29th June 2025

About

The Letterkenny Community Heritage Group, founded over a decade ago, is a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich history of Letterkenny, County Donegal. This is our story...

How often do you think about local history or heritage: quite a lot, every two weeks or hardly at all? Chances are, you think about it more often than you realise, because every time you think about a relative that used to live in some house or a shop that used to be in your town or an event that happened twenty years ago you are, in a sense, thinking about local history and heritage. Okay, so you're not digging a trench in some archaeological site or peering at a dusty document in an archive trying to decipher the writing with your half rimmed glasses dangling around your neck, but you are asking the same basic questions: who lived there, and what did they do?

There was a time when the only local history organisation in the county was the Donegal Historical Society, but in recent years a huge number of smaller, more locally focused groups have emerged. Amongst those is the Letterkenny Community Heritage Group, which was formed in 2011 when a group of interested parties met to discuss the possibility of setting up a local history or heritage group.

It took a little while to get things going, but the first mark the group made on the town was when the words of the song, 'Letterkenny Town,' were unveiled on the wall of Mac's Mace on the High Road. It was the first of many such events as the group sought to unveil some aspects of the history and heritage of the town to the good people of Letterkenny. A magazine, 'By The Way,' was published in 2013, 2014, and 2015, which contained many wonderful nuggets about the town's history including the the town's unexpected connection to the broadcaster and actor, Micahel Palin. In August 2013, a monument was unveiled at Sentry Hill to mark the spot where, during Penal times, a watchman would keep an eye out for advancing British redcoats while mass was being said at a nearby mass rock.

Perhaps the most poignant event was in August 2014, when a large crowd gathered near the Cathedral for the unveiling of a sculpture by local sculptor, Redmiond Herrity, to commemorate the 91 people from the area who died in World War I. It was a very moving moment when the 91 names were read out accompanied by the sound of a lone piper. Sadly, the sculpture was later destroyed in an act of pointless violence.

Our meetings in the Station House Hotel had a tendency to get distracted by some elongated discussions on some local historical issues. In 2015, in order to put a stop to that, we started the Letterkenny Debates. These debates took place as part of Culture Night and considered such issues as whether or not Theobald Wolfe Tone was arrested in Letterkenny, what was the oldest part of Letterkenny, the rights and wrongs of naming places after people, the impact of the local council on the heritage of the town.

In 2016, we had our first heritage weekend and launched our Letterkenny Heritage Trail as part of it. The trail covered twelve points of interest around the town and it was a always joy when some member of the group reported seeing some tourists with the brochure in their hands. The heritage weekends continued for a number of years and lectures were given on many topics such as the life and times of James McMonagle, the Battle of Farsetmore (1567), St. Conal's Hospital, the railways that once ran through the town and the old businesses that existed in the 1950s and the 1960s.

In 2018, we held a tribute night for Eunan 'Busty' Blake, and in the following years tribute nights were held for Letterkenny Comhaltas Charlie Collins Snr., Evelyn Gallagher and Hugh McLean. Wonderful murals by local artists Kevin Gallagher Snr. and Jnr. were created at the Station House Hotel and the Hugh Duffy Car Park. The group also played a prominent role in the organisation of the Letterkenny Festival in 2019. In October 2022, the Letterkenny Community Heritage Group hosted a conference with the intention of getting members of the various heritage and history groups in the county together to discuss our shared interests and cocerns.

October 2022 saw the launch of what was our most ambitious project to date: a publication about the Donegal Summer Cups. These tournaments ran annually from the mid 1940s until the late 1980s and attracted many footballing stars from England and Scotland. Founding member and driving force behind the group, Johnny Joe McCollum, used all his his county-wide footballing contacts to obtain information, photos and stories about the Donegal Summer Cups. European Cup winner Paddy Crereand lent his support to the project and penned a heartfelt foreword for the publication and many others, such as former Finn Harps captain Jim Sheridan and former Derry City goalkeeper Eddie Mahon, made valuable contributions. The launch itself was a glorious night of laughter and stories as old goals, own goals, and definetly 'offside' goals were argued about long into the night.

2024 saw us discuss the possibility of creating an old railway carriage for the town while reflecting on the life of Peggy Harkin, a midwife like no other and the contribution to the town of people such as John Gorey Curran, a contribution not lost on former Republic of Ireland, goalkeeper, Packie Bonner, who travelled to Letterkenny specially for the event.

Since 2011, the group has made a contribution to the town, but on the way, we have sadly lost some of our most cherished members. Jim Lynch was the Honorary President of the group and his contribution to the group, as with so many other groups in the town, cannot be understated or forgotten. Our former treasurer, Colm Ferry, passed away in 2019, and he too made an immense contribution to the town and to the group.

We are indebted to the councillors and staff of Donegal County Council because without them we could do nothing. And of course the people of Letterkenny and those that visit the town who regularly come out to give us such support and encouragement.

So that's the story of the Letterkenny Community Heritage Group so far. What does the future hold for those who are interested in the past? Who knows but we look forward to unveiling more of our town in the years ahead -- the past, it's where we all came from. Are you thinking about local history and heritage now?