The Rougey Walk, the Fairy Bridges and the Wishing Chair

If you only do one thing in Bundoran, walk the Rougey. You will see it signed as Rougey and as Roguey, sometimes on the same stretch, and nobody minds which you use. It is the walk locals do before work, after the dinner and on a winter evening in the dark, because it is lit end to end, and it takes you from the middle of town to the Fairy Bridges and Tullan Strand in well under an hour.

The route

Start at the Tourist Office on the Bridge, by the bridge over the little River Bradóg, where the town divides into the centre and the West End. Head north along the promenade: you pass the Thrupenny Pool, the outdoor sea pool below the wall, then Waterworld, then the top of the main beach. At the far end of the beach the path climbs on to the headland, Aughrus Point, with the Atlantic on your left and the golf links on your right.

The shelter at the top of Aughrus Point is the highest point of the walk, and the place to stop and turn round: the whole town, the main beach and the West End are laid out below you, with the Dartry Mountains behind. The path then turns east along the cliff top above the Roguey Rocks, sea stacks that have been cut off from the land, and brings you to the Fairy Bridges and the Wishing Chair before it drops to the car park above Tullan Strand.

Measured on the mapped path, it is about two and a half kilometres from the Bridge to the Tullan Strand car park. To make a loop, walk back along Tullan Strand Road to Main Street and turn right for the centre. Allow an hour to an hour and a half for the loop, more if you stop at everything.

The Fairy Bridges

These are the town's oldest attraction. The Fairy Bridges are natural sea arches and blowholes, with the sea running in and out underneath; Discover Bundoran says that as far back as the 1700s locals believed them haunted by fairies, hence the name, and that they were already drawing visitors in the 1800s. A poem in the 1944 Bundoran visitors' guide, by the former town clerk Edward Daly, has the spirits sporting there in the moonlight.

Go on a day with some swell running and you will see why the arches got their reputation. They are open clifftop, so keep children close and stay back from the edges.

The Wishing Chair, done properly

A few metres from the arches is a rock shaped like a seat with two arms. The people behind the Fairy Bridges and Wishing Chair website say the poet William Allingham, the golfer Christy O'Connor, a Viscount Enniskillen and the surfer Kelly Slater are all believed to have sat in it. The ritual, as they set it out:

• Approach with caution, so as not to disturb the chair's powers.
• Sit down slowly, holding both arms.
• Pause for at least fifteen seconds: Donegal Bay to your left, Tullan Strand straight ahead, the Dartry Mountains to your right.
• Make your wish in silence and keep it to yourself.
• Tap the seat twice as you get up, to confirm the wish is genuine.

History on the clifftop

On the morning of Sunday 23 January 1944 a Halifax aircraft, LK704 of 518 Squadron, took off from Tiree in Scotland on a weather reconnaissance flight over the Atlantic and crashed at the Fairy Bridges. There is a memorial on the cliffs. The walk itself is older than that: a Donegal Live report on the Rougey shelters describes it as one of the first developed walks in the north-west, going back to Victorian times.

Practical notes

• It is exposed. On the headland there is nothing between you and a westerly except the shelter at Aughrus Point.
• The path runs beside the golf course for much of its length; keep to it.
• Bundoran Tidy Towns asks dog walkers to pick up; bags and bins are along the walk.
• If you want the other walk, the West End Cliff Walk goes the opposite way from the Bridge, past the Peak, the Boat Quay and the West End Pool.
• Sunset is the time. Half the town agrees, so you will have company.