with glamour'. Although he only spent three months at Glenveagh each year, McIlhenny invested huge sums improving and enlarging the garden, much of it following the advice of the landscape designer Lanning Roper and the great plantsman James Russell. Most of the major work was finished by 1967, but McIlhenny continued to introduce new plants until 1983 when he gave the castle and its garden to the nation to form the centre-piece of a 28,000-acre National Park that had been established in 1975.

• Open: 13 March to 7 November, Daily 10:00 - 18:30
• Closed: Fridays in October
• Access to the castle by guided tour - maximum 20 people
• The visitor centre is accessible for visitors with disabilities
• The ground floor of the castle is partially accessible for people with disabilities
• Facilities: Audio-visual show, exhibitions, toilets, disabled toilets, car/coach park, self guiding trails, free minibus to the Castle. Castle tearoom (open Easter and end May to September) and Visitor Centre restaurant (open full season)