Kinnagoe Bay is a horseshoe of sand at the bottom of a very steep hill on the eastern side of Inishowen, ringed by cliffs, usually near empty, and quietly one of the most significant archaeological sites in Ireland. On the night of 16 September 1588, the fourth largest ship in the Spanish Armada came apart on the sand here.
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The story: a Venetian merchantman and 383 years underwater
La Trinidad Valencera was not Spanish by birth. She was an 1,100 ton Venetian merchantman, commandeered at Sicily and pressed into service as an armed transport, carrying 42 guns and around 360 men. She had been holed in the Channel fighting and battered rounding Scotland, and by the time she limped into this cove she was also carrying 264 survivors from another lost Armada ship, the Barca de Amburgo. She anchored, tried to kedge herself onto the beach, and broke up.
Most of those aboard got ashore. What happened next is the part the postcards leave out. The local O’Doherty clan gave help, but the survivors were then surrounded by pro-English mercenaries and, after the officers had been separated out for ransom, most of the rest were killed. A handful escaped, some eventually reaching Scotland.
She lay on the seabed for 383 years. On 20 February 1971, thirteen members of the City of Derry Sub Aqua Club went diving near the bay. It was an accident of weather: torrential rain had made them abandon their usual site and dive close to the car park instead. About half an hour down, Archie Jack and another club member saw a bronze cannon standing out of the rocks.
The club made the find public rather than private, and what followed was over a decade of systematic archaeology alongside St Andrews University, filmed for the BBC’s Chronicle. They raised bronze siege guns, a gun-carriage wheel, weapons, instruments, textiles, eating vessels and ordinary shipboard objects. It is by a wide margin the largest assemblage recovered from any Armada wreck.
And it is the ordinary clutter, not the cannon, that makes it extraordinary. The everyday possessions of men who did not survive the week.
Before you plan a trip around seeing it: the collection has been on loan to the Tower Museum in Derry since 2004, but the Armada Shipwreck exhibition is temporarily closed while the material is conserved and moved to the new Derry North Atlantic museum at Ebrington. Check with Derry City and Strabane District Council before travelling for it. Some related material is held at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
The road down: be honest with yourself first
Kinnagoe is reached by a single steep, narrow, winding descent from the hilltop, including at least one hairpin. There is a viewpoint pull-in near the top with room for roughly one car, and that view is genuinely most of the reward if you decide not to go down.
- Ordinary cars: fine, in low gear, unhurried.
- Campervans: not advisable. A small van might manage the road, but the turning and parking at the bottom are tight and reversing back up a single-track hairpin is a serious proposition.
- Towed caravans: no. Leave it at the site and take the car.
- Nervous drivers: this will not be a pleasant drive. Take the clifftop viewpoint instead and do not feel bad about it.
On a fine summer afternoon the real hazard is meeting a car coming the other way with nowhere to go. Go early.
Getting there
- From Derry: around 40 to 45 km, allow 55 minutes to an hour. North on the A2 and R238 through Muff to Moville, then turn for Carndonagh; after about three miles take the right turn signed Kinnagoe Bay, then right at the crossroads and on to the bay.
- From Moville: about 20 minutes. From Greencastle, about 10.
- From Carndonagh: 30 to 35 minutes east via Culdaff and Carrowmenagh.
The only way down to Kinnagoe is by road, and it is not a road buses use. Compare car hire in Ireland here.
Parking and practicalities
- Admission: free, open access.
- Parking: small free car park at the foot of the lane, at beach level. It congests badly in summer.
- Getting to the sand: a few metres from the car park. No steps, no descent. From the far end of the beach a rough rocky path of about ten minutes leads to a second, smaller strand.
- Accessibility: poor overall, because of the approach road rather than the beach itself.
- Swimming: no lifeguard, no Blue Flag. The water is clear and the cove is sheltered by high cliffs, which makes it look calmer than it is, and there is a significant underwater drop-off. One for capable, experienced swimmers only. The nearest lifeguarded beaches are Stroove and Culdaff, staffed 1 June to 15 September.
- Toilets: none. No facilities of any kind. Come self-sufficient.
- Dogs: sources disagree on whether dogs are permitted here, so check the signage at the car park.
- Phone signal: it is a deep cove ringed by cliffs. Assume none at beach level.
- The wreck site is a protected historic wreck. Diving on it is not a casual activity and requires permissions.
How long to allow
An hour and a half to two hours for the beach, the memorial plaque and the second cove. Longer if you stop properly at the clifftop viewpoint on the way in, which you should.
Nearby
- Malin Head, round on the northern tip.
- Five Finger Strand, the other great beach of the peninsula, and its opposite in almost every way.
- 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.
- Mamore Gap, the steepest road on the peninsula.
- Glenevin Waterfall, the easy walk near Clonmany.
- Grianán of Aileach, the ring fort above two loughs.
- Fort Dunree, the fort that guarded Lough Swilly.