Qualla: Isle of Doagh

Isle of Doagh: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers, Public domain. On 22 April 1847, in calm weather, a fishing boat from the Isle of Doagh capsized in Trawbreaga Bay. The wave that turned it over came out of nowhere, the locals said. The eight men aboard had been doing what their families had done for centuries: working fish from a coastline that had always been dangerous and was now becoming unbearable. Seven of them drowned. Their names were carefully recorded by a journalist of the time: Donald Doherty, owner of the boat, who left a wife and six children; Patrick Doherty, who left a wife and three; James McLoughlin, a wife and four; Patrick Roe Doherty, a wife and one; William Doherty, unmarried; Hugh McCool, unmarried; John McLoughlin, the only son of a widow. The eighth man swam ashore. The Famine had only just begun.

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Image: Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers | Public domain

Isle of Doagh: Five Thousand Years of Markings

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers, Public domain. The Isle of Doagh has one of the largest concentrations of prehistoric rock art in Ireland. The markings, cup-and-ring carvings pecked into outcrops of stone, are roughly four to five thousand years old. No one knows what they meant. Theories include astronomical alignments, terr...

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Image: Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers | Public domain

Isle of Doagh: The Friars Rock and the Annals

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Isle of Doagh was a stronghold of the Lords of Carraig Bhrachai, the McFalls, from the ninth to the thirteenth century. The Annals of the Four Masters record their lords by their deaths over four hundred years. The first reference is to 834, when Niall Caille led an army into...

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

Isle of Doagh: The Famine on Doagh

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers, Public domain. The Famine devastated the Isle of Doagh. In May 1848, the Weekly Vindicator reported that police and bailiffs entered the island and evicted between twenty and thirty families, after the tenants had been confronted with a doubling of their rents. Some had been paying double rents...

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Image: Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers | Public domain

Isle of Doagh: Wrecks and Stills

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers, Public domain. The waters around Doagh are hazardous. On 24 November 1841, the schooner James Cook struck rocks near Glashedy Island; the master and nine crew drowned. In March 1878, the barque Danube, sailing from Liverpool to New York, ran aground in a severe storm. Two coastguards from Malin...

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Image: Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers | Public domain

Isle of Doagh: The Famine Village

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers, Public domain. In the townland of Lagacurry, a collection of traditional Irish houses has been gathered into the Doagh Famine Village, a folk museum that walked visitors through life on the island from the 1840s to the present. The museum included thatched cottages, working interiors, and guide...

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Image: Captain Sir William Smith, member of the Royal engineers | Public domain