As the gradient climbs, I pause for breath. The hinterland has receded to a rumpled patchwork of small fields with the sea on either side. To the east, Scotland hunkers faintly on the skyline; to the west, north Donegal’s undulating forelands lope off into the far Atlantic. I walk on, following the road’s trace, through coarse meadows, cutover bogland and tracts of heather. Across the distance, at the bluff’s rim, Malin signal tower slides like a chess piece in and out of view.
High tide glazes Ineuran Bay, where the modest sea stacks dividing the coves are overshadowed by the crags of the former coastline. This land was uplifted at the end of the last ice age as the press of the glaciers eased. Now there are choughs foraging among the crags’ grassy interstices.
