Bundoran () is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. The town is located near the N15 road near Ballyshannon, and is the most southerly town in Donegal. The town is a tourist seaside resort, and tourism has been at the heart of the local economy since the 18th century. Bundoran is a surfing destination and was listed by National Geographic magazine in 2012 as one of the world's top 20 surf towns.
History
Origins
Bundoran, or Bun Dobhráin in Irish (which means the foot of the little water) was, up until over a century ago, two separate villages. Bundoran was the village west of the bridge over the River Bradoge. This area is now called the West End. East of the bridge, about away, was the village of Single Street. In between these two separate communities was the townland of Drumacrin. The area of Drumacrin is now part of what is today's town centre. Single Street was where most of the local population lived. It was only after completion of the Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway in 1868, which opened a terminus that it called Bundoran, that the two distinct communities developed and merged to what are today called Bundoran.
The first official record of Bundoran is in a deposition by Hugh Gaskein on 16 May 1653. He was a witness to events during the 1641 Rebellion when he was an apprentice butcher in Sligo. In 1689 a skirmish was fought near Bundoran between a Jacobite force under Sir Connell Ferrall and the retreating Protestant garrison of Sligo.
William Cole, Viscount Enniskillen, built Bundoran Lodge, his summer home, in 1777. This building still stands on Bayview Avenue and is now called Homefield House. The Viscount seems to have started a trend amongst his contemporaries as more of them discovered Bundoran and visited it to enjoy the seaside and what were believed to be its health benefits.
Public Rights of Way
The rights of the people to have access to the seashore were blocked by a local landlord but the locals found a champion in the parish priest Canon Kelaghan who fought through the courts in 1870 to ensure that the pathways and roads to the beach remained open to the public. Canon Kelaghan also had the present Catholic church built in 1859.
The Railway
The opening of the Enniskillen and Bundoran Railway (E&BR) in 1868 connected Bundoran railway station with Ireland's growing railway network and made the town more accessible from Belfast, Dublin and other population centres on the east and north-east coasts of Ireland. The Great Northern Railway (GNR) operated the E&BR line from 1876 and absorbed the company in 1896.
In this period Bundoran emerged as one of Ireland's most popular seaside resorts. By the end of the 19th century it had become one of the main seaside resorts in Ulster. Hotels and lodging houses were opened around the town and the GNR built the Great Northern Hotel, one of Bundoran's best-known landmarks.
During The Emergency of 1939–45 the GNR introduced the Bundoran Express that linked Dublin and Bundoran via and Enniskillen. It also carried pilgrims to and from Pettigo, which was the nearest station for Lough Derg in County Donegal. There were also through trains between Bundoran and Belfast.
The partition of Ireland in 1922 turned the boundary with County Fermanagh into an international frontier. Henceforth Bundoran's only railway link with the rest of the Irish Free State was via Northern Ireland, and as such was subject to delays for customs inspections. The Government of Northern Ireland closed much of the GNR network on its side of the border in 1957, including the E&BR as far as the border. This gave the Republic no practical alternative but to allow the closure of the line between the border and Bundoran. Thereafter the nearest railheads for Bundoran were in the Republic and Omagh in Northern Ireland, until in 1965 the Ulster Transport Authority closed the line through Omagh as well.
Today, the closest railway stations to Bundoran are Sligo Mac Diarmada Station in Sligo Town and Waterside Station in Derry.
Central Hotel fire
On 8 August 1980, a fire broke out at The Central Hotel in the heart of the town. Ten people died as a result, including five children. In September 2008, the Church reinstalled a stained glass window made by the world-renowned Harry Clarke (1889–1931), a window which for many years was lying hidden in the parish house of the local Catholic church. The council also erected a carved stone monument bench on Central Lane (beside The Central Hotel) in August 2010 as a mark of respect listing the names of the ten people who lost their lives.