Catching Donegal's best pub grub

A new gastronomic trail in Donegal aims to put locally produced food firmly on the foodie map, writes ADAM ALEXANDER

WHEN IT was announced just under a year ago that the famous Appalachian Trail was being extended from the USA all the way to Donegal in Ireland, not even the thousands of miles of Atlantic ocean in between, or the lack of bears, seemed to knock the perfect sense out of it.

Where else, after all, with its pine forests, icy streams and famously blue mountains – not to mention frontier-mentality, crazily-good fiddlers and secret poteen stills – could fit more seamlessly into even the most epic of American landscapes. Where else enjoys a people as forged by the raw, mythical beauty of their landscape, as ever the quintessential American character was.

"Like the Highlands of Scotland, the valleys of Wales, the American West, and the south of Italy, it is as much a geographical metaphor as a 'real place'," Jim McLaughlin writes in his book Donegal: the Making of a Northern County. "Depending on the perspective of the viewer, it is a dream space, a place apart from the modern world, a part of Ulster that was also set apart from Ulster."

People arriving here from Northern Ireland often report not only the same feeling of having a weight suddenly lift off their shoulders, but of having passed into another world as well as another country – a world that time forgot, or as is much more likely explanation here, forgot time.

With barely 140,000 people populating Ireland’s second biggest county, first-time visitors here are often overwhelmed by the sheer sense of space, and sudden isolation. But then they move indoors, as they often have to in a place where not only can four seasons happen in one day but often at the same time, to where an opposite feeling envelopes them – a cosy world of flickering turf fires, snug Aran sweaters, and something special and highly intoxicating, other than the drink, that begins to make them feel instantly and inexplicably more at home here than they ever really did at home.

Next week, however, a new trail is being forged through Donegal – one that is hoping to intensify that feeling of homeliness, and may even begin to put Donegal on the same kind of gastronomical map as somewhere like Galicia in northern Spain.

Bringing together almost a dozen of Donegal’s most iconic bars and restaurants – including Nancy’s Bar in Ardara, 22 Main Street in Killybegs, The Village Tavern in Mountcharles; Dawros Bay in Rosbeg; The Tavern in Kilclooney; Leo’s Tavern in Crolly; The Beachcomber in Rathmullan; Wilkins Bar in Churchill; The Bayview Bar in Dungloe; The Lobster Pot in Burtonport; and The Travellers Inn in Milford – its aim is to provide the best local food and entertainment possible.

Crucially, though, for the often music-hungry visitors here, the backbone of this new trail will also seek to guarantee for the first time live-music every night of the week in at least one of these great eateries. Perhaps the most exciting thing about the the Donegal Good Food Taverns initiative is the commitment to provide as many locally-sourced ingredients as possible – food grown, caught, foraged or reared entirely on Donegal soil. At long last attempting to take advantage of the too-little-exploited fact that Donegal has probably the cleanest air and waters anywhere in Europe. As a result, home-grown vegetables, and locally-caught seafood that for years has fetched a bomb in places like France, will be served up with those already much-loved staples of Donegal, such as the kind of Guinness you could stand a spoon in, juicy bricks of Cashel wheaten bread, and simple but elegant dishes that have already proved enduringly popular, like Charlie’s supper – a mix of Atlantic prawns and Donegal oak-smoked salmon, gently warmed in a sweet chilli and garlic sauce (Nancy’s, Ardara) – or Arthur’s catch, oysters served hot or cold with Guinness bread, Irish butter, Tyrconnell whiskey and a perfectly poured pint of the black stuff (Village Tavern, Mountcharles).

The new gastronomic trail will also tempt visitors to see such jaw-dropping sites along the way as those Appalachian-style Bluestack mountains, the dramatic cliffs at Slieve League and those long beaches that on a good day can excite comparisons with the Caribbean.

This commitment to more hearty, home-grown fare will also be good news to the increasing number of visitors coming to Donegal in search of some of Ireland’s best hiking, fishing, sailing, diving, and lest we forget, world’s best surfing, too (such as the European Surfing Championships to be held this year in Bundoran).

But ask any visitor here what most attracts them to Donegal, and it isn’t the beautiful landscape, they answer, or even the magnificent blood-red sunsets and summer skies that stay light until midnight. It’s the people, they’ll say, and the unique sense of community here whose bonds only ever threaten to tighten even harder in times of adversity. Not that anyone here will even admit to a recession, not while they are still waiting patiently for the Celtic Tiger to arrive, that is.

