Donegal is Ireland at its most elemental. The county stretches along the northwest Atlantic coast in a tangle of peninsulas, sea inlets, and mountain moorland — one of the largest and least-populated counties in the Republic, and arguably the wildest. If you want the green, windswept Ireland of imagination rather than the tourist-brochure version, this is where you go.
The Slieve League cliffs on the southern coast rise nearly 600 metres above the sea — three times higher than the Cliffs of Moher and far less crowded. Further north, Glenveagh National Park covers 170 square kilometres of bog, mountain, and lake, with a Victorian castle at its heart and a herd of red deer wandering the grounds. The park sits in the Derryveagh Mountains, a granite landscape that turns purple with heather in late summer.
Donegal town itself is small and unpretentious, built around the Diamond, a market square with the ruins of a 15th-century O'Donnell castle on the river Eske. The Donegal Abbey, a ruined Franciscan friary a short walk away, once housed monks who compiled the Annals of the Four Masters — one of the foundational texts of Irish history. The O'Donnell clan ruled this territory for centuries, and their influence is still felt in the place names and local pride.
This is also the heartland of the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht. The Gweedore district on the west coast is home to one of the largest Irish-speaking communities in Ireland, and produced some of the country's best-known musicians: Clannad and Enya both grew up here. Traditional music is taken seriously in the pubs of Dungloe, Ardara, and Glencolmcille — not as entertainment for tourists, but as something the locals actually do.