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Heading southwest towards Donegal town, you're certain to pass through the twin towns of STRANORLAR and BALLYBOFEY , separated only by a bridge over the River Finn. There's little remarkable about either, though the latter is by far the livelier. Isaac Butt , one of the founders of the Irish Home Rule Party, is buried in the Stranorlar church graveyard. Ballybofey is home to Donegal's only League of Ireland football (soccer) team, Finn Harps, and also to the successful and innovative Balor Theatre (tel 074/31840) which has its own local company and entertains touring companies from all over Europe. The municipal tourist office (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 074/32337) is inside the Balor Theatre building. Surprisingly, there's some top-notch accommodation here at both Jackson's Hotel , Ballybofey (tel 074/31021, bjackson@iol.ie ; GBP90-110/?114.28-139.67) and Kee's Hotel , Stranorlar (tel 074/31018; GBP90-110/?114.28-139.67), as well as a hostel , Finn Farm (May-Oct; tel 074/32261), two miles west of Ballybofey off the Fintown road, which also offers camping , horse riding and trekking. There are plenty of bars in both towns; The Claddagh in Ballybofey is the current favourite and has music at weekends. Apart from the hotels, the best eating place is probably the Bridgeside Bistro , in the precinct by McElhinney's department store in Ballybofey. If you've entered Donegal from Strabane, across the border in County Tyrone, you'll almost certainly bypass the border town of LIFFORD , though it does have a couple of sights for which it's worth dallying. The town was formerly Donegal's legal centre and its graceful Old Courthouse , dating from 1746, was designed by Michael Priestley. Nowadays, the building houses a visitor centre (Easter-Oct Mon-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun 2-6pm; GBP3/?3.80), which tells the story of the O'Donnell clan and notable events in Donegal's history. The building's former legal use has not been forgotten and models re-enact old trials, including that of Napper Tandy, with the assistance of new technology. Down in the basement cells, there's a pretty gruesome re-creation of the conditions experienced by prisoners. A couple of miles northwest of Lifford off the N14 is Cavanacor House (Easter-Sept Tues-Sat noon-6pm, Sun 2-6pm; GBP2/?2.53), a fine seventeenth-century mansion where James II dined in 1689. It was also the ancestral home of James Knox Polk , US president from 1845 to 1849. A small museum reflects on both these notables, but the real treat is the art gallery which displays a changing array of work by contemporary painters.
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