REIMAGINING LETTERKENNY MARKET SQUARE - Creating a Sense of Place FIGURA ARCHITECTURE LTD

REIMAGINING LETTERKENNY MARKET SQUARE - creating a sense of place FIGURA ARCHITECTURE LTD The Cathedral Quarter children’s play area improve disability access address anti-social behaviour brief safety tell me what you want? history use the bandstand for events To provide a reimagined Market Square which will be a open up the square no parking Letterkenny is the largest town in County go back to its original use good for tourism Donegal, and from humble beginnings, it is central public space that conveys and communicates the no overgrown trees & shrubs keep the Hiring Fair monument remove parking and bandstand pedestrianise it now one of the fastest growing towns in DNA of Letterkenny and its people, and fully meets the craft stalls Europe with a population of around 20,000. more coffee shops & food stalls needs for a usable public and civic space at the heart of the more lighting public toilets The name is reputed to come from Leitie better seating town centre. farmers market Ceanainn, the hillside of the O’Cannons it should be the heartbeat of the town whose stronghold in medieval times was at Conwal. The O’Cannon’s were the last of the ancient chieftains of Tir Conaill, with the • Derry 35km last chieftain being killed in 1248. Nothing is a sense of place ‘I think of it as a place that I know is ordinary, ‘To know who you are, you have to • Letterkenny left of their presence. and I can lay my hand on it and know it.’ have a place to come from.’ Letterkenny town was developed in 17th Patrick Kavanagh Carson McCullers Century as part of the Plantation of Ulster, primarily by Sir George Maybury. He built a plantation house on the banks of the Swilly, Location River Swilly An tSuileach The Hiring Fair, and The Hiring Fair Statue, Migration The weather The Gaeltacht Trade • Donegal 41km and built fifty thatched houses to start the When viewed in a wider context, Letterkenny is The River Swilly rises at Glendore Mountain, and Maurice Harron, 1994 Letterkenny has historically suffered from a The weather usually presents itself as a series of Letterkenny is the gateway to The Gaeltacht. The Letterkenny has a growing reputation as a good construction of a market town. The place to visit for a day out shopping. Due to the remote. It is located at extreme northwest edge flows in an eastern direction across Donegal In Ireland, between the 17th and 19th centuries, history of emigration, which continued up until extremes, and it is not unusual to experience four Gaeltacht districts have historically suffered from Oldtown Bridge was constructed and many Belfast 153km expansion of the town after 2000, the main retail of Ireland and Europe. However this leads to its before it enters Lough Swilly and then the Atlantic Hiring Fairs were widespread through Ireland, the 1990’s. However since then the town has seasons in one day. A desolate and untamed • mass emigration. They are at the extreme native families settled there. The Civil centre has moved away from The Main Street to uniqueness. Ocean. It is nearly 42km long, with an elevation of experienced net immigration, with many coastline battered by brutal Atlantic storms, yet a western edge of the island, have few railways and Survey of 1657 reported that Markets were with the practice continuing until the 1940’s in out of town retail parks. However, there are many just over only 15m. It takes its name from few minutes later transforms into unspolit peaks The Landscape roads, and poorer land to farm. The Donegal held every Friday and there were two The nearest airports are City of Derry or Donegal Letterkenny and Strabane. immigrants coming from Eastern Europe, Asia, smaller traditional businesses still present Suileach (sharp sighted), a man eating water Africa and South America. It is now home to one and sweeping beaches with azure sea, bathed in Co Donegal is seen as one of the wildest areas of Gaeltacht, or Gaeltacht Thir Chonaill has a annual fairs. International. However, the majority of people People went to the hiring fairs because of including giftshops, gallerys, knitwear, clothes monster known for its many eyes and immense of Ireland’s few Hindu temples. Figures from 2006 glorious sunshine. We have taken photos on the Ireland, and home to some of the most sublime population of nearly 25,000 and represents 25% shops, shoes shops, game shops, bookshops, arrive by car or bus. The town’s railway stations poverty, and limited employment in agriculture. In the 1830’s Samuel Lewis, author of closed in the 1940’s and 1960’s. size. It was chopped in half by Saint Columba. This reveal that most of Donegal’s non native beach in mid summer wearing full wet weather scenery and beautiful beaches. Mount Errigal is of the total Gaeltacht population on the island. It locksmiths, banks, delis, cafes, bars and Small holding farmers with large families could Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, event is commemorated in a song by Diarmuid population live in the town, and the make up 16% gear, hats and gloves, and on boxing day, in the most striking peak in the area. With its is centered on three parishes, The Rosses, restaurants. It sits at the northern end of The Wild Atlantic not make enough money to support themselves, describes the town as being a market and O’Doherty – A monster in the River Swilly. of the inhabitants. glorious sunshine; but also wearing two coats, quartzite peak, the cone shaped mountain, Gweedore and Cloughaneely, where there are Way, a coastal route of some 1600km which is the so looked for work in larger farms. Children as The new Market Square Shopping Centre is post town, containing 2160 residents. He over 17,000 Irish speakers. The dialect is known as longest defined coastal route in the world. hats, gloves and sunglasses! appears to glow pink in the setting sun. From the located on the eastern boundary of notes the Market was well supplied with In 1567 the river valley was the site of the Battle young as eight or nine were sent out to look for Sligo 110km • top you can see all of Donegal, most of Ulster, and the Ulster dialect, and has many similarities with Market Square. of Farsetmore between the O’Neil and the work as well as adults. If they were successful Located on the edge of Europe, the Donegal coast provisions and held on a Friday. Fairs were looking south, the Arran Islands off the coast of Scottish Gaelic, which are not evident in other O’Donnell clans where several hundred men were workers were hired for a ‘term’ of about 6 experiences the full power of the Atlantic held in January, May, July and August. Galway. Irish dialects. slaughtered, before the O’Donnells won the day. months. They would live at the big farm in barns, weather, raging storms and winds, but benefits There was a police force, a court house, a from the warmth of the Gulf stream. This bridewell (gaol), several religious places of • Letterkenny is the lowest crossing point on the outhouses or if they were lucky perhaps they underwater ocean current transports the warm ‘One way leads to diamonds, worship and a national school and small river and became the first crossing point when the could get a place in the attic of the big house. water from the tropics to the shores of Donegal, hospital. Oldtown bridge was build in the 17th Century. Various signs and symbols showed that people One way leads to gold, resulting in a temperate climate, even though In the 18th Century the industrial revolution There was once a thriving shipping industry were looking for work. Men usually carried sheafs Donegal is on the same latitude as Moscow. Another leads to you only, helped to develop the town further, with operating out of Letterkenny, however the river of sticks or straw, or had a bundle of tools under The warm moisture laden air generated by the the construction of a trading port and Corn was difficult for larger ships to navigate due to its their arm. Women wore aprons and carried string To everything you’re told. Gulf Stream also means that it rains in Donegal an and flax mills. narrow width and bends. The port closed to bags. impressive 279 days of the year, but the average In your heart you wonder commercial shipping in the 1960’s. The river is The Hiring Fair statue is a monument to the At the eastern end of the Market Square is temperature range is between a high of 18C in also used to power the Newmills Corn and Flax rabble children who went to the Hiring Fair to the impressive Mount Southwell Terrace, the summer and 2C in the winter. Which of these is true Mills. look for work. It portrays the poverty the children constructed in 1837 in red brick by Lord experienced, and their defiance in the face of it. Southwell. Opposite, at the lower, eastern The river is considered to be one of the best The road that leads to no where, While the boy holding the frog reminds us that end of the Square is the remarkable Bank of fishing rivers in the North West for Salmon. children will always look for joy. The road that leads to you. Ireland building. Built in 1874 by the Hiber- Traditionally producing 300-400 salmon a year, Enya, Pilgrim nian Bank, and designed by Timothy Hevey, ‘We are dwellers, we are namers, we are lovers, we make they style is overly ornate Gothic, with red homes and search for our histories.

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