Carrigart
| Carrigart Irish: Carraig Airt | |
| County Donegal | |
|---|---|
 Carrigart Main Street | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | B847228 |
| Location: | 55°10’37"N, 7°47’38"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 222 (2016) |
| Dialling code: | 074 |
| Local Government | |
Carrigart is a small Gaeltacht village in the Barony of Kilmacrennan to the north of County Donegal. The village's name in the Irish language is Carraig Airt (and this has been decreed by officialdom as Carrigart's sole official name,[1] but has also been translated as Ceathrú Fhiodhghoirt, meaning 'Quarterland of the Wood of the Field' [2]
The village is on the R245 route between Letterkenny and Creeslough, at the base of the Rosguill peninsula, in one of the more remote but most scenic parts of the country. The village is small, but provides services for a large hinterland, with a supermarket with banking facilities, a post office, a doctor's surgery and a barracks staffed part-time by the Garda Síochána.
Carrigart has a public park that borders the shoreline behind the houses on the main street, designed by Angela Gallagher.
The village and its environs remain largely agricultural, relying on passing trade and tourism during the summer months. In common with the rest of this part of Donegal, Carrigart has many second homes, owned especially by British holiday makers.
The village celebrated its centenary in 2002, although there is evidence of Carrigart's existence for longer than that, originally formed part of the estates of the Earls of Leitrim, nearby Mulroy House being one of their seats. William Clements, 3rd Earl of Leitrim, was murdered in nearby Cratlagh wood in 1878 by men from the neighbouring peninsula of Fanad.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Carrigart had a fair day on 21 June.[3] The town now hosts a festival that runs from 8 to 14 August.
References
- ↑ Carraig Airt / Carrickart: Placenames Database of Ireland
- ↑ Flanagan, Deirdre and Laurence: 'Irish Place Names' (Gill & Macmillan, 2002)
- ↑ Statistical Survey of the County of Donegal with Observations on the Means of Improvement, Drawn up in the year 1801, For the consideration and under the direction of The Dublin Society, by James McParlan M.D.
