Signs to Mark Sacred Times
“Yonder is Lough Foyle, debouching into the ocean,” John Weir gloriously thrills in The Ulster Awakening, 1859. St Colmcille’s Day is an appropriate day to visit Moville on the western shore of Lough Foyle, County Donegal. A coastal walk connects Moville to Greencastle, the next village to the north. It starts out as a winding path which graduates into crossing sandy coves then climbing over walls and finally clambering through gorse. On one side the lough, on the other, splendid villas, several owned at one time by prominent figures. A white painted well marks the spot where St Colmcille stopped for water before leaving Ireland for Scotland. Modernist seating pavilions, painted white of course, punctuate the path at regular intervals. Lights in the vaults of the sky.
The Ark House: Noachian named, the first residence to admire is right on the water’s edge overlooking the stone pier which extends into the quay opening into Lough Foyle. Like all the period houses to follow it is rendered and painted white with a dark slate roof. Three bay three storey with attics, this house looks like it could be an end of terrace rather than standalone. It was built by a Captain John Ramsay who bought an old brig, the original ark, and dragged it up onto this site, converting it into a dwelling in the 1820s. He later broke up this brig and used the timbers in the construction of the current building.
Ravenscliff: dating from the 1830s, it was once a hotel. The main house is a multi gabled one and a half storey mildly Tudoresque affair. A long unusually crenellated single storey wall extending out to one side encloses a garden that originally contained exotic plants. Like the following houses, Ravenscliff is separated from the coastal walk by generous lawns fringed by woods.
Gorgowan House: similar in scale and date to the main block of its neighbour Ravenscliff, it was designed by an English architect James Malton. A projecting gable containing a semilunar window rests on two columns and the chamfered bay windows on either side of the entrance door. Two 19th century residents include Reverend Charles Galway, Rector of the Church of Ireland in neighbouring Greencastle, and later, Captain Ernest Cochrane of the Royal Navy.
Carnagrave House: built as a fishing lodge in the 18th century, it was extended in three stages. A bulbous conservatory protrudes out from between a pair of chamfered bay windows. Carnagrave House and grounds are currently undergoing an extensive and expensive restoration. This estate in miniature is the grandest of all the houses and will soon be even grander.
Lafferty’s Lane: this links the coastal walk up to the main road between Moville and Greencastle. It is lined with several discreet 20th century bungalows in wooded grounds. One of the bungalows was the home of politician John Hume. The Nobel Peace Prize winner regularly entertained the good and the great at his beachside home. There is a sandy cove at the shore end of Lafferty’s Lane.
Glenburnie House: a Scottish sounding name for a Scottish looking residence. A baronial turret rises above the double fronted beach elevation of this 1830s house. It was once owned by the Marquess of Donegall. These days it can only be glimpsed through a cast iron gate propped up in the deep vegetation separating the private garden from the public access.
Ballybrack Lodge: this was another Marquess of Donegall property. He lived up to his name at least in ownership terms. It is of lower architectural pretension that the preceding villas, displaying something of the air of a farmhouse with a red painted entrance door. Ballybrack Lodge is set further back from the coastline than some of the other houses, overlooking a long stretch of garden and backing onto dense woodland.
Friel’s: this was the seaside retreat of one of Ireland’s greatest playwrights. Brian Friel was born outside Omagh but in his life and work became synonymous with Donegal. He was friendly with that other literary Irish colossus, Seamus Heaney, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Plenty of chamfered bay windows capture views of the sea or as Seamus Heaney would call it, “The Flaggy Shore”.
Portchapel: a decent sized house masquerading as a dinky cottage. Single bays flanking a large gabled porch protrude with mini gables into the low eaves level. Single storey wings to the side and rear expand the accommodation of the main two storey block. A previous resident was Dr Thomas Terence Baird, Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland 1968 to 1973.
Brooklyn House: built in 1830 by the great grandfather of Donegal’s celebrated 20th century architect Liam McCormick. The house has passed down the family line. Liam McCormick may have designed modernist masterpieces but he was happy to reside on holidays at this substantial Victorian villa. Like Friel’s, chamfered bay windows maximise the unbroken sea views. It is located on the edge of Greencastle.
Anne Davey Orr, Publisher and Editor of Ulster Architect, Ireland’s longest running and most read architecture magazine, invited architects Sir Hugh Casson, Michael Scott and Liam McCormick to judge the Building of the Year launch in 1985. Later judges of the awards would include architect Max Glendinning and architectural critic Martin Pawley. Magazine alumni include the journalist Leo McKinstry, the writer Sir Charles Brett and the columnist Stuart Blakley.
One of the last articles Stuart Blakley wrote and photographed for Ulster Architect was on Carton LeVert House in Rathmullan, County Donegal. Published in February 2007, it included an interview with Tarla MacGabhann who runs the second generation practice with his brother Antoin. “I would call the house a reinterpretation of the vernacular cottage which has been formed, shaped and developed by the specifics of the site and climate.” Employing a language of skewed angles, non Euclidean geometries and shards, this building may be single storey but isn’t exactly a typical bungalow. Tarla’s five years experience working in the 1990s in the office of Daniel Libeskind working on the Berlin Jewish Museum clearly paid off. MacGabhann Architects also designed Brian Friel’s widow’s house Teach Annie in this county. They smoothly took on Liam McCormick’s mantle as Donegal’s best architectural practice.
Brian Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa was one of the highlights of The Lyric Theatre Belfast programme when Anne Davey Orr was Chair. She explains, “The theatre company which originally produced Translations by Brian Friel was called the Field Day Theatre Company. It was founded by Friel and the actor Stephen Rae in 1980 specifically to produce Irish plays in an attempt to build a new theatre audience in the midst of the Troubles. Other people involved were Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane.”
Rudyard Kipling ponders in his poem The Sea and the Hills, 1903, “Who hath desired the sea? – the sight of salt water unbounded.” Clive Staples Lewis wrote in his 1955 diary about Donegal and “the monstrous, emerald, deafening waves”. A robin is perched on the sill of one of the coastal path pavilions. Signs and wonders. Wonders and signs. Signs and great wonders. Signs and symbols. Great signs from heaven. Wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below.
