We can hardly believe it has been 20 years since we launched WeLoveDonegal.com but it has! (Or will, come 2024).
HOW IT ALL BEGAN ...
Killybegs
We had friends from Greece coming to visit and at the time, were working many hours a week with little time to get out and about in Donegal and so deciding where to take them so they could see the best of our beautiful county was a problem.
We searched the net and found very little about County Donegal and nothing really written in Donegal.
We managed to patch together some ideas of where to take them, one of the first being the Cliffs of Sliabh Liag. We had never been but had obviously heard of them.
Now let me tell you, back in 2004 the road up to (and back down from) the top was terrifying! There we were, six adults in a people carrier, negotiating the steep, narrow, bendy road with a huge drop to the ocean below but feet away. It proved ... entertaining!
Afterwards, we decided to take them to Killybegs. Mainly because most Greek people (and certainly our friends) love boats and we knew we were guaranteed boats there.
I will never forget driving down into Killybegs that evening. It was just hitting twilight and the lights were on on the trawlers moored there, reflecting on the still waters of the harbour. I was blown away with the beauty of it (as were our Greek friends).
It was that moment that I thought the world really needs to see just how beautiful Donegal is.
The rest of their holiday went well, with lots of fun times and adventures, but it was that sight of Killybegs that set the seeds for this website.
And THAT is how it all began.
HOW OUR SITE LOOKED BACK IN 2004
It does look a bit amateurish ~ because it was. None of us had any experience of building websites and it was all our won work, so despite it's basic look, we loved it. It was simple and to the point ... a site to showcase the beauty of Donegal: an ethic we still work by.
That young site gained visitors from across the globe. So much so that at times I had to look up some of the countires we had visits from.
We started off with a small number of photographs and here are some of the earliest we took.