The Botany of Inishowen
Abstracted from books by Robert Lloyd Praeger, D.Sc., M.R.I.A.
The Peninsula of Inishowen, formed by the convergence of the waters
of Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle, is a well-marked unit geographically,
but not botanically. The Northern part, which includes Malin Head
(the most northern point in Ireland) possesses the characters of
the low exposed coastal region further West, the centre is high
and mountainous (Slieve Snaght 2019 feet) and in the South the low
neck, which joins it to the mainland (and which was below the sea
in Neolithic times, if not later, making Inishowen an island as
its name implies) enjoys considerable shelter and is largely farmland.
Like the rest of Donegal this is a picturesque area, with a wild,
often cliffbound shore in the N.W. and N.E. and the sheltered waters
of the two marine loughs on the other sides.
The flora of Inishowen, as one would expect from the position and
from the mountainous character of the area, is rich in plants of
the hills and poor in southern and lowlands plants - also in species
which like lime.
The most interesting plant of Inishowen is the Irish Spurge, an
essentially "Atlantic" species which has here, by the
Dunree river, its most northernly station. It is a most beautiful
plant in Spring, forming tall clumps of golden-green flowers and
leaves. Otherwise the Inishowen flora is as one might expect northern
rather than southern, and boreal plants such as the Scottish Lovage
and the beautiful Sea Gromwell or Oyster-plant are frequent on its
exposed shores.
Certain Alpine plants occur here at unusually low levels such as
the Cushion Pink at Dunaff Head at 530 feet. The Alpine plants are
found largely on Bulbin, a hill of only 1630 feet elevation, though
the Slieve Snacht group is much higher. The best known of these
are the Purple Saxipagi, Roseroot, Alpine Saw-wort, Cowberry, Viviparous
Knotweed, Lesser Twayblade and Rigid Sedge.
In general, County Donegal is a region of heather and gorse of
rocky ridges great and small, of little fields and stone walls,
peaty lakelets, sea inlets innumerable, rocky points and islets
and sandy bays. Crops occupy less than one-fifth of the area of
the County, grass land about one-third, barren mountain land and
peat bog nearly 46 per cent.
If you ask what is the best county in Ireland to walk in, I reply
Donegal. Also for the motorist who can use his car in a wise and
leisurely way Donegal comes first. I choose it because there is
nowhere else where the beauties of hill and dale, lake and rock,
sea and bog, pasture and tillage are so intimately and closely interwoven
so that every turn of the road opens up new prospects, and every
hill-crest fresh combinations of these delightful elements.
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