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Castle Bridge Buncrana or Bun Crannach (Mouth of the river Crana) situated on the Eastern Shore of Lough Swilly is sometimes referred to as the capital of Inishowen and is the largest town in the peninsula.
Towards the shoreline of the Lough where the Crana River emerges is the site of O’Doherty’s Keep. The O’Doherty’s, rulers of Inishowen up until the Usher Plantation, also held castles in Inch and Burt. The crown under Sir Arthur Chichester confiscated most of the O’Doherty lands and castles when Sir Cahir O’Doherty sacked Derry and Culmore in open rebellion during 1608. The forfeit O’Doherty lands were later leased by Chichester to Henry Vaughan. The fortunes of the Vaughan family became important to the development of Buncrana. During the 18th century Colonel George Vaughan built the present Buncrana Castle near the site of the old O’Doherty Keep in 1718. Spanning the Crana River at the entrance to the 18th century Vaughan house is the beautiful Castle Bridge built in the Queen Anne style with six rising arches above the river. The Crana River itself is an important salmon and trout fishing river, which is popular with local fisherman. Near Castle Bridge is a monument to one of most important figures of the 1798 Rebellion, Theobald Wolfe Tone. On September 16th 1798 Wolfe Tone sailed with Commodore Bompard from the point of Brest with a French fleet of nine ships andd 3,000 troops with orders to land at Lough Swilly. However the French fleet was engaged by the British navy under Sir John Borlase near Aranmore and Wolfe Tone was captured by ‘LA Hoche’. Wolfe Tone was taken from the French Flagship at Castle Quay Buncrana on November 3rd 1798 and held there until he was recognized and later taken to Dublin for interrogation. On November 18th Wolfe Tone was sentenced to be hanged in Dublin for his part in the 1798 rebellion but before sentence could be carried out he cut his own throat and died on September 19th 1798. Coincidentally the French flagship ‘La Hoche’ was renamed ‘H.M.S. Donegal’ and fought at the battle of Trafalgar under Lord Nelson whose nephew is buried at Fahan graveyard.
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