The best ships are friendships!

THERE'S nothing to beat the company of friends, especially when they’ve been in your life forever and you know, and love, each other like sisters. Four of us took a trip back to Donegal together. We hadn’t been in Gweedore together since we were 17! So, a couple of years ago. It was a time of big hair and big shoulder pads. The other three dolls—Kate, Debs and Franny—had been and got themselves a ‘wee permanent,’ which was very much all the rage at the time, whereas I was already blessed with a head full of Irish curls. Needless to say we were buzzing to get over and be let loose in the wilds of Gweedore where the air was dense with the perfume of constant burning turf, where Cadbury’s Mint Crisp tasted like no other Cadbury’s chocolate we’d ever had and the boys seemed more sturdy and robust—must have been all that farming and GAA.

Back then we took the minibus over from the Gorbals. We’ve never forgotten the journey, the heavy layer of smoke that floated around our heads for the entire journey. Mammies giving out to fidgety tired weans and a bus driver who thought he was taking part in the Donegal Rally. We stayed with Kate’s Auntie Theresa in Cotteen. And she loved it. She loved having us to stay. She loved the craic and the post-Seaview and Dodge chat about who fancied who and who got a wee winch at the last dance. Then she’d be round shouting at us to get up for Mass at an ungodly hour, marching us up the aisle of St Mary’s, Derrybeg to sit as close to the front as possible. The woman was an institution. So this weekend there was a great deal of reminiscence of her and that trip.

This time we travelled in style. No minibus for us. Instead a 20-minute Easyjet flight to Belfast and a hire car down the road, with of course the obligatory stop off at the big Tesco in Derry for essential supplies. Our normal get togethers are aptly named ‘Fizzy Fridays,’ but this was a longer haul. Four women. Four nights. Twelve bottles of Cremant and four bottles of red wines ought to cover it. Oh and some Flahavans porridge oats to take the bad look off the trolley full of booze. A wee Derry woman actually stopped us in Tesco and said: “Can I come tae your house the night?” Others gave us disapproving glances. Did we care? Did we chook. If there’s one thing age brings it’s self-assurance, along with a more sophisticated taste in alcoholic beverages. I’m relieved our palates have matured and we’ve graduated from bottles of Stag to bottles of Cremant and a good velvety shiraz. We’re educated women of good taste. And after all, life’s too short to drink rotten wine and eat Savers porridge we’ve decided.

The Heavenly Glen

The itinerary was non-existent. Let’s go with the flow, which is exactly what we did. Franny and Debs had never been to Glenveagh National Park so we’d no bother convincing them it was a must-see tourist destination. This is when you know you’re getting old, when the horticulture, landscape and history of a place, with the promise of a cup of tea afterwards, becomes more alluring than a shopping trip round Dunnes Stores in Letterkenny.

The drive alone is worth it. Skimming the edge of the Poisoned Glen, the massive glacier carved valley and lough. Past the ruin of Dunlewey Church and over the mountain road, dominated by the conical shaped quartizite peak of Errigal mountain. Debs asks why its called the Poisoned Glen. Well, there are a couple of theories. The first is a cartography mistake, probably the most likely of explanations. Locals originally called it An Gleann Neamhe, which means ‘The Heavenly Glen,’ but when English cartographers were mapping the region, they made a spelling error and swapped a single letter. They wrote An Gleann Neimhe instead, which accidentally changed the translation to ‘The Poisoned Glen.’ The Irish word for heaven is ‘neamh’ and the word for poison is ‘neimhe.’ The second is more mythical. According to local legend, the glen was formed when the ancient one-eyed giant king of Tory, Balor of the Evil Eye, was killed in the area by his grandson, Lugh. It is said that the poison from Balor’s eye spilled out, splitting the rocks and poisoning the entire lake. As much as I like the mythical, I’d probably go with the plausible.

Derryveagh Evictions

The walk into Glenveagh is spectacular, as is the stunning 19th-century Scottish Baronial-style castle built between 1867-1873 by the notorious landlord John George Adair—or Black Jack is he was known—but there is much controversy surrounding what became a celebrated, art-filled retreat. John Adair is remembered with scant affection in Donegal. On the heels of the Great Hunger and emigration on a par with the Highland clearances, John Adair evicted 224 tenants from their homes on his land. This wasn’t for financial gain, but merely to improve the aesthetic aspect from the castle. These clearances are known as the ‘Derryveagh Evictions.’ So the name John George Adair has passed into history as being notoriously cruel. He purchased Glenveagh and Gartan in 1859 making an estate of 28,000 acres to create a sprawling hunting estate to rival Queen Victoria's Scottish retreat, but his vision did not include the 244 tenants who occupied the area and on St Patrick’s Day 1861 Adair ruthlessly evicted every one of them. Forty-four families were put out of their homes that day. The homes were then destroyed so the families could not return.

Owners and occupiers

It is said that a curse was placed on the castle due to the cruelty of the evictions so that none of the owners had heirs. His widow Cornelia took over ownership following Adair’s death in 1885. She continually sought to improve the castle’s comforts and the beauty of its grounds, carrying out major improvements to the estate and laying out the gardens. Over the next 30 years she was to become a much-noted society hostess and continued to summer at the Castle until 1916. Following the death of Mrs Adair in London in 1921, Glenveagh fell into decline and was occupied by both the Anti-Treaty and Free State Army forces during the Irish Civil War.

Glenveagh’s next owner was Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter of Harvard University in 1929, who came to Ireland to study Irish archaeology and culture. The Kingsley Porters mainly entertained Irish literary and artistic figures including close friend AE Russell, whose paintings still hang in the library of the castle. Their stay was to be short however as Arthur Kingsley Porter mysteriously disappeared during a visit to Inishbofin Island in 1933.

The last private owner was Mr Henry McIlhenny of Philadelphia who bought the estate in 1937. Henry McIlhenny was an Irish American whose grandfather John McIlhenny grew up in Milford. Henry was passionate about his garden and had eight full-time gardeners—all local men—employed to care for a richly planted woodland garden. Many of the architectural features added by Henry were built by talented craftsmen like carpenter Tommy Ryan and stone mason Jim Russell. He curated a culture of excellence in hospitality for which he was well-known, and wanted the highest quality achievable on his estate. Glenveagh is renowned for its rich collection of trees and shrubs specialising in southern hemisphere species and a diverse rhododendron collection, which we saw with our own eyes by the way and they were remarkable.

McIlhenny hosted extravagant summer house parties, entertaining a glamorous mix of Hollywood royalty, artists, musicians, and socialites, including stars like Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin. Singer Ella Fitzgerald and members of high society like the Rothschild family and the Pulitzer family who enjoyed lavish dinners, deer-stalking, salmon fishing, and tea parties, all looked after by a staff in traditional Austrian-style uniforms. By God I’ll bet there were plenty of fizzy Fridays in Glenveagh back then. McIlhenny eventually gifted the estate to the Irish nation in 1983.

We’ve already decided we’re going back. Life’s about creating memories with special people and we know how blessed we are to have each other. Franny and Debs now understand mine and Kate’s deep love for Donegal. They agree there’s something special about this place. I want to leave you with this lovely Irish proverb about friendship: “There are good ships and there are wood ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are friendships, and may they always be.”

L J Sexton, mum of four, returned to university to pursue her passion for the written word. She achieved her Honours Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing and hasn't stopped writing since. Lyn is born of Irish parents and lived in Donegal for eight years. She is also the press officer for Irish Minstrels CCÉ music group based in St Roch’s Secondary School