Donegal Cottage Holidays Home Page

Holiday Cottages, Kilmacrennan

Kilmacrennan is a quiet hillside village which is skirted by the Lurgy River on the road between Dunfanaghy and Letterkenny.

A substantial monastery was established just outside the village by St Columbcille in the 6th century. It was endowed by Columba's brother-in-law Neanáin and his four sons entered it and it is because of them that the place got its name. The monastery was destroyed in the 12th century. On the invitation of the local O'Donnell chieftains, the Franciscans founded a Friary near the village in the 16th century. This survived until the first decade of the 17th century when the lands were "granted" to James Fullerton by King James I. Much of the village and surrounding area came under the "land lordship" of the Lord Leitrim later.

There is a thatched cottage (pictured below) that was once part of a folk village at the bottom of the main street.

Nearby Doon Rock is the site of the Inauguration Place of the O'Donnell Chieftains of Donegal for many centuries.