As one happy blow-in summed it up for me perhaps better than anyone: “Where else in the world can you walk into a bar and suddenly have 10 new best friends?”

It’s a generous, overwhelming spirit forged by an often harsh environment that somehow brought out the best in human nature here, and also gave them – through the forced necessity of emigration perhaps – a wordliness that often surprises visitors, especially anyone foolish enough to think they might even stand a chance of winning a pub quiz here.

Indeed, when I first arrived in Donegal some 15 years ago, it was a magical place, where police gave you directions to the pub, jaywalking sheep meandered care-freely along its string-thin roads, and hoteliers put hot water bottles in your bed and gave you headache tablets with your breakfast the next morning – without even saying a word.

Today, the long arm of Dublin law has successfully clamped down on a few of its more renegade qualities, but Donegal is still as effortlessly beguiling as it ever was. A place where you can leave your door on the latch, and your wallet in the pub – and still come back and find it the next day. Where waving at passing motorists is almost compulsory, and where in places like the small but super-friendly town of Ardara, which arguably has more festivals than possibly anywhere else on earth, they can still somehow get a superstar like Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex in the Cityto open their tiny agricultural show, without even paying her a cent.

* The launch of Donegal Good Food Taverns is on Monday at 6.30pm in Nancy's Bar, Ardara. Joe Mahon, presenter of ITV's Lesser Spotted Ulster, will host the launch. For more see donegalgoodfoodtaverns.com.

Donegal where to . . .

Eat

Stop yourself from dribbling if you can as you contemplate the likes of Donegal line-caught squid and lobster mornay, colcannon potato cakes, grilled crab claws and Atlantic oysters. Not to mention curly kale, carrot and red potato stew for the vegetarians, and chocolate Guinness cake for dessert-lovers.

These are just some of the many mouthwatering dishes available from the various participants in Donegal Good Food Taverns. See donegalgoodfoodtaverns.com for details of the places on the trail. These include: Nancy’s Bar, Ardara; 22 Main Street, Killybegs; The Village Tavern, Mountcharles; Dawros Bay, Rosbeg; The Tavern, Kilclooney; Leo’s Tavern, Crolly; The Beachcomber, Rathmullan; Wilkins Bar, Churchill; The Bayview Bar, Dungloe; The Lobster Pot, Burtonport; and The Travellers Inn, Milford.

Stay

Woodhill House Hotel, Ardara. See woodhillhouse.com or tel 074-9541112. Classy elegance in beautiful country surroundings. Doubles from €90 to €110 based on two sharing.

The Green Gate, Ardara. See thegreengate.eu or tel 074-9541546. Run by a debonair Frenchman, and recent author of The Eye of the Ventriloquist, this is often described as “the greatest little BB in Ireland”. From €45 to €55 per person sharing, including Irish breakfast.

Nesbitt Arms Hotel, Ardara. See nesbittarms.com or tel 074-9541103. Great hotel with great staff and a great deal: two nights BB and dinner one evening for €109 per person sharing in May, June and July.

Shop

For the best in Donegal knitwear, try John Molloy (johnmolloy.com) or Bonner of Ireland (bonnerofireland.com) in Ardara.

Festival

The Melting Pot Festival in Ardara (ardarameltingpot.com) from June 3rd to 6th. If anything proves Donegal’s worldliness, it’s this popular celebration of music, song, dance and food, incorporating many different cultures.

Donegal on the Appalachian Trail

THE ORIGINAL Appalachian trail stretches from Georgia to Maine, a distance of 3,510km and was made famous in films including Deliverance and the Bill Bryson book A Walk in the Woods.

An extension, called the International Appalachian Trail (IAT), continues from Maine to the top of Newfoundland and is another 3,100km.

The IAT is now including a stretch of Ireland from Donegal to Antrim as part of the trail. The Irish leg begins at the Slieve League cliffs in Co Donegal and proceeds eastwards along the Bluestacks Way and then the Ulster Way, and finally the Causeway Coast Way terminating in Ballycastle, Co Antrim.

Though Newfoundland and Ireland are separated by thousands of kilometres of ocean, they were once part of the same landmass.

The total length of the trail was created when several minor continents fused together to form one supercontinent, Pangea, which included Europe, Greenland, North America and parts of north Africa.

The collisions threw up mountain ranges on both sides of what is now the Atlantic from the Appalachians to the Bluestack Mountains in Donegal and the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.