Thursday 17 September 2015

Slán go fóill Dún na nGall

Occasionally you round a bend in the wilds of Donegal and see something you just didn't expect.   We stayed in Bunbeg, which is a collection of houses, pubs and shops (I'd hesitate to call it a village) about as far West as you can go in Donegal before hitting water.  As we stretched our legs and took the air down by the beach we were a little surprised to see this:


Abandoned Guest House, Bunbeg

I mean, this building is huge - compared to everything else in Bunbeg.  And of course it is now vacant - who in their right minds would have thought you could fill a guest house this size in this part of the world?  It's about as far West in Europe as you can get, for goodness' sake - no-one, but no-one is ever going to be just passing through there, if you get my drift - if you ever find yourself here, it's by design.

Anyway, Dr C, his Bro and I decided this place would form the perfect set for our new horror movie, based loosely on The Shining.  You can just picture the scene...'Here's Paddy!!' - except Paddy would probably have one of these instead of an axe.  (It's well worth clicking on that link, by the way - where you won't see a finer example of Gender Equality).  Anyway, we're expecting a call from Spielberg, or maybe Ridley Scott would do since Mr Kubrick is no longer with us.  Any time soon lads would be fine by us...

So that about wraps up this little road trip to the Wild West.  Goodbye Donegal and we'll see you soon - or Slán go fóill Dún na nGall if you prefer.

1 comment:

  1. So, there's even a dedicated association for these things nowadays. We still use them occationally, but would rather call it a "ljå". A scythe is as good as anything though, so that's good as well.
    Sometimes you just find buildings you would never imagine in your wildest dreams oddly placed somewhere people never tread. It's the same here as well, but you would rarely just bump into it for obvious reasons. I am taken by surprise each time I see this hotel on one of the nearby mountains we have to drive past to get wherever we're going. It's just lying there all abandoned of course. I don't even know if it was even open for one short season some time back in the early 80's. What in heaven did they think of when they actually started to build it? I think I was around 12 or something when they tried to open it, and even at that age I just knew that this had to be a bad idea. Well, at least I was right about that...
    Nice snap Michael, and a great little story as well :))

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