Bunbeg Beach (Magheraclogher)

Bunbeg beach lies at the mouth of the Gweedore River on Donegal’s rugged Atlantic coast. Also known as Magheraclogher this is a beach of two tides.

At low tide a vast expanse of flat sand is exposed making a landscape of coves, rock pools and streams accessible. It’s a great place for exploring and will never feel busy as there is so much space.

As the tide comes in, and it does fairly rapidly, the beach is very much reduced to a strip of soft golden sand alongside the river channel. Beyond the beach are extensive dunes, but nowhere to shelter from the Atlantic winds that often sweep the beach at Bunbeg.

Stunning as the beach is the majority of visitors to Magheraclogher beach actually come here for County Donegal’s most famous shipwreck - Bád Eddie.

The name Bád Eddie translates to simply “Eddie’s boat” and the story behind it is not dramatic in the least. The fishing boat was brought over from Brittany by a local fisherman named Eddie Gillespie in the late 1970s. In need of some fairly minor repairs the boat was hauled ashore to fix it.

Fifty years later and those repairs have never been done. Instead the boat has slowly decayed into the iconic monument it is today. A photographer’s dream, the old boat has an air of mystery and drama but not really a tale to back it up.