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Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain

Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of the British Isles

BBC Radio 4 LW

Open Country: Inishowen

21/03/2013

Inishowen

BBC Radio 4 - Open Country, Inishowen

Helen Mark explores the landscape and shoreline of the Inishowen Peninsula.

Countryside magazine. As Derry-Londonderry becomes the UK City of Culture, Helen Mark steps into the city's back garden to explore the hidden gems of the Inishowen Peninsula.

In a year when Derry-Londonderry takes centre stage as the UK City of Culture, Helen Mark steps out into the city's back garden to explore the hidden gems of the Inishowen Peninsula. Located at the northernmost tip of Ireland where it meets with the Atlantic Ocean, and with Lough Foyle to the east and Lough Swilly to the west, Inishowen is rich in history, heritage and landscape, with more than its fair share of undiscovered delights.
Helen Mark begins her journey at the Glenevin Waterfall with American, Doris Russo. Now in her 90s, Doris first visited Donegal almost 20 years ago when she fell in love with the area and bought Glen House with its adjoining land and beautiful, yet inaccessible, waterfall. Helen hears how Doris took it upon herself to clear the brambles and undergrowth that blocked the route to the waterfall and so began a project that would take years to reach fruition with the help of the local community and volunteers. There are very few people in the area now without a friend or relative who has been involved in the Glenevin Waterfall including farmer, Michael Devlin, who tells Helen of his own experiences of the waterfall as a child.
At the northern tip of Inishowen Helen meets writer, Cary Meehan, to visit the atmospheric Bocan Stone Circle at Malin Head. Cary has made a promise with herself to visit a sacred place every week and feels that these are places that give people a divine connection that there really are no words for.
Heading back along the shores of Lough Foyle, Helen stops off for a kayak trip out on the waters with Adrian Harkin before making her way back to the border. Before she leaves Inishowen, Helen makes one last stop to meet Dessie McCallion who takes Helen to one of his favourite hidden gems, a woodland near the village of Muff where he walks and feeds the red squirrels who call the woodland home.
Presenter: Helen Mark Producer: Helen Chetwynd.

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