|
Maritime Museum Greencastle is a vibrant fishing village some three miles from Moville looking across the narrow mouth of Lough Foyle towards Magilligan Point in Northern Ireland.
The new harbour at Greencastle is the centre of fishing, the main industry in the area and at present the port is the second largest fishing port in County Donegal after Killybegs. Greencastle port also has the largest catch of whitefish landed in Ireland and supports a large fishing fleet of over 100 boats which has a yearly catch of six million tons and is home to some of Donegal’s largest trawlers. The long tradition of the sea and fishing is also evident in the marine infrastructure based near the harbour such as net making factories, fishing co-operatives and the nearby National Fishery Training Centre which has the unusual feature of a mock-deck set out on it’s roof for training purposes. Overlooking the harbour located in the old Coastguard Station is the Greencastle Maritime Museum which houses a collection of boats, artifacts memorabilia relating to the maritime past of the area and telling the story of the local people and traditions. Opposite the entrance to the Museum is the site of the ‘Inishowen Maritime Memorial’ erected in 1997 to commemorate the men and women from all over Inishowen who have lost their lives at sea. The Greencastle Maritime Museum was a finalist in the A.I.B’s Better Ireland Award in 1996 and is the proposed site of a new Planetarium, which will be sited in Greencastle to celebrate the new Millennium. On Greencastle’s upper road looking down toward the harbour sits Saint Finian’s Church built in 1783 by the remarkable Earl Bishop Fredrick Augustus Hervey who held the simultaneous titles of Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry and was referred to as “that wicked prelate” by King George the Third. Local custom has it that Bishop Hervey had the entrance of the church facing towards Lough Foyle so as to view the attending congregation by telescope from his residence at Downhill Castle. Today Greencastle is a popular resort as well as a busy port and numbers among it’s residents the international playwright Brian Friel and Nobel Laureate John Hume.
|
