Lough Swilly is a glacial fjord that cuts twenty miles inland, deep, sheltered and pointing straight at the back door of Ulster. It is one of the finest natural anchorages in Europe. That single fact is the reason Fort Dunree exists, and it is the reason this quiet headland north of Buncrana was, for about a century and a half, one of the most heavily defended places in Ireland.
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The story: a French fleet, a fjord, and a flag lowered in 1938
The fear was French. In December 1796 an expedition under General Lazare Hoche sailed for Ireland with Theobald Wolfe Tone aboard. Storms scattered the fleet, ships reached Bantry Bay, and no troops landed. The threat did not go away.
On 12 October 1798, off the Donegal coast near Tory Island, a British squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren intercepted a second French force led by the battleship Hoche. The French surrendered after a few hours. The prisoners were landed at Buncrana, on Lough Swilly, and Wolfe Tone was among them. He was recognised, arrested and sent to Dublin, where he died before he could be hanged.
It is worth being clear about this, because it gets muddled constantly: Wolfe Tone was not captured at Fort Dunree. The fort did not exist yet. He was taken at sea and brought ashore nearby. The fort was built because of that episode, not during it.
An earthen battery went up at Dunree soon after 1798. The permanent stone fort followed around 1812 to 1813, and by 1817 it mounted nine 24-pounder guns. It sits on a rock promontory with cliffs on three sides, reached across a natural fissure in the rock. The bridge over that chasm, originally a drawbridge, is still the only way in, and it is the single most photographed thing on the site. Across the water at Knockalla, a matching fort covered the same narrows. Between 1889 and 1895 Dunree was remodelled into a two-tier work with a lower battery of 4.7-inch quick-firing guns, an upper land battery, and a redoubt on the hill above.
Its strategic moment came in 1914, when the Grand Fleet used Lough Swilly as a refuge after HMS Audacious was mined. Under the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, Britain retained Lough Swilly as one of the three Treaty Ports. On 3 October 1938, under the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, it was handed over. The story told locally is that the ceremony was performed by two brothers-in-law, Sergeant O’Flynn of the Royal Artillery lowering the Union Flag and Sergeant McLaughlin of the Irish forces raising the Tricolour. The Irish Army manned the guns through the Emergency, added anti-aircraft defences, and used the site for training until 1990. The museum opened in 1986.
What there is to see
More than you expect. There is the lower battery and the upper batteries, the bridge, underground bunkers and magazines, a museum with military collections and an audio-visual theatre, a wildlife room, an art gallery run by Artlink, a gift shop and a cafe with a view straight down the lough. Outside the paid area there are coastal walking trails on Dunree Head of roughly three kilometres, on hill paths with real gradient and real exposure.
Allow an hour and a half to two hours for the fort itself. Add an hour if you walk the headland.
Getting to Fort Dunree
- From Derry: around 16 to 17 miles, allow 40 to 45 minutes. West through Bridgend, then the R238 north through Burnfoot and Fahan to Buncrana, and on north out of Buncrana on the coast road signposted for Dunree.
- From Letterkenny: around 30 miles, allow 50 to 60 minutes, on the N13 then the R238.
- From Buncrana: about 7 miles, 15 to 20 minutes north on the shore road.
The fort is at the end of a dead-end coast road, so a car is the only sensible way in. Compare car hire in Ireland here.
The R238 is a good wide regional road. The final few miles narrow noticeably, single track in places with passing bays, blind bends, and a steep descent to the fort. Fine for a car or a small campervan, awkward for anything large. It is a dead end, so if you miss the turn you will be doing a multi-point turn on a narrow road.
Admission, hours and practicalities
- Admission: adult €10, child €5, senior €7, family €25, groups of ten or more €5 each. These are the figures on fortdunree.com at the time of writing, and other listings quote different ones, so it is worth a quick check before you travel.
- Opening: daily, 10.30am to 4.30pm, museum and cafe. Ring ahead if you are travelling any distance, because seasonal hours have varied.
- Address and contact: Dunree, Buncrana, Co. Donegal, F93 C424. Phone 074 936 1817.
- Parking: free on-site car park. It is a dead-end road, so this is the only realistic option. Arrive early in summer.
- Toilets and food: both on site, plus picnic areas and a gift shop.
- Accessibility: the main exhibition building, cafe and viewpoints should be manageable, but the batteries, bunkers and bridge involve steps and uneven ground. Ring ahead if it matters.
- Phone signal: this is a remote headland behind hills. Assume it is poor and download your directions before you leave Buncrana.
Best time to go
The fort faces roughly west and north west across Lough Swilly toward the Fanad shore, so late afternoon light is the best of it. The catch is that the site closes at half four, so if you want the sunset you will be standing outside the paid area, on the headland, which is free and perfectly lovely. Mornings are quieter.
Cliff edges on three sides, unfenced ground on the headland walks, and Atlantic wind. Keep children close near the bridge and the battery edges.
Nearby
- Mamore Gap, the steep pass just north of here, and the obvious next stop if you are heading for Urris.
- Grianan of Aileach, back at the neck of the peninsula, watching the same water from a thousand years earlier.
- Things to Do in Inishowen.
- Things to Do in Donegal.
Every stop on the Inishowen 100
This guide is part of a series covering the peninsula stop by stop. Here is the rest of it:
- Malin Head, Ireland’s most northerly point.
- Five Finger Strand, the dunes and the sea stacks.
- Carrickabraghy Castle, the O’Doherty ruin on the rock.
- Doagh Famine Village, famine-era life, told on the spot.
- Kinnagoe Bay, where the Spanish Armada came ashore.
- Mamore Gap, the steepest road on the peninsula.
- Glenevin Waterfall, the easy walk near Clonmany.
- Grianán of Aileach, the ring fort above two loughs.