Carndonagh is the main market town in northern Inishowen, the Donegal peninsula that pushes toward the most northerly point of mainland Ireland. The town itself is modest, but it works well as a base for a day of early Christian stonework, Atlantic beaches, famine history, ruined castles, and the hard edge of Malin Head.
Begin close to town at Donagh Cross, a seventh-century high cross that gives Carndonagh a deeper history than its shopfronts suggest. West of town, Doagh Famine Village is the strongest paid attraction, using cottages and guided storytelling to explain rural life from the Great Famine into the modern border years. Carrickabraghy Castle and Five Fingers Strand add the ruined-stone-and-big-sky side of Inishowen.
Carndonagh is not the prettiest town in Donegal, and it should not be sold as one. Its value is practical: it puts you within easy reach of the northern peninsula's best sights without making you sleep in a postcard village.