Qualla: Buncrana https://qualla.com/buncrana en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Buncrana https://qualla.com/buncrana Buncrana: Introduction https://qualla.com/buncrana/ Photo credit Dr Neil Clifton, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 30 July 1922, just after dawn, a Free State sentry stopped a car on the outskirts of Buncrana and discovered the Republican commander of the entire peninsula inside, with five armed volunteers and nowhere to go. By seven in the morning the town had changed hands without a single shot fired. That morning is one of many quiet drama scenes in Buncrana's long history: a town small enough to walk across in fifteen minutes that has, for four hundred years, kept finding itself at the edge of larger Irish stories. It sits on the eastern shore of Lough Swilly in north Donegal, twenty-three kilometres from Derry, gateway to the Inishowen peninsula and to a coastline that has watched fleets and refugees and rebels come and go.

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Image: Dr Neil Clifton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/gcf9-buncrana-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Buncrana: Two Castles and a River https://qualla.com/buncrana/ Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. There are really two Buncranas, separated by about a century and a six-arched stone bridge. The older one grew up around O'Doherty's Keep, a small two-storey castle that Conor McGarret O'Doherty inhabited in 1601. A year later Hugh Boy O'Doherty added a third storey and prepared ...

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Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/gcf9-buncrana-two-castles-and-a-river.mp3 0:06 2 full Buncrana: A Prisoner, a Bridge, and a Judge https://qualla.com/buncrana/ Photo credit Patrice78500, Public domain. In October 1798 a French fleet limped toward Donegal carrying Theobald Wolfe Tone and the hopes of the United Irishmen's rebellion. The Royal Navy intercepted them at the mouth of Lough Swilly. Tone was brought ashore in chains and held in Buncrana Castle before the long journey ...

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Image: Patrice78500 | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/gcf9-buncrana-a-prisoner-a-bridge-and-a-judge.mp3 0:06 3 full Buncrana: Lights, Lines, and Looms https://qualla.com/buncrana/ Photo credit Qoan (Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez), CC BY-SA 3.0. In October 1905 Buncrana became the first town in County Donegal to receive electricity, generated at Swan Mill on the river. The mill kept the lights on until September 1954, when the national grid finally reached the town. The railway arrived first, in 1864, opening Donegal's n...

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Image: Qoan (Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/gcf9-buncrana-lights-lines-and-looms.mp3 0:06 4 full Buncrana: What the Pier Remembers https://qualla.com/buncrana/ Photo credit Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0. In March 2016 a car slipped from Buncrana Pier into Lough Swilly carrying five members of the same family. Sean McGrotty managed, in the seconds the car was still above water, to pass his four-month-old daughter through a window to a passer-by who had swum out to help. The baby l...

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Image: Ross | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/gcf9-buncrana-what-the-pier-remembers.mp3 0:06 5 full Buncrana: Voices From a Small Place https://qualla.com/buncrana/ Photo credit Dr Brian Lynch, CC BY-SA 2.0. For a town of fewer than seven thousand people, Buncrana has produced an unusual number of voices. The playwright Frank McGuinness, whose Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme is one of the great works of modern Irish theatre, was born here in 1953. So was Ray McA...

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Image: Dr Brian Lynch | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/9/buncrana-wp/gcf9-buncrana-voices-from-a-small-place.mp3 0:06 6 full