There is no road to Glenlough, not even a well-worn path. This valley, in the highlands of south-west Donegal, is as remote and monumental as it is enchantingly beautiful. It is a place that has attracted a number of notable visitors. These include American artist and illustrator Rockwell Kent, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and, if strong local tradition is to be believed, Prince Charles Edward Stuart who sought refuge there as he waited for a French ship to bring him back to the safety of mainland Europe after his failed uprising in Britain.
But it is not just the famous that have a narrative worth relating. The truly heroic aspect of any account of Glenlough rests with the people who lived and breathed it. In the life span of this valley, its interaction with humans has been but a heartbeat, yet it is a pulse that has been recorded assiduously through the written word, in paintings, drawings and many photographs.
It is a legacy that has left us with a permanent record of a life that is no more and yet has had immortality conferred upon it.
Surely the very littleness of the one room ruin of an ancient house that came to so content us throughout the months we lived there was of itself a symbol of our reverence. One whispers in a church: if one could make a whisper visible it would be, in Glenlough, that house. A stranger and his servant, believed by locals to be Bonnie Prince Charlie, is found hiding out in Glenlough by the Glen Herd. Following the Dombrain report, this stretch of coast becomes one of the most carefully policed in the British Isles.
Owner Henry McGinley and his wife Margaret die within a few months of each other, aged 94 and 89 respectively, and their share of the valley then reverts to a relation, James McGinley of Port. The Sydney ship founders on The Sturrall promontory south of Glenlough during a storm while carrying timber from Canada to Scotland. Ony two survive out of a crew of They go on to have 12 children there. He had been on watch when the Wasp gunboat foundered on the cliffs below Tory lighthouse with the loss of fifty-two.
