Qualla: Fanad https://qualla.com/fanad en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Fanad https://qualla.com/fanad Fanad: Introduction https://qualla.com/fanad/ Photo credit Einaz80, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fanaid is the official name. Fanad in English. Fannet, in older records. The word comes from the Irish fana, meaning sloping ground, which describes precisely what this twenty-five-kilometre peninsula does: it slopes from the inland hills around Ramelton up and out into the Atlantic, ending in cliffs of granodiorite at Fanad Head. About seven hundred people live here. Thirty percent speak Irish. The peninsula's geology is mostly Dalradian quartzite, sculpted by ice sheets that retreated only about fourteen thousand years ago. The land you walk on today is the land the ice left behind. Some of it was probably sea floor as recently as ten thousand years back, when meltwater raised the Atlantic and drowned what is now the floor of Lough Swilly.

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Image: Einaz80 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/gcfd-fanad-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Fanad: Mesolithic Hunters, Bronze Age Tombs https://qualla.com/fanad/ Photo credit Kanchelskis, Public domain. There is no direct evidence that Mesolithic hunters lived permanently on Fanad, only the reasonable assumption that they visited its coasts as they did most of Ireland's shorelines between 8,000 and 4,000 BC. The first hard evidence of settlement comes with the Neolithic farmers ...

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Image: Kanchelskis | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/gcfd-fanad-mesolithic-hunters-bronze-age-tombs.mp3 0:06 2 full Fanad: The MacSweeneys and the Castle at Rathmullan https://qualla.com/fanad/ Photo credit Patrice78500, CC BY-SA 3.0. In or shortly after 1263, the O'Donnells, chieftains of Tir Conaill, granted the sub-chieftaincy of Fanad to the MacSweeneys. The MacSweeneys were galloglasses, mercenary warriors brought over from Scotland, and they took the job seriously. By the end of the sixteenth century the...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/gcfd-fanad-the-macsweeneys-and-the-castle-at-rathmullan.mp3 0:06 3 full Fanad: The Lighthouse and the Frigate https://qualla.com/fanad/ Photo credit Neuköllner, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 4 December 1811, the Royal Navy frigate Saldanha sank in a storm at the entrance to Lough Swilly. The wreck was the proximate cause of the lighthouse at Fanad Head, completed in 1818. By the 1837 description recorded by Samuel Lewis, the lantern stood ninety feet above the hig...

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Image: Neuköllner | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/gcfd-fanad-the-lighthouse-and-the-frigate.mp3 0:06 4 full Fanad: Lord Leitrim and the Land War https://qualla.com/fanad/ Photo credit Ronanmcnamee, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 2 April 1878, William Sydney Clements, the 3rd Earl of Leitrim, was assassinated near Cratlagh Wood by three local men: Neil Shiels, Michael McElwee, and Michael Heraghty. Leitrim held vast estates in northern Fanad, from Glinsk to Doaghbeg, and his reputation among his tenant...

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Image: Ronanmcnamee | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/gcfd-fanad-lord-leitrim-and-the-land-war.mp3 0:06 5 full Fanad: Modern Fanad https://qualla.com/fanad/ Photo credit Sergio, CC BY 2.0. Fanad today is quieter than it has been since the medieval period. The 2006 census counted 2,131 across four electoral districts. Fish farming in Mulroy Bay and on Lough Swilly provides some employment. Tourism brings seasonal income, particularly along the Wild Atlantic Way rout...

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Image: Sergio | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/f/d/fanad-wp/gcfd-fanad-modern-fanad.mp3 0:06 6 full