DONEGAL TRAIL

Sean O'Gaoithin

Donegal Garden Trail brochure 2008

James Noone (chairperson)
Hilary Reid
Maura Doherty (treasurer)
Danny McLaughlin (secratary)

Local gardening clubs

Some of the real hidden treasures of Inishowen are the vibrant gardening clubs. At these monthly meetings like-minded folk can get together for advice, drinks cups of tea, win lovely plants in the raffle and listen to guest speakers who are passionate about their topics.

I was lured out of my comfy fireside chair this week to go out to the Inishowen Gardening Club in the Wesley hall Carndonagh. Arriving at the hall, I was greeted by a beaming James Noone the chairperson of the group. James is probably one of the most enthusiastic gardeners I have ever met. “Greetings!” he exclaimed as he shook my hand. “It’s great to have new faces coming to the meetings”. He beamed. “The Inishowen Group here in Carndonagh has a very healthy membership, but of course we always like to see new faces.” The guest speaker was Seán O’Gaoithin who is the head gardener at Glenveagh National Park. James explained that Seán would be talking about the Donegal Garden Trail, “Sit yourself down and after the talk we have tea and biscuits and the raffle” he told me hospitably. Sounds good to me, I thought, I ought to get out more often.

Sean O'Gaoithin explains the Donegal Garden Trail to Bev Doherty

Seán O’Gaoithin and his team of gardeners have been working tirelessly planting and maintaining the fabulous gardens around the 19th century Glenveagh castle and its 14,000 hectares of land. And as interesting as his job is that wasn’t why the thirty of us were sitting in front of a projector screen. Seán has a great collection of photos from all of the gardens on the Donegal Garden Trail.


Donegal garden trail

The Donegal Garden Trail started last year and is a great success. Seán began by telling us a bit about this new annual event. Last year, twenty stunning gardens around the county opened their doors to the public. The gardens on the trail vary enormously from large estates to small town gardens. There is always a warm welcome from the garden owners. Some supply guided tours and others lay on tea and cakes for visitors to enjoy. The very generous donations made by members of the visiting public are distributed around local charities.

Loreto house in Linsfort

Sean has put a great amount of energy into the event and has just completed the comprehensive brochure that lists the gardens. “This year we have twenty-six places to visit on the trail. Two of which are from Inishowen. These are, the Celtic Garden and IOSAS Centre in Muff and Loreto House at Linsfort.” Seán describes the gardens. “The Celtic garden in Muff is a fantastic example of getting the right balance. The design has a gloriously wild feeling and making any area more formal (by putting cordylines in etc) wouldn’t do the place justice. The garden at Loreto house has been planted with love and care and has a stunning coastal backdrop.

Exciting projects

Seán also sees our wild and sometimes barren landscape as positive motivation for creating small microclimates around the county. “We here in the North West have a wide diversity of complex geological features from granite to quartzine mountain ranges and all sorts of soil types. This makes developing gardens an exciting and challenging project. We even have a lot of gardens that still have ancient standing stones, which are part of our heritage. The wild garden around Glenalla House in Milford is a prime example of this. They have one as a centre point in a maze of hornbeam. A lot of the planting was done in the 1930’s so it has matured over several generations of the same family”. Greenfort in Portsalon is also a great example of early recycling. “Some features in the Greenfort garden, like the alter rails and the porch come from Aards House which was destroyed by fire. We have some of the house materials at Glenveigh too, which were reclaimed in the 1960’s,” he continued.

Take part

Seán would love to see more gardens represented from the peninsula. “The brochure will be out very soon and a website is very nearly up and running, so I will be in a better position to give more information”. In the meantime if anyone would like their garden featured in the garden trail next year or would like information on this years trail, contact Seán on (074) 91 37391 or e-mail sogaooitin@eircom.net