This bridge really is a gift for any painter. The foreground had old weathered stones covered with moss and lichen. The two walls either side of the bridge then lead the eye from the front of the painting into the mid ground where the eye is drawn to O Doherty’s Keep, (the remains of a castle)

The keep was the seat of the O Doherty Clan, ancestral rulers of Inishowen and only dates back to 1300 or so… Some of its more famous incumbents were, ship-wrecked sailors from the Spanish Armada and no less than Wolfe Tone, the leader of the United Irishmen and the 1789 Rebellion. He was captured a few yards from the keep by the British, arrested and imprisoned there before being taken away for execution.

As if that wasn’t enough, in the background is a 18th century manor house built by a Colonel Vaughan in 1718…Now that’s a composition. Add to that the day I was there the sun shone casting shadows and with a clear blue sky the colours sang, with that light, this could have been painted in the South of France…and not rainy Donegal at all…