Island Roy
Island Roy, Downing’s, on the Rosguill peninsula is one of these special locations.
One of Donegal’s smallest inhabited Gaeltacht Islands linked to the mainland via two causeways.
It is a member of Ancaire the Co-operative for the small Donegal Islands, Comhdháil Oileán Na hEireann, the co-operative for the Islands of Ireland and a member of the Donegal County Council’s Islands committee.
The Island was forms from a glacier droplet thousands and thousands of years ago, which is evident is the debris stone and rock of all types viewed while walking the shoreline.
Quietly it sits in the Fjord Bay of Mulroy, a watching eye on its surrounding mainland hinterlands of Rosguill and Fanad Peninsulas.
It has seen many transformations on the mainland areas from its droplet formation into its wonderful location all those years ago.
It watched the sandstorms bury Lord Byron’s Castle and a village at the foot of Gaine MhorMountain, and it has seen the formation of the Townland’s of Rosapenna and Ballyhorgan from sands left behind from those sandstorms. The famous Rosapenna Golf course today sits on those very sands.
While all this destruction and new land formation was going on within a stones through of the Island, it is unbelievable but true Island Roy was not affected by any of these environmental changes.
Today the Island is assessable via two causeways built in 1929 at request of the then Doctor for the area, Dr. McCluskey.
It was a request lodged by Dr. McCluskey to the Congestive Board Authority for the Rosguill area at that time secured the funding to have the causeways built using local labour. The good Doctor was conscious of his care to the Island people, and the quality of care that he wanted to provide for these people that led to this request. It pained him to get a call to the Island at night, when the only mode of transport was by curragh or stilts, depending on what the tide was doing at that moment. He wrote up an application for the building of the causeways and had it lodged with the board for consideration. Thank