Portnablagh


Portnablagh is a small village in County Donegal, Ireland. Portnablagh is located on Donegal's North West coast, specifically the west side of Sheephaven Bay. It is on the N56 road.
Portnablagh, along with neighbouring Dunfanaghy, is known for its beaches and harbour. It attracts tourists, mostly from Northern Ireland, every summer.
The small harbour is protected on 3 sides and has a relatively short slipway which is used by fishing and pleasure boat owners, particularly during summer months. It provides access for boat owners to beaches in Sheephaven Bay, many of which are only accessible on foot or by sea.

Faugher House

On the south-eastern edge of Portnablagh, between Ards Forest Park and Portnablagh itself, lie the ruins of Faugher House, also known as O'Boyle's Castle or Wray's Castle. This small fortified house and its surrounding bawn were built during the Plantation of Ulster, and may have been built in stages throughout the seventeenth-century. The original 'castle' or fortified house on this site was probably built for Toirdhealbhach Ruadh Ó Baoighill about 1611, shortly after he was granted land in the vicinity during the Plantation of Ulster. Ó Baoighill and his family were originally from Kiltooris Castle, near both Portnoo and Narin in the south-west of County Donegal. The surviving bawn on the site probably dates from this time, very early in the Plantation of Ulster.
However, the surviving 'Plantation-era' fortified house may have been built in the second half of the seventeenth-century, possibly for the Wray family. The building was probably abandoned by the mid-eighteenth-century. The rather 'Scottish-style' ruin is beside 'the Middle Road', a sideroad leading to Breaghy Head, just off the N56, the main Letterkenny to Dunfanaghy road. The site is privately owned and is not open to the public.