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Bundoran () is a town in
County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ) is a Counties of Ireland, county of the Republic of Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is the northernmost county of Ireland. The county mostly borders Northern Ireland, sharing only a small b ...
, Ireland. The town is located near the N15 road near
Ballyshannon Ballyshannon () is a town in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is located at the southern end of the county where the N3 road (Ireland), N3 from Dublin ends and the N15 road (Ireland), N15 crosses the River Erne. The town was inc ...
, and is the most southerly town in Donegal. The town is a tourist
seaside resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...
, and tourism has been at the heart of the local economy since the 18th century. Bundoran is a surfing destination and was listed by ''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...
'' magazine in 2012 as one of the world's top 20 surf towns.


History


Origins

Bundoran, or ''Bun Dobhráin'' in Irish (which means the foot of the little water) was, up until over a century ago, two separate villages. Bundoran was the village ''west'' of the bridge over the River Bradoge. This area is now called ''the West End''. East of the bridge, about away, was the village of Single Street. In between these two separate communities was the townland of Drumacrin. The area of Drumacrin is now part of what is today's town centre. Single Street was where most of the local population lived. It was only after completion of the
Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway The Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway (E&BR) was an Irish gauge railway company in north-west Ireland. It linked Bundoran and Ballyshannon on the coast of County Donegal with the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway (L&ER) at in County Ferma ...
in 1868, which opened a terminus that it called ''Bundoran'', that the two distinct communities developed and merged to what are today called Bundoran. The first official record of Bundoran is in a deposition by Hugh Gaskein on 16 May 1653. He was a witness to events during the 1641 Rebellion when he was an apprentice butcher in Sligo. In 1689 a skirmish was fought near Bundoran between a Jacobite force under Sir
Connell Ferrall Sir Connell Ferrall was an Irish soldier of the seventeenth century noted for his service during the War of the Two Kings. Ferrall was a Roman Catholic from Tirlickin in County Longford. He was a member of the Farrell clan by descent. Ferrall w ...
and the retreating Protestant garrison of Sligo. William Cole, Viscount Enniskillen, built Bundoran Lodge, his summer home, in 1777. This building still stands on Bayview Avenue and is now called Homefield House. The Viscount seems to have started a trend amongst his contemporaries as more of them discovered Bundoran and visited it to enjoy the seaside and what were believed to be its health benefits.


Public rights of way

The rights of the people to have access to the seashore were blocked by a local landlord but the locals found a champion in the parish priest Canon Kelaghan who fought through the courts in 1870 to ensure that the pathways and roads to the beach remained open to the public. Canon Kelaghan also had the present Catholic church built in 1859.


The railway

The opening of the
Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway The Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway (E&BR) was an Irish gauge railway company in north-west Ireland. It linked Bundoran and Ballyshannon on the coast of County Donegal with the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway (L&ER) at in County Ferma ...
(E&BR) in 1868 connected
Bundoran railway station Bundoran railway station served Bundoran in County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. History The Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway opened the station on 13 June 1866. Services were provided by the Irish North Western Railway. It was taken ove ...
with Ireland's growing railway network and made the town more accessible from
Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
,
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
and other population centres on the east and north-east coasts of Ireland. The
Great Northern Railway Great Northern Railway or Great Northern Railroad may refer to: Australia * Great Northern Railway (Queensland) in Australia * Great Northern Rail Services in Victoria, Australia *Central Australia Railway was known as the great Northern Railway ...
(GNR) operated the E&BR line from 1876 and absorbed the company in 1896. In this period Bundoran emerged as one of Ireland's most popular seaside resorts. By the end of the 19th century it had become one of the main seaside resorts in Ulster. Hotels and lodging houses were opened around the town and the GNR built the Great Northern Hotel, one of Bundoran's best-known landmarks. During The Emergency of 1939–45 the GNR introduced the ''Bundoran Express'' that linked Dublin and Bundoran via and
Enniskillen Enniskillen ( , from , ' Ceithlenn's island') is the largest town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the middle of the county, between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 14,086 at the 2011 censu ...
. It also carried pilgrims to and from
Pettigo Pettigo, also spelt Pettigoe ( ; ), is a small village and townland on the border of County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, and County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is bisected by the Termon River, which is part of the border between the Repu ...
, which was the nearest station for Lough Derg in County Donegal. There were also through trains between Bundoran and Belfast. The
partition of Ireland The Partition of Ireland () was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland (the area today known as the R ...
in 1922 turned the boundary with
County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of and had a population of 63,585 as of 2021. Enniskillen is the ...
into an international frontier. Henceforth Bundoran's only railway link with the rest of the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...
was ''via''
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
, and as such was subject to delays for customs inspections. The
Government of Northern Ireland A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
closed much of the GNR network on its side of the border in 1957, including the E&BR as far as the border.Hajducki, ''op. cit.'', map 39 This gave the Republic no practical alternative but to allow the closure of the line between the border and Bundoran. Thereafter the nearest
railhead {{Short pages monitor