| Donegal - Dun Nan Gall - means Fort of the Foreigners, which comes from the fact that the Vikings built a garrison here. The town began to flourish under the rule of the O Donnells. Their 15th century castle is in the centre of the town. Donegal town is a very good example of a planned town, and was laid out by Sir Basil Brooke with a market square, known as the Diamond. A obelisk in the centre commerates writing of the "Annals of the Four Masters" written by four Franciscans, partly in Donegal Abbey. The town is a good base for touring around the southern part of the county.
Donegal, the most northerly county in Ireland, extends along much of the north-west coast. It is a region famous for its scenery - with a beautiful, much-indented coast, great areas of mountains, deep glens and many lakes. All kinds of rock, from cave-riddled limestone to complicated mixtures of igneous rocks, make up the foundations of the county; and it is this that gives so much variety of form and colour to the scenery. There are many important antiquities and historic sites in the county, and the island retreat of Lough Derg is one of Ireland's most celebrated holy places. The entries for this county follow, in general, a south-north direction.
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