Location: Donegal County Map
Area: 170 km2 (41,900 acres)
Glenveagh National Park is a nature reserve located in Donegal County of Ireland. Glenveagh National Park is a second largest Irish nature reserve and covers an area of 170 km2 (41,900 acres) in the vicinity of the Glenveagh Castle. Much of the bio reserve that surround Lough (lake) Veagh contains grasslands and low growing trees. Among fauna of Glenveagh National Park the most noticeable species are red deer and formerly extinct, but recently reintroduced golden eagle.
In 1857-1859, the governor John George Adair
(1823-1885), who came from County Laois, bought several neighbouring
land plots in County Donegal and formed Glenveagh from them. In
April 1861 he forced 244 tenants to vacate the area because he
promised better profits from livestock farming. In 1870 he started
building Glenveagh Castle. The castle was completed in 1873. After
his death in 1885, his wife Cornelia took over the lands. She had
the castle expanded and the gardens laid out and spent the summer
here until 1916. After her death in 1921, the facility was orphaned
and was seized by both sides during the Irish Civil War. In 1929,
Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter, a historian at Harvard University
in Cambridge (Massachusetts), bought the property. After his death
in 1933, the castle was once again empty until it was acquired by
Henry McIlhenny from Philadelphia (USA) in 1937. Both Kingsley
Porter and McIlhenny liked to receive artists and celebrities in
Glenveagh. In the library hang pictures of AE Russel. Yehudi
Menuhin, like Greta Garbo, has stayed here several times. McIlhenny
had Jim Russell remodel the garden and increase the variety of
plants from 1940 on. In 1975 he sold the land to the Office of
Public Works, which is responsible for maintaining and maintaining
the historical sites of the Irish state so that it could establish
the National Park. In 1981, he donated the garden and the castle
with the majority of the establishment of the national Park
administration.
The castle with its interior can still be visited today in the
almost original condition. The National Park was opened to the
public in 1984 and the castle in 1986